Thoughts & Prayers Castmember in Monorail Accident

[black562]

My hearts go out to the Castmember's family. What a sad thing to happen. This is the first accident in the history of the monorail system. Here are some links to the story below...one local and one national.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/05/u.s.disney.monorail/index.html

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/19954891/detail.html

 

[Mahorn]

My thoughts and prayers are with the cm's family and friends as well. What a tragedy.

 

[AF_Judy]

Oh that's terrible...my prayers are with the cast member's family. It's scary to think that just a few days ago my sis and I were sitting at the front of the monorail where the driver is around that same time at night. We were chosen along with 2 other adults since there were hardly any kids awake at that time. I'm glad there weren't any other casualties.

 

[black562]

There are so many safeguards and safety shutdowns in place, one for the trains getting to close, another being for going too fast, one regulating speed as the train approaches the station. Something bad must have went wrong for all of these systems to fail.

This is the first incident like this to ever happen and it could be said that the monorail is the safest form of transportation anywhere. I'm quite sure that once the cause has been determined, additional safeguards will be put in place.

This is also pure speculation, but I'm willing to predict that guests may not be allowed to ride in the front car for some time in the future, if ever again.

 

[prophotogal]

OMG What a sad thing. My prayers go out to his family.

 

[black562]

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Disney has re-opened the monorails with additional safety procedures in place during monorail switches. They have indicated that the accident did in fact take place during a switch as indicated in the CM's post. This makes much sense given that during these switches is when the MAPO systems are in override mode and thus allow the trains to be in such close proximity. Given the nature of how the accident happened, and that it wasn't a technical failure of the MAPO system...they were cleared to re-open the lines.

 

[JDUCKY]

The creepy thing with this? Last Sunday when I was there for the HoP preview, I was taking the monorail back to the Poly and a thought hit me out of the blue for some reason...what would happen if some switch failed somewhere and two monorails ended up headed for each other. I've been on them several times and never once thought about it until just a week before this accident.

Such a tragic accident.

 

[Auntie L.]

The creepy thing with this? Last Sunday when I was there for the HoP preview, I was taking the monorail back to the Poly and a thought hit me out of the blue for some reason...what would happen if some switch failed somewhere and two monorails ended up headed for each other. I've been on them several times and never once thought about it until just a week before this accident.

Such a tragic accident.

That is weird that you thought that! I kept thinking of the time that my nieces, nephew & I rode the Monorail up front with the driver... It's so sad and I join everyone in sending prayers and condolences to the driver's family. I was at Disney when this happened and I never would have known that it occurred. I actually heard about it through a phone call from my mom in Massachusetts. The driver sounded like a great young guy who dreamed about this kind of job. It is a tragedy!!

Linda