Monorail Crash Kills Operator

[Malaguti Ball Clan]

OMG....happend last night at 2AM in the MK....

Walt Disney World monorail crash kills employee
July 5, 2009 - 9:37am

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Walt Disney World officials say a monorail crashed in the Magic Kingdom section of the Florida theme park, killing an employee. Train service has been shut down.

Zoraya Suarez says a monorail coming from the Epcot section crashed. 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.

Walt Disney World vice president of public affairs Mike Griffin issued a statement offering condolences to the employee's family and saying the monorail was closed.

A Disney spokeswoman declined to discuss details of the accident.

Messages were left by The Associated Press seeking comment from the fire department and the sheriff's office.

(Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Walt Disney World officials say a monorail crashed in the Magic Kingdom section of the Florida theme park, killing an employee. Train service has been shut down.

Zoraya Suarez says a monorail coming from the Epcot section crashed. 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.

Walt Disney World vice president of public affairs Mike Griffin issued a statement offering condolences to the employee's family and saying the monorail was closed.

A Disney spokeswoman declined to discuss details of the accident.

Messages were left by The Associated Press seeking comment from the fire department and the sheriff's office.

http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1710822

 

[momx2]

I just saw this on the family board. So sad for the family of the the operator. I bet the front car rides stop for a long time.

 

[jennypenny]

Other than extreme grief for the operator's family, I'm struck by two things:

1. I can't believe only one family was on the monorail and no one else was hurt. It was July 4th--they were extremely lucky.

2. How on earth are they going to move people around without the monorails? Let's assume they're down for at least a couple of days. This is one of the busiest weeks of the year. I hope they have lots of buses to put into service.

And yes, I think riding with the operator is gone for good. We did it once and thought it was rather odd--you can't ride along with operators on other rail-type transportation. When we asked the operator he said the monorails practically drive themselves but apparently that's not the case. I'm not saying it was operator error--I'm just saying they are obviously not on autopilot or the autopilot doesn't work well.

I hope this doesn't mean the monorails are gone for good. I've always read (mostly here) that they are very expensive to operate and maintain.

I wonder if we'll ever get the entire story. Disney is so good at burying these kinds of stories.

 

[dwelty]

I wonder if we'll ever get the entire story. Disney is so good at burying these kinds of stories.

It might be different at WDW because of Reedy Creek, but in California whenever something happens at Disneyland OSHA (a state Occupational safety entity does an investigation) and it is impossible to "bury" the story.

Even with Reedy Creek involved it will be impossible to make this story go away. There are too many photos and now video out there. We will know soon enough. I saw the story on our local Fox news affiliate out here in LA with acompaning photos.

 

[Inkmahm]

Other than extreme grief for the operator's family, I'm struck by two things:

1. I can't believe only one family was on the monorail and no one else was hurt. It was July 4th--they were extremely lucky.

2. How on earth are they going to move people around without the monorails? Let's assume they're down for at least a couple of days. This is one of the busiest weeks of the year. I hope they have lots of buses to put into service.

And yes, I think riding with the operator is gone for good. We did it once and thought it was rather odd--you can't ride along with operators on other rail-type transportation. When we asked the operator he said the monorails practically drive themselves but apparently that's not the case. I'm not saying it was operator error--I'm just saying they are obviously not on autopilot or the autopilot doesn't work well.

I hope this doesn't mean the monorails are gone for good. I've always read (mostly here) that they are very expensive to operate and maintain.

I wonder if we'll ever get the entire story. Disney is so good at burying these kinds of stories.

Do a google news search to read more. The monorail was at 2 am and was one of the last runs of the night from Epcot back to the TTC. It hit a monorail that wasn't moving on the tracks ahead of it. Either something was wrong with the autopilot or the 21 year old that was driving didn't pay attention to warning signals (assuming they worked) about another train on the track ahead of him.

The monorails won't be gone for good. But they do have to investigate the accident and figure out the cause before starting them up again.

We have also ridden in the first car with the operator. Very cool place to sit. I hope that isn't ended but I fear it may be.

 

[jco_direwolf]

Moving people around, shouldn't be an issue. Buses are cheap, and Mears has a lot of buses.

I'm really shocked that the two monorails could hit like that. I thought two monorails always had to have a "zone" between them. If one train encroached upon a second train's space, the computer would just shutdown the train. Sounds like some sort of bug, it would be worst to find out they disabled the safeties on one train for some reason.

I could see it happening going into/coming out of the barn. But not in operation.

johno

 

[JimMIA]

From the pictures, it appears that the monorail not only rear-ended the other train, but it did so at a high rate of speed. The driver's compartment (which is pretty large) was completely crushed and they had to cut the driver out. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Terrible tragedy.

 

[jbrowna]

From the pictures it looks like the second monorail had to have been moving pretty fast as it approached the TTC. That makes me wonder if something might have happened to the driver before the accident. Or -- God forbid! -- that it was deliberate.

Do the monorails have any kind of "black box" where they would have a recording of actions taken or not taken by the driver, control settings, etc.? Any investigation might take some time, with or without that kind of data.

My DD had been working at the MK yesterday, and got off just before 3am. She saw the emergency vehicle lights at the TTC, and she was routed around the area, but at the time thought it had to do with the perimeter fireworks -- they often re-route cars because of events, so she didn't think anything of it at the time. She only found out about the monorail accident when I called her this morning.

 

[5forDiz]

Read that there is a 2 zone safety distance that is maintained

via computer, if less then its braking system automatically engages.

