Fatal monorail collision at Walt Disney World
Eric sez, "The operator of a monorail at Walt Disney World died Sunday morning when two monorails crashed. About five or six guests were on the monorail at the time of the accident, but they are not seriously injured." It happened at the Ticket and Transportation Center station.
Breaking news: Two monorails crash at Disney World overnight, one Cast Member dead (Thanks, Eric and John!)
A person who was on the scene reported to the news stations that they head a loud explosion and saw the mangled trains in the station. They tried to run to get people out of the front of the crashed train. They saw a family make it out, but the driver [ed: news report cuts off here]The monorails involved were the pink and purple trains, according to Local 6 in Orlando; pink was moving and hit purple, which was stationary.
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OH HOLY SHIT!! THIS IS LIKE SOME CHILDHOOD NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE!
Walt probably never envisioned that the monorail would aide in the future transport of souls as the spirit of the person killed didn't have to go far to reach paradise.
Oh my god.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidents_at_Disney_parks
It's shocking when something like this happens at a place like Walt Disney World or Disneyland. I mean, this really shouldn't be any sadder than a bus crash or fatal car crash, right? But for some reason (for me anyway) it is. I guess because people go to Walt Disney World to escape the real world, and when the real world's ugliness seeps in through the cracks it just seems so much more out of place than it does anywhere else.
It's as shocking as any crash in which technology designed to make it as safe as possible fails. This should never have been possible.
Here's another source, which I should have looked for before commenting: http://www.clickorlando.com/news/19954891/detail.html
More photos from WESH: http://www.wesh.com/slideshow/news/19956082/detail.html
Orlando Sentinel claims the employee who died was 21: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-disney-world-monorail-crash-070509,0,2802055.story
This is a tragic event by any measure, and our thoughts must be with the family of the dead operator.
Unfortunately, this is by no means the first time a death has occured in the magic kingdom. Indeed, far from it, there have been a great many:
http://tafkac.org/death/disney_deaths.html
Hm. Is the examiner really correct in calling the unfortunate victim a "cast member"?
I mean, he was the actual operator of the train.
I always assumed that the term "cast member" at Disney parks was supposed to refer to the role-play people, those who are pretending to be Mickey and Donald or those who are pretending to operate machinery, so as to seperate them from the actual drivers and technicians.
I imagine it will be equipment failure - or manual over-ride. We will see.
this is notable:
"A man who appears to be a Walt Disney World employee told bystanders there were guests and a driver still in the monorail cars.
"Is there somebody in here?" one guest said, referring to the smashed front of one Monorail.
"Yes. The driver," the apparent employee said.
The video shows park guests attempting to get to the trapped driver, banging on the windows of monorail. When the apparent employee realized the incident was being taped, he forced the cameraman to stop filming."
I told you Disneyworld was an evil place.
EeyoreX, I worked at Disney for 5 months on an internship program. And yes, all workers at Disney are Cast Members. Everyone from the Costumed Characters, to the Maintenance Crew...we're all contributing to the play that is Disney.
It's so upsetting to me to hear that someone that was probably there for the same reason as I was: an amazing opportunity given to College students...died doing what they came to love.
Simpsons did it..
More details are being posted from concerned former employees here: http://micechat.com/forums/news/119188-monorail-crash-kills-driver-stuns-passengers-disney-world.html#post1055420313
Riding in the nose cone of the monorail is very common; I've done it many times myself.
(monorail... monorail... monorail...)
"What about us braindead slobs?"
"You'll be given cushy jobs!"
http://www.clickorlando.com/video/19956043/index.html
@10 and 13,
They also call them "cast members" to avoid having to give them anything like fair employment conditions.
Just one example:
http://thedisneyblog.com/2008/06/14/disney-world-sued-over-dress-codereligious-discrimination/
funny how some industries escape all basic labor standards law by declaring themselves "special". Sort of ties in with the "let's re-create the feudal system mentality" one finds on the anti-labor side of the political fence.
