The H & T (model) Railroad

The H&T railroad was founded by I.M. Everyone, in the small town of Nowhere, U.S.A. in 1991.

I. M. Everyone

Originally operation as a subbranch of the Chessie System Railroad, H&T was a local only, serving the small towns needs for freight and passenger transport.

• Power: DC
• Scale: HO
• Size: 120 inches x 72 inces
• Era: Modern
• Type: Oval with 1 spur, and yard.
• Bench height: About 3 foot.
• Radii Used: 24″ on main curves, 22″ on sidings.
• Track: Atlas Code 83.
• Turnouts: 1 #6 for inner spur, 1 remote snap for outer spur, 1 remote snap for yard.
• Locomotives: Steam, Transition Era Diesels, and Modern Diesels
• Control System: Custom

The layout plan.

Decided it was time to make a track cleaning car. Couldn’t think of a better car to use.

 

Disney Monorail Incidents

1974 February

 Two monorails collide head on. One driver, and two passengers were injured. 

 

 

 

 

1985 June 26

 

Fire engulfed the rear car of the six-car Mark IV Silver monorail train in transit from the Epcot station to the Transportation and Ticket Center.  This fire pre-dated onboard fire detection systems, emergency exits and evacuation planning.

Passengers in the car kicked out side windows and climbed around the side of the train to reach the roof, where they were subsequently rescued by the Reedy Creek Fire Department. Seven passengers were hospitalized for smoke inhalation or other minor injuries. The fire department later determined that the fire started when a flat tire was dragged across the concrete beam and ignited by the frictional heat.

1991, August 30

A monorail train collided with a diesel maintenance work tractor near the Contemporary Resort as the tractor drove closely in front of the train to film it for a commercial. Two employees were treated at a hospital for injuries.

1996, August 12

An electrical fire occurred on a Monorail pulling into the Magic Kingdom station. The driver and the five passengers on board exited safely. Two bus drivers who witnessed the fire and assisted were overcome by smoke and treated at a nearby hospital.

2009, July 4

During a failed track switchover from the Epcot line onto the Magic Kingdom express line, Monorail Pink backed into Monorail Purple at the Transportation & Ticket Center station, killing the 21-year-old pilot, Austin Wuennenberg,  of Monorail Purple. One employee and six guests who were also on the trains were treated at the scene and released. OSHA and park officials inspected the monorail line and the monorail reopened on July 6, 2009, after new sensors and operating procedures were put in place. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board showed no mechanical problems with the trains or track but did find that the track used in the switchover was not in its proper place for the track transition. The NTSB also noted that Purple’s pilot attempted to reverse his train when he saw that there was going to be a collision. Disney placed three monorail employees on paid administrative leave as a result of the incident. On October 31, 2011, the NTSB issued its findings on this incident, citing the probable cause as the shop panel operator’s failure to properly align the switch beam before the monorail train was directed to reverse through it.

2013, July 13

Due to a power failure possibly caused by a lightning strike, the monorail system was temporarily disabled. Most trains were restarted and returned to stations safely. Disney cast members were unable to restart the Gold Monorail on the EPCOT line. Reedy Creek emergency personnel successfully evacuated 120 people from that train. Fire officials confirmed the malfunction was weather-related.

2015, October 10

A mechanical failure stranded guests aboard a monorail traveling between the Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Contemporary Resort. Firefighters were able to rescue all the passengers about two hours after their arrival. No injuries were reported, although a number of the riders reported on social media they had been stranded for “hours”.

2015, November 18

Monorail Coral was being towed by a tug for an unknown reason, possibly under a test for a new automated system. The monorail separated from the tug, then crashed into it, causing damage to the body of the monorail and shattering the windshield. All monorail lines were shut down after the accident.

Here it is being towed after the incident.

 

WDW Monorail Tech

Footprint

For compatibility reasons, Bombardier kept the standard Disney beam way size, used at Disneyland, of 26″ (660mm) wide by 48″ (1.22m) in the middle and 80″ (2.03m) at the ends. These precast, pre-stressed girders are between 90 and 110 feet (27.4m to 33.5m) in length. They have a hollow center core to keep the weights under 50 tons. Some of the girders have some combination of vertical and horizontal curvature). The minimum curve radius is 250 ft (76.2m). Compare the Disney beam way to a typical elevated standard rail (4’8.5″ [1.435m] gauge).

