Disney World Monorail crash kills driver

MagnumsRevenge said:
Honestly I can't belive the Monorails cannot withstand a relatively slow 15 MPH collision. Sometimes stuff happens even with safety measure in place.

The momentum of a 15 mph train with tons of weight, yeah I can see this being the result. Would you like to try tocrash your car into a parked car at 15 mph? And the cars weigh small fractions of the total weight of the monorails.

15 mph isn't "just" 15 mph, it's quite fast.

And, I've read up on the design of those monorail trains. They make them with as many lightweight materials as possible since they are hauling the weight of so many guests. The lightweight materials help to reduce wear and tear and maintenance costs.

The nosecones of those trains are very light. If you have ever ridden in the front before (as Jeff has done) you know they are careful about the amount of people (weight) that they put in them. The amount of damage that we are seeing is no surprise to me.

But, I would say that the time is now for some upgraded technologies to monitor train positioning, track changes, etc. I don't think there is any doubt that this could have been avoided, or at least significantly mitigated. Nothing is fool proof as evidenced by the DC metro crash but certainly improvements can be made.

And, unlike a car, they are not designed for "fender benders".

Here's another analysis by a (current or former) Pilot:

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showpost.php?p=3615698&postcount=766

S/he has spoken to current cast members who overheard the radio traffic, and lends more evidence to the switch-in-the-wrong-place theory.

Excellent point, Brian: the Monorail is a 100% grade-separated system, meaning that the ONLY thing any vehicle can possibly hit is another vehicle. And that is not supposed to be possible because it is a system, with all the vehicles under control.

That said, both Arrow and PTC put shock-absorbing bumpers on their coaster trains...another 100% grade-separated system...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The design easily lends itself to the nose of one train very easily climbing over the nose of another.

All rail systems that are "100% grade seperated" are designed with this in mind and are built with anticlimbers that instead of allowing one car to ride up and over another car make them meet on a level playing field.

Looking at the video you can easily see that the nose of the train backing up rode up and over the nose of the train sitting still. Anticlimbers have nothing to do with grade crossing accidents, they were designed purely for instances of one train hitting another train.

This is a major design flaw.

These links explain what an anti climber is, some with photos.

Street Car Anticlimber From Early 20 Century

A discussion about Anti Climbers on the railfan version of Coasterbuzz

The Patent for the Anticlimber

I still stand by my assertion that at 15 MPH we should be having a discussion about shaken individuals and cosmetic damage. Not about someone dead.

This is what relying too much on "technology" get's you.

Agreed, every public transit train I have ever been on has had anti-climbers. The anti-climbers are the bumper like things that have multiple fins sticking out at the end of each car. They work by engaging similar to gears during a collision to keep the cars level in relation to each other. Why such a flawed train design was allowed to operate at Disney is tragic, the individual driving the train should not have been killed in such a low speed collision.

That one account by a former operator, to me, implies some of the problem. If you have that many acronyms and lingo to worry about, nothing is as obvious as I would think it should be. Not saying that it was a contributing factor, but I do think it should be simple enough for trained monkeys to do this.

It shocks me that someone with so little experience can run them as well. This is essentially a rail mass transit system. You would need far more training to run a commuter train then a Monorail and the systems for all intents and purposes are not that different.

how long is the training for a Monorail Pilot?

I can't remember which message board I was on but one former pilot said that you are in training for 6 months before piloting your own Monorail. To me that is a long amount of training considering the time you would be trained on say a steam powered train at an amusement park. I clearly understand the difference in the two but at the same time, they are very similar.