In order to override that the operator would need to do so manually.

 

[spiceycat]

since this is the first time this has ever happened at WDW - will wait until the official report comes out.

but won't be surprised if guests riding with the monrail driver are over.

that say if they only way for these things to crash is if the driver took off the auto system - that is scarey.

 

[twinklebug]

We can't read into the situation that it was an operator-caused accident. Although I love the monorails dearly, until proven otherwise I'm going to believe it was mechanical or computer caused problem. The driver deserves this. Up until 2am last night he was a vibrant young man with the personality & aptitude the Disney organization deemed to be worthy of a cast member in the position he was in. Let's keep this in mind & let Disney & the authorities work to make the system as safe as possible. Perhaps his death has played a key role in preventing many more.

 

[jco_direwolf]

Do the monorails have any kind of "black box" where they would have a recording of actions taken or not taken by the driver, control settings, etc.? Any investigation might take some time, with or without that kind of data.

I don't believe they do. But they also don't need it. They only have about ~20 trains, and a few miles of loop track. It makes more sense to keep the all the data back at the Monorail Operations Center (MOC? or what ever they call their traffic control system.)

Planes (and rail trains) need black boxes because there are SO many of them and can end up in a spaces where they can't communicate with "home". The Monorails don't have to worry about this.

johno

 

[BigRedGoat]

I'm reposting this here from another section of the site:

Hi guys,

I'm a former Mark VI railie, and I stay in touch with a fair number of folks in the department. Here's what I've heard. I'm going to stress that it's what I've heard, and I can't represent this as absolute fact. Take that for what it's worth.

The short, short version is that Monorail Central cleared Monorail Pink in reverse into the Concourse (the Epcot side of the TTC) station without being aware that Monorail Purple was still in the station. Pink was cleared with MAPO override, meaning that the driver would have disabled the anti-collision system (there are a variety of legitimate reasons for doing this), and would have been acting on faith that Central wouldn't have cleared him into a dangerous situation because it sometimes is difficult to see everything you'd want to in the cab mirrors, particularly at night on a curve such as the one he was backing along. For whatever reason, Purple just sat in the station without attempting to avoid the accident, and was struck by Pink moving at the full 15 mph allowed during MAPO override. From what I understand, the driver of Purple was a new transfer from another department. Why Central would not have made sure the station was clear before moving any trains is a bit of a mystery, but I've heard that no one was actually in the control console (the control tower-looking place at Concourse) at the time. To my knowledge, there were no electrical or mechanical problems in play here. Again, I have to stress that I'm relating what I've heard, and I was not there. This is a second-hand account from others more familiar with the situation.

Cliffs:
The pink train was instructed to go in reverse into the station, where the purple train was sitting, about to depart. The rear of the pink train struck the front of the purple train directly where the now deceased driver was sitting. Terrible way to go.

 

[JimMIA]

IF the information posted above by the former CM is correct, one train was instructed to back into the station as another train was waiting to depart in the opposite direction. Obviously a tragic mistake.

However, based on the pictures of the crash, there is NO WAY the moving train (Pink) was going 15 miles an hour.

It had to be going MUCH faster than 15 MPH to have a cabin intrusion all the way through the driver's compartment bulkhead behind the driver and into the passenger compartment aft of the driver's compartment. That's the equivalent of a car engine being driven into the back seat of the car by a frontal impact. That kind of damage simply does not happen at 15 MPH unless these trains are made of paper mache.

Either the Pink train was going MUCH faster than 15 MPH or both trains were moving at a pretty good speed in opposite directions -- presumably the Pink backing and the Purple going forward.

 

[twinklebug]

Jim, I worked with the DOT Safety & Security division for two summers. My boss at the time was an engineer analyzing the safety of rail cars carrying hazardous materials. As a part of our research we pulled up stats for all rail cars in the world including the Disney Monorails (he got to visit before I came along). Simply put, the monorails are not meant to get anywhere near each other. Those end cabs were not built with any sort of a bumper system & are built like egg shells... very strong, to a point. I can believe 15 mph could do the damage it is showing.

 

[JimMIA]

I'm an EMT and I've never seen damage that extensive from a low speed crash of any kind of vehicle.

We'll have to wait and see how fast the train was going. Presumably, Disney has that info.

The speed is key, because the force of a crash is greatly affected by speed. If you double the speed, the force does not double -- it is squared! In other words, doubling the speed increases the force fourfold.

Based on the YouTube video, it is obvious that the actual collision took place inside the TTS station, so that would seem to rule out both trains being in motion as I guessed above.

 

[krbq]

Thanks for posting that, BigRedGoat.

 

[Tx_Belle]

This is really sad, especially since he was still so young. I can't seem to stop thinking about it. His poor family.

 

[TisBit]

Disregard my post, I don't want to get into speculations.

 

[twinklebug]

Jim, I'm sorry you've had to see any sort of a collision. That has to be one of the toughest jobs. Thank you for doing what you do.

You're right - we do need to wait for the result of the research. My heart has been thrown on the floor and stomped multiple times as there was a very young CM killed (my own son is close to his age and was a CM not long ago) and, it sounds silly, but those monorails have been like family to me... I grew up with them and even declared the pink & purple ones as "mine" at the age of 7.

This is all so sad...
On a happy note - that family of 6 stepped out of the purple train unscathed. The cab of the purple train absorbed most of the momentum from the Pink train allowing them to remain unharmed. This could have been a much worse accident than it was.