The piers per mile count is 50 with monorail, whereas in standard rail the pier count is 75. Also notice the per-mile amounts of steel and concrete required for both monorail and light rail: 4.6 times the concrete and 2.4 times the steel, not to mention the aesthetics.

Dual beam guide ways are on 12′ centers. To conform with modern transit standards, Bombardier has added an optional emergency evacuation walkway to the design, although it has not been retrofitted to Disney World.

Suspension

The Mark trains use a slightly different bogie scheme than the Seattle ALWEG and Hitachi ALWEG monorails. Where the Seattle and Hitachi trains have independent bogies that have load wheels that extend into the cars, the Mark III/V, Mark IV and Mark VI trains have load wheels at the ends of the cars, which are attached to the substructure. Also, instead of two tires per axle on the Seattle and Hitachi trains, there is only one on the Mark III/V, IV and VI trains.

 

These load tires are 445/65R22.5 Michelin XTE2 46.6″ diameter , 17.8″ wide truck tires, the same ones you can see on a dump truck or cement mixer. The tires are nitrogen-filled to reduce the possibility of fire.

They also have run-flat capability. These tires will last 100,000 miles in normal operation. Maximum rated speed for these tires is 65 mph (105 km/h). The load capacity of these tires are 12,800 pounds (5806 kg) each at maximum inflation. There are 12 load tires per 6 car train and 48 guide tires per 6 car train.

 

These guide tires are 21.5″ in diameter. In addition, there are two steering wheel tires under each cab car to help steer the suspension up to 3 degrees in either direction. Steering is accomplished in the intermediate cars by the relative geometry of the two adjacent cars.

 

Thus, all 12 load tires are steerable, and the tires are always tangent to the curve. The main suspension of the cars above the axles is done with air bags (also called air springs). The air bags are automatically inflated/deflated by a leveling valve, which allows varying load conditions. There are also vertical hydraulic shock absorbers.

Propulsion, Braking & Power

The Mark VI trains have eight 100hp, 600-volt DC electric motors. These motors also act as brakes by turning the motors into generators and dissipating the power into resistor banks between each car. This is called regenerative braking. Each of the twelve load tires has an 18-inch mechanical disk brake, but the mechanical system generally accounts for less than 1/4th the braking required in normal operation. The dynamic braking slows the train to about 13 mph. Top speed of the Mark VI trains is 55 mph, but the standard operating speed at Walt Disney World is 40 mph.
The propulsion system is called the “Propulsion and Dynamic Braking (P/DB) System.” There are two redundant P/DB systems per train, and either is capable of running the train. Each train consumes 138 KWH (kilowatt hours) per operating hour. This translates into a per-train mile of 10.78 KWH, or 0.13 KWH per passenger mile. Power is applied to the traction motors in steps to keep current consumption within the proper limits. Acceleration is 1 mph/s, deceleration is 0.44 mph/s.

Rolling Stock

Mark VI trains are 203’6″ long (62m). Cab cars are 40’5″ (12.3m) long and intermediate cars are 28’2″ (8.6m). Inner-car distance is 2′ (.61m). Width is 8’4.5″ (2.55m), and interior height is 6’10.75″ (2.1m). The bottom skirt extends 3’6.75″ (1.09m) from the top of the floor. The car body is made of composite shells, and they sit on top of square and round tubing-based truss assemblies (see diagrams).
Each car has 4 doors, two on each side. The trains are fully air conditioned. Each Mark VI car can carry 20 passengers seated and 40 passengers standing. Thus, each train can carry 360 people.

Switching

Low cost pivot switches are typically used in the yard and maintenance area. These typically operate in 50 seconds. High-speed (10 seconds) beam replacement switches are used for branching and merging.

 

Towing and Storing

In the event of a breakdown, a diesel powered tow tractor can be attached to either end of the monorail to pull or push it along the track to the maintenance shed.

The Roundhouse maintenance shed can hold 10 of the 12 monorail trains. The remaining two trains are stored in the Contemporary hotel or at the Transportation and Ticket Center over night.

