http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/05/national/main5134239.shtml The Reedy Creek Fire Department tells Orlando television station WESH that two monorails collided around 2 a.m. Sunday, killing the operator of one of the trains. The station says no guests were seriously injured. Very sad news.
Really sad. Last week I was at Disney World hearing about the Metro crash in DC. Now I'm back in DC hearing about the monorail crash at Disney. It seems we've been hearing about more plane crashes this year too. I wonder if the economic downturn has led to more corners being cut when it comes to safety, worldwide. Terrible news whatever the reason, though.
I never thought of it that way. I have always felt safe in Disney. A little scary cause we we are going in a few weeks. One of the things I wanted to do was ride in the front of the monorail.
Hmm, very sad. It's scary to think of deaths happening at places that are supposed to be safe and happy like the Disney parks, but when you consider how many people visit the park in a year, heck just in one day, it's amazing that more deaths haven't occurred in the parks. And with very few exceptions the ride deaths are almost always caused by rider stupidity, such as standing up when you are supposed to be seated. I feel sad for the employee's family. I wonder what the details of this incident are. The park isn't open at 2 a.m., so I wonder if they were doing test rides or safety inspections or something like that.
There were passengers on the monorail. I know there is usually 1 park open very late each night during the summer. The monorails run for about an hour after the park closes.
You still should. Sad that this happened. I rode on the monorail loads of times when I worked there, and saw them arrive even more times. Hard to believe it could happen really it always seemed so safe.
I have a feeling that the driver either lost consciousness or fell asleep, as the reports I heard say they could find nothing obviously wrong on the initial inspection. It was very late and his train was empty, and there was no way that he couldn't have seen the parked train in front of him. I wonder if the poor man had some physical problem or simply was overworked?
Does MR Coaster still hang around in these parts? He used to drive a monorail and this made me think of him, though he was a flight attendant last time I talked to him a few years back. Perhaps he made the right move. I was at disney a month ago. hard to believe it could happen. I often wonder why the whole system isn't automated to prevent human error.
Yeah, you can still find me around here once in a blue moon... The parks are usually open late on July 4. The monorails will run up to 2 hours after the last park closes. So last night's run would have been the last lap or so of the night before shifting the trains around to where they wanted them for opening the next day. Reports say there were six guests in the first car of the train (but not in the cab) - none of those guests were hurt. I've been chatting with a ton of my former monorail colleagues, and it's a tough one to figure out. There are so many safety systems designed to prevent such an accident. I keep reading people saying "must have been overtired" - and I can tell you that while the driver might have been tired, that wouldn't cause the accident. There is a safety system in place that prevents the monorails from getting too close to each other. There are checkpoints all over the beam, and the system prevents you from getting closer than two checkpoints to another train (unless the driver holds down a manual override button). Also, there is a dead man throttle that has to be twisted to activate and move the train. If a driver falls asleep, either the dead man will kick in, or the sensors will stop the train when it passes the checkpoint where it should stop. Even without those, the location of the crash adds a few more possible ways to prevent this. It was well lit, so the other monorail was clearly visible, Monorail Central (the system "command center" and person talking to all the trains, and coordinating the system) was in the station right where the train crash happened. Central should have been able to see the second train coming and killed power, stopping the monorail dead. There are more reasons that make this scenario seem incredibly unlikely, but it did happen. There are at least two tests of the computer sensor system every day, drivers are always talking to Central, each other, etc. The way things are set up, either somebody has to intentionally do something wrong, or a whole bunch of things have to go wrong at the same time. Very said about the young kid that died. Even though I didn't know him, most of us former Railees still consider current and former drivers a part of the family. Everybody is really sad and trying to figure out how the impossible happened.
So now we have two seemingly impossible train crashes. I wonder if it means anything, and if it does, what? J.
With the Metro crash, there are a lot of similar system safety protocols. The sensor thing apparently is something to focus on there at this point. In that case, the speeds would have been much higher, the visibility much shorter (couldn't see the train stopped on a curve) than the Disney monorail crash. Where this Disney crash happened, the driver would have had tons of time to see that there was another train ahead in the station as he began the loop around the parking area and then toward the station. If the brakes failed, he should have had plenty of time to call the station ahead (where the Monorail Central person is stationed) and ask for power to be killed or tell them to move the train in front of his train. Both crashes have so many reasons they shouldn't have happened, but there are a couple of elements of the Metro crash that do make sense of what happened if one thing failed. It will be interesting to see what details come out that would explain how it all went wrong.
Oh please..... one person... ONE person has died in a monorail crash at Disney.... how many do you think died on their WAY to Disney?
Since it was so late, i wonder if they where manually overriding safety measures to try to move the trains along faster, and either go confused or wasn't paying attention.