Head of Walt Disney World Resort Operations and Transportation Tom Wolber leaving Walt Disney World for Disneyland Paris

ford91exploderApr 16, 2016

Yet Sam Lau was banished to Epcot the moment he tried to fix the issues

Nubs70Apr 16, 2016

Clean house they must. By recycling internal candidates, the result is inbred thinking that yields inbred results.

PhotoDave219Apr 16, 2016

They wont shut down the monorail. The problem is the institutional thinking: "We've always done it this way" and those attitudes of a lack of safety are ingrained in the department. Yet here we are, nearly seven years after a Cast Member was killed in a train collision and nothing has changed. Attitudes need changing. Cultures need changing. Clean house if you have to.

ford91exploderApr 16, 2016

Actually there is - building a case to shut the monorail down since X executives were not able to automate the system, The important thing to note here is that NONE of these executives have been FIRED not even the one brought in from 'outside'. If 4 the four executives in charge of the department had been FIRED I'd say they were serious about getting the project done. It's all window dressing for a foregone conclusion decided long ago in Burbank.

PhotoDave219Apr 16, 2016

You've missed the point entirely - Transportation is on it's fourth executive leader for this project. There's no excuse for that.

ford91exploderApr 16, 2016

If scrapping monorail operations will raise park operating margins by an appreciable amount it will happen in a Wall St minute. Or have you not noticed all the cuts so far this year because of the failures at SDL. Disney's customer is Wall St these days not the guest and Disney will do whatever it takes to make Wall St happy. The guests role today is to pour money into Disneys coffers and expect little in return. Riding the Monorail especially the Epcot line is one of my favorite activities at WDW so no I don't want them to go away, Yet they are expensive to maintain and operate and anything that's expensive these days is on the endangered species list at WDW

MonorailCoralApr 16, 2016

Fortunately, unlike many other corporate products which have seen such fate, there is no "current standard" which dictates that automation makes or breaks the WDW monorail system. I'm hardly an optimist and much more a realist, but to state that Disney would, for financial reasons, scrap the entire system on the notion that they can't meet an imaginary standard is just an unnecessary and unjustified exercise in "doomism".

ford91exploderApr 16, 2016

You don't have much experience with corporate thinking do you or industrial automation for that matter You have something loved but expensive to operate normal corporate procedure is to do a half hearted upgrade program which goes through a bunch of managers none of whom are fired (as they would be if project was serious in intent because they FAILED) After 2-3 years it's scrapped because it can't be brought up to current standards. YUUUGGGEEE! Bonuses are paid to the management team who SAVED MILLIONS Happens all the time in corporate America with products which are popular with customers but which management no longer wants to produce and support

MonorailCoralApr 16, 2016

There is NOTHING UNIQUE about the Disney monorail system, The Las Vegas monorail was built around retired Mark IV Disney Monorails and it has been automated since day ONE. That's not entirely correct...The predecessor system (MGM-Bally's monorail) to today's Las Vegas monorail was designed and constructed in conjunction with manned Mark IV Disney trainsets, and remained manned until the day they ceased operations in 2003 to make way for the new Las Vegas system...including the new Mark VI trains which were designed and built by Bombardier to an automated spec right from the factory. So while it's true that the MGM and Bally's stations and the beamways between the two were successfully upgraded with the necessary sensors and data transmissions to accept the new automation standard of the larger Las Vegas system, the key difference between the Vegas and WDW Alweg systems as we know today is that they didn't attempt to "shoehorn" new automation into the old the trains in Vegas. Clearly Disney is taking the hard route by doing so instead of ponying up for new trains, but we all know that somewhere, on someone's desk, a cost-benefit analysis of each alternative passed and they opted for the one which seemed to make the most financial sense at that time. But as for conspiring to get rid of the entire monorail system on an "impossible to bring them up to modern standards" technicality under financial motives, I just don't see it because 1) They wouldn't have then bothered to spend the money to upgrade the platform egresses, and 2) There is no "modern standard" they could point to which dictates that mass-transit systems must be automated. Either way, I expect the Mark VIs will be running until either the wheels start falling off, or the beams start falling down.

ford91exploderApr 15, 2016

There is NOTHING UNIQUE about the Disney monorail system, The Las Vegas monorail was built around retired Mark IV Disney Monorails and it has been automated since day ONE. So there is no magic in automating an Alweg monorail system. The only reason it's not done is because 'The Powers That Be' do not WANT it done. But they want to look like there is a real project so when they need to 'save' a bunch of money the Monorails will be on the chopping block 'Because it's impossible to bring them up to modern standards' will be the excuse used.

MonorailCoralApr 15, 2016

In fairness, the automation that exists at airports and other large transportation systems were largely planned, designed, and built that way from the onset...a relatively far simpler task than trying to shoehorn it into a 45 year old system never designed for it. Those who we've seen try that came and went were probably in over their heads and didn't even realize it until it was too late.

ford91exploderApr 15, 2016

Of course the point may be that upper management DOES NOT WANT to successfully automate the monorail, Remember that 20KLeagues was killed because 'it was impossible to fix'. So no one will be allowed to succeed for anything monorail related. The automation is NOT rocket science as automated trams exist in some form at most large airports these days.

Mike SApr 15, 2016

That's modern Disney for ya. Cheap on the parks but completely willing to waste money on other pointless projects.

MerlinTheGoatApr 15, 2016

Wouldn't it have been much simpler and less expensive to just provide adequate training for the cast member pilots (i mention this because it was rumored the accidents were due to improper training) and let them do the work? Sounds like Disney ended up spending far more money and introduced a lot more problems and potential safety risks by automating instead of just doing it the traditional way. If that wasn't something they considered before they started this process, it certain should be on their minds now...