 

Monorail Yellow and Monorail Red parked at the T&TC over night.

(Source: Monorail Society)

The Crescent Sisters

 Southern Railway ran The Southern Crescent which pulled 4 sleeper/lounge passenger cars, some times referred to as ‘The Crescent Sisters’ since all four cars were identical and built simultaneously. They were, The Crescent City (2350), The Crescent Moon (2351), The Crescent Harbor (2352), and The Crescent Shores (2353). Of the four cars, only 3 remain in existence today. Built in 1949 by the Pullman Company, these sleeper/lounge passenger cars were 85 foot long, and housed 1 master bed room, 2 drawing/bed rooms, a toilet, a small kitchen, and a lounge area that filled more then 1/3 of the car.

 

 In Atlanta, chair-car attendant J.J. Mahone stands beside his car’s steps ready to help passengers board the Southern Crescent on it’s run between New Orleans and Washington, D.C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Dinning cars of the Southern Crescent no longer have lavish interiors of polished mahogany; but sparkling crystal and snowy table linens help confirm continuing high standards of service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Crescent City located at The Dalton Freight Depot in Dalton, Ga.

 

 

 

 

 

 The Crescent Moon located at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, TN.

 

 

 The Crescent Harbor is located at The Watauga Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in Johnson City, TN.

The Crescent Shores

The Lost Sister

About 5:38 a.m., on December 3, 1978, as the Southern Railway Company’s train no. 2, The Crescent, was passing through a 5 degree 15 minute curve at Elma, Nelson County, Virginia, eight cars and four locomotive units were derailed. Six persons were killed, 60 persons were injured, and property damage was estimated to be $557,500. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the engineer to observe the track ahead because he was unnecessarily distracted by a transition problem, which led to his operation of the train into a 5 degree 15 minute curve at a high speed. The high speed produced excessive lateral forces which caused the wheels of either the fourth locomotive unit or the first car to climb out of the gauge, cross the head of the rail, and derail.

Newspaper Excerpts

Shipman, VA Train Wreck, Dec 1978

Posted November 11th, 2007 by Stu Beitler

Six Die In Train Mishap

SHIPMAN, Va. (AP) — “He was in tremendous pain, but never cried out,” a rescue coordinator says of a cook pinned 11 hours under a stove in the crumpled dining car of the Southern Crescent passenger train that derailed near here, killing six persons.

Bound from Atlanta to Washington, the Southern Railway train jumped its tracks at Elma, an abandoned Nelson County rail stop in mountainous central Virginia, about 5:30 a. m., Sunday.

Seven cars and three locomotives lay scattered like kindling in and around a shallow ravine beside the track. Only the lead locomotive, which broke away, and the last car remained untouched.

The 37-year-old cook, NED HAYNES of Atlanta, became the focus of attention from as many as 125 volunteer rescue workers after some 60 other passengers and crew were taken to hospitals in Lynchburg and Charlottesville.

“HAYNES is very brave,” said Capt. KIMBALL GLASS of the Lynchburg Rescue Squad.

“We fed him morphine with glucose to try to keep the pain down,” GLASS said. “He understood what we were doing. He asked us to pray for him and we all prayed for him. We talked to him and joked some with him.”

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman BOB BUCKHORN said an investigating team was sent to the scene to look for the probable cause of the derailment.

HAYNES and five other survivors were listed in critical condition at the University of Virginia hospital in Charlottesville. Twelve others were in satisfactory condition.

HAYNES suffered multiple trauma, burns and multiple fractures and was taken to the operating room and then admitted to the burn center, said WILLIAM L. LAMM, night hospital administrator.

Cleanup operations continued through the night. Southern Railway crews and a private contractor worked with cranes and bulldozers under portable lights to clear the single-track section of the railroad’s main line.

The railroad said the train carried 75 passengers and 15 crewmen.

The dead were identified as:

HOWARD LEWIS JACKSON, 59, of Alexandria, Va., a flagman.

LEWIS PRICE of Atlanta, a cook.

JACKSON HOMER HUME and EDITH CARROL HUME, an elderly couple from Madison Heights, Va.

EDWARD FRANKLIN SHAW, 14, of Wilmington, Del., said hospital spokesman BILL FISHBACK.

