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Monorail Refurbishment

jon81uk said:
This is the DisneyWorld monorail platform system and it looked a faff. But their monorails are higher capacity (probably 20+ in each carriage), As the bays at AT hold six people then gates like a rollercoaster train would be more suited.
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Whilst I am no fan of Disney, their Monorail smashes the Towers one into Oblivion (no pun intended there). It runs on concrete beam track that does not flex, the trains are from Intamin and have full air-conditioning (essential for Florida). The boarding process is sliding gates, opened by a cast member.
 
Kraken27 said:
Whilst I am no fan of Disney, their Monorail smashes the Towers one into Oblivion (no pun intended there). It runs on concrete beam track that does not flex, the trains are from Intamin and have full air-conditioning (essential for Florida). The boarding process is sliding gates, opened by a cast member.
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Concrete does flex, this is why it is re enforced with steel within the beams, to cope with tension placed upon the track as the trains go across the straddle from pylon to pylon. Arguably, steel is a better material for the track as it does not ware down over time with use.

As for Intamin, I am not sure where you got that from. WDW monorail system and trains were designed and built in house, led by the ex legendary imagineer Bob Gurr. Who's Disney monorail building stems all the way back to the original in DLC. The current generation of trains for the first time however, are not built in house by Disney. They are made by Bombadier. The same company who build aircrafts and trains.

I do agree that it is leagues ahead than Altons, but let's have a sense of reality for a moment. One is in an (arguably) leading theme park in a small country. The other is in a worldwide tourist destination.
 
Matt N said:
Another advantage of the land train idea is that there would be no potential drop risk while waiting for it; I suppose there is the possibility of collision with the train itself, but the chances of this occurring seem comparatively low compared to, say, someone falling between the monorail platforms is at present.

I think that the monorail is perfectly fine as it is, personally; they did some nice TLC work on the car parks station a couple of years back, and if you time it right, the queue often isn't too bad for the monorail leaving the park!

I'm only suggesting ideas in case it ever gets to a point where the monorail needs replacement.
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And a disadvantage of land trains is the potential for running kids over.
 
If they had tused he Disney monorail system at AT, they would need to put nets above the paths to catch all those doors that keep falling off!

Just cleaning the trains, removing the mold filled window coverings and keeping rhem clean would give the system a bit of polish, that improves the customer experience.
 
The Monorail is the new Air tunnel.

It will be exactly the same when it reopens next season and won't be discussed again until next close season. Rinse and repeat.

Not that it doesn't urgently need a refurb. It does.
 
It’s tired! Those trains had a lifespan of 10 years and they need serious work.

Sadly, a Disney style system wouldn’t work, the route is too tight for the longer carriages, they’d hit trains travelling the opposite way on the corners.

A land train wouldn’t be too practical either, it’s take about half an hour to get back to the car parks in peak season! Imagine trying to get a land train up the main drive with a queue of traffic stretching from the car park to Alton!


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Longer carragies maybe, but more of the same sized carragies would work fine.

Besides, when the monorail is working at proper capacity it can shift some people, more than what is needed right now anyway.
 
Full capacity when it opened was around 4,000 and hour

That had dropped somewhat with reliability of trains and such to around 2,500 an hour

With the current lading procedure it’s more like 1,700 and hour now

Busy season day, 20,000 guests on park, end of the day and everybody is leaving within an hour or two, it’s miles off where it needs to be


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I would say a when it was running properly. Aka shifting just under a quarter of the parks capacity every hour was more than enough for a park like Alton. I do not remember queues being too long back in the 90's at the end of the day. Because the whole park population doesn't leave at the same time.
 
ReneBlade Master said:
Issue with the buses is traffic, it’s take a good half hour for a bus to do a round trip in peak season


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Not really, half the walking route is alongside mostly unused gravel area. All they'd need to do is tarmac a route through that, redo the junction at the lights by the car park. At the other end of the gravel run, you're at the entrance to staff/express parking anyway so it would be straight past the coach park to the entrance.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.9901631,-1.8869293,320m/data=!3m1!1e3
 
That unused gravel route is used quite a lot actually, from June to August it’s full of coaches and through summer and scarefest it’s car parking.

Unless there’s an alternative place to put the cars, it wouldn’t help!


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ReneBlade Master said:
That unused gravel route is used quite a lot actually, from June to August it’s full of coaches and through summer and scarefest it’s car parking.

Unless there’s an alternative place to put the cars, it wouldn’t help!


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Yes you're right as it is at the moment, but if they made a bus route down the edge of that they wouldn't loose too much space and what they did lose I'm sure they could squeeze in somewhere else.
 
Steve74 said:
Yes you're right as it is at the moment, but if they made a bus route down the edge of that they wouldn't loose too much space and what they did lose I'm sure they could squeeze in somewhere else.
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You’d lose too much parking space, a two lane bus way would take a huge space, especially considered you’d still need the access to the car park and the pedestrian walkway.

Also, beyond that you’re essentially on a country lane to the car parks/hotels.

With all that work, the fleet of buses, the drivers wages and the maintenance depot it’s going to be cheaper to build new trains!

The chassis of the trains are solid, it’s just the coaches on top and the control and drive systems which need the work, so a rebuild of the current trains would be the best option


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ReneBlade Master said:
You’d lose too much parking space, a two lane bus way would take a huge space, especially considered you’d still need the access to the car park and the pedestrian walkway.

Also, beyond that you’re essentially on a country lane to the car parks/hotels.

With all that work, the fleet of buses, the drivers wages and the maintenance depot it’s going to be cheaper to build new trains!

The chassis of the trains are solid, it’s just the coaches on top and the control and drive systems which need the work, so a rebuild of the current trains would be the best option


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Completely agree. It would be stupid to consider anything else. The current monorail has solid infrastructure that the park is built around. The trains are the problem and even they can be sorted.

There's no need for a new system, crappy land trains, bus lanes or new entrances. I can't see any of that, if done properly, being any cheaper than replacement rolling stock or even refurbishing the current units.

It's likely the current trains need an expensive and extensive refurbishment. Replacement at the very worst. We're only even having this discussion because of the word "expensive".

There are only 3 options. Spend the money on the monorail, chuck cheapo turn styles at the entrance of forbidden valley or buy a couple of second hand busses or land trains to wait in the traffic queues with everyone else. Whilst the latter options are cheap, they're crap and also don't take into account any demolition costs of the current monorail system.

None of us would put closing the monorail off the table (maybe @Matt N who could be holding out for gold plated space ships), but surely even this company would rather adopt a "make do and mend" approach rather than the 'other' awful options?

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