Passengers trapped on monorail for hours at Walt Disney World

I love the video of the dude removing the window, with people apparently responding to people on the ground suggesting that they don't jump.

I have to wonder... how long does it take to get the tug boat out there from the garage? This was on the express beam, so my assumption is that there are no trains between the disabled one and the switch back to the garage at this point, so no trains to shuffle. Seems like that would make way more sense than using their big lift to get people out and risk someone falling.

The older I get, the more situations like this terrify me.

I got a good laugh out of reading the comments. Everything from how angry they are that a huge company like Disney could call on fire services from Orange County and take the money of the tax payers, to how everything at Disney is run down and how awful the monorail is because it is 25 years old and never maintained. I mean honestly, do guests really think nothing ever breaks down, ever?

"Orange County Fire Rescue officials were called to assist Reedy Creek Fire and Rescue around 5 p.m...."

"Passengers were headed to Magic Kingdom from the Transportation and Ticket Center, where Magic Kingdom guests park, when the train stopped around 3:30 p.m...."

So, uh, what was going on during that hour and a half? It took them that long to figure out that they might need to evacuate some guests?

Those idiots in the comments apparently don't realize that Reedy Creek pays Orange County for a number of safety services. It's not on the taxpayers' dime.

I don't think the delay was incompetence. As soon as they realized the train was immobile, I'm sure they dispatched the tug boat and it got there as soon as it was possible. It's a gas-powered thing that has to come all the way from the garage, and I don't know that it moves all that fast. I also believe they have some kind of mobile scissor lift for this sort of thing.

I'm not familiar with the procedures to get the tug out, but do they have to cut power to the line? To all lines? Do they have to get the other trains on the line back to the barn first? What about trains on the other lines?

How many more steps are there to doing all these things since the crash?

That I'm not sure. Again, because of where this happened relative to the switch and spur out to the garage, there would presumably be no trains in the way. At worst you would have one, which you can back up near the Magic Kingdom station.

What would be a pain is that I'm sure they shut down the resort line, so that means everyone is taking the ferry to the parking lot, or the smaller boats to the Poly and Grand.

Some Disney fan blogger somewhere was on the train that was affected and she said that no monorails were running after the incident for the rest of the night. That does not sound fun at all. She also said that cast members were waiting on the platform handing out "stacks" of Fastpass cards to each guest.

It sounds like they figured out a good way to get people to spend more money for another day at the park.