Disney theme park jobs are unionized, at least in the US.
real unions or rat unions?
I don't know if the union is any good or not. I suspect a current disney employee could answer that.
anyone?... anyone?
Wow. How fast do those things go ?
That's horrible, to learn that the driver who died was in the stationary train, not the driver who drove into him (or backed into him, if the reference to "Reverse" means the driver of the moving monorail was at the opposite end). That's really horrific. It would have been easier (emotionally) in some strange way if the driver who died was responsible for the accident. But it seems that neither driver was at fault.
About the monorails themselves, I wonder if Disney will have to create new nosecones from scratch -- they look so old and retro, they must be custom-made (?).
It SEEMS (notice my framing!) that Disney got YouTube to take down many vlogs discussing the monorail crash. One could THEORIZE that Disney MIGHT have used the dubious theory that since Disney owns the environment of Disney World, any videos showing Disney World are copyright violations...
In #20, TAKUAN mused about the "let's re-create the feudal system mentality". We're talking about a company whose logo is a castle and whose characters include a lot of princesses...
More Disney weirdness:
* A 1981 case tried Robert Hill, who was playing Winnie the Pooh in 1978. It was alleged that he slapped a child resulting in the child being bruised and having recurring headaches, and possible brain damage. Hill testified that the girl was tugging at his costume from behind. When Hill turned around, he accidentally struck the girl in her ear. At one point, Hill entered the courtroom in the Pooh costume and responded to questions while on the witness stand as Pooh would, including dancing a jig. Appearing as Pooh showed the jury that the costume's arms were too low to the ground to slap a girl of the victim's height. The jury acquitted Hill after deliberating for 21 minutes.
So, you're saying they should have called a plumber?
sure
http://feeds.radioamerica.org/podcast/GGL/images/tunes_photo_ggliddy.jpg
It is still the happiest place on earth
Top speed on that monorail is normally 40 mph.
It's a well-designed system with an excellent safety record for decades; I've used it many times.
However, any system (from ball point pens to Space-Shuttles) can fail under some circumstances.
Today's fatal crash must have involved multiple mechanical/computer malfunctions... and/or human error by the train driver (Disney calls them "pilots").
The monorail train has a computer-directed, automatic system that immediately applies Emergency-Brakes if it gets too close to the train ahead. The entire monorail system is constantly monitored by computer and a central controller. However, the driver can easily disable that computer Emergency-Braking system if desired (..usually used when the trains are routinely side-tracked to the maintenance facility).
It's possible (but unlikely) the braking system failed completely and the driver was helpless to stop. But an attentive driver could probably still have reduced the throttle to zero and sounded the horn as warning.
Seems more likely the driver inadvertently disabled the emergency system and was inattentive to speed/location; this 2 A.M. event was the last run -- after a very long & tiring July 4th workday.
Should be very good Disney-computer logs available on what happened; the facts will be out soon.
Maybe the conductor was Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, har har.
But the families of the survivors will get a "killer" compensation package, which will include unlimited visits to all parks.
Do we have subtitled video of Hitlers reaction yet? I bet he will be devastated.
is there a chance the track could bend?
I've actually sat in the front car of the monorail with the driver. They will let up to 4 people sit up there if you ask. We had to stop twice due the alarms going off because the monorail ahead of us was "too close". Alarms go off to let the driver know that he is following to closely to the other monorail. We couldn't even see the monorail ahead of us, but the alarms still were going off.
Welll a monorail is more of a Shelbyville thing...
Welcome to Itchy and Scratchy Land, where nothing can possibli go wrong
Although Westworld was a kind of parody of Disney's obsession with automation and animatronics for theme parks, that's a bit of a stretch in this context. (Clearly "Marge vs. the Monorail" was far more apt to reference.)
Now, when the Obamabot goes on a haywire killing spree in the style of Yul Brynner, then we can start in on the Itchy and Scratchy Land jokes. :)