The sixth body, wedged under the wheel of a railroad car and the last to be removed from the scene about 10:40 p. m., was not identified late Sunday night pending notification of relatives.

Rescuers arrived on the scene about 6:10 a. m. and help poured in throughout the day down the one-lane, unused rail bed that served as a road to the isolated wreck scene.

Some passengers helped others out of cars, breaking laminated windows and prising open doors.

DR. J. DESMOND COUGHLIN of Ashville, [sic] N. C., who was riding with his wife to Washington to visit their son, stayed at the train to help. He suffered a facial laceration.

“He refused to be taken away from the train until everybody was taken care of,” said DR. KEN WALLENBORN of Charlottesville.

COUGHLIN is a Southern surgeon in Ashville.[sic]

He and his wife were riding with two railroad employees in the last car, a private coach often used by the railroad executives.

As medical technicians and a doctor huddled in the dining car kitchen with HAYNES, workers used bulldozers, cables and cutters to strip the stainless steel siding off the car so they could pull out the stove that pinned HAYNES.

“We used up 15 razor-type discs cutting the car,” GLASS said.

“As far as damage is concerned and the problems of getting a man out, this is the worst I’ve seen,” The veteran rescuer added.

Another cook lay dead in the compartment with HAYNES, GLASS said, and was removed several hours before HAYNES was brought out about 4:30 p. m.

“We had to get the dead man out,” he said. “Him seeing this man there with massive head injuries would have had some affect on him.”

About six survivors, including HAYNES, were trapped in various cars when rescuers arrived and all but HAYNES were gotten out quickly.

The News Frederick Maryland 1978-12-04

******************************************************************************************SHIPMAN, Va. (AP) – A Southern Railway passenger train jumped the tracks on a curve and piled into a ravine in mountainous south-central Virginia early Sunday. Authorities said six persons were killed and at least 60 were injured, several critically.

A severely injured cook was trapped for 11 hours in the debris of the smashed dining car, his legs pinned beneath a stove. Workers used bulldozers to peel back the side of the car and then life the heavy stove from the cook, NED HAYNES of Altanta.

DR. KENNETH WALLENBORN of Charlottesville, who climbed into the diner to attend HAYNES, said he had been pinned “from the pelvis down” and suffered third-degree burns on his chest and stomach and a broken ankle and leg.

“He is a man of tremendous intestinal fortitude … He has put up with a lot here,” WALLENBORN said.

At the scene, snow mixed with rain was falling in near-freezing temperatures. Blood was smeared on windows that had been broken when passengers escaped. Inside, seats were torn from their moorings and mattresses lay piled in a jumble in the aisles.

Four bodies were removed from the huge pileup of passenger cars and locomotives, and state police said two more bodies were known to be in the wreckage.

Four of the dead were identified as HOWARD LEWIS JACKSON, 50, of Alexandria, a flagman on the train; LEWIS PRICE of Atlanta, a cook; and JACKSON HOMER HUME and EDITH CARROL HUME of Madison Heights, Va. Names of the two other victims were being withheld until relatives could be notified.

Seven of the eight passenger cars and three of the four diesel locomotives of the Southern Crescent train, bound from Atlanta to Washington, piled up about 5:40 a. m. three miles north of Shipman, between Charlottesville and Lynchburg.

Railroad officials could not be reached for comment on how fast the train was going.

A Southern Railway spokesman said the train was carrying 65 passengers and a crew of about 12.

JOHNNY BRIDGES of Trenton, N. J., and TARIZ MUHAMMAD of Newark, N. J., were credited with leading many passengers to safety.

BRIDGES said it seemed to him the train “was sliding for about 10 minutes” after it jumped the tracks. “I could feel it just slide, just slide.”

MUHAMMAD said smoke was so thick in the dining car that “you couldn’t see people in the car from the outside .. but you could hear the screams.”

The cause of the derailment had not been determined.

CHARLES MORGRET, a spokesman for the Southern Railway, said, “There’s no way of telling at this early stage what caused the derailment.” A team from the National Transportation Safety Board was on its way to investigate.

A. H. SAWYER, associate administrator of the University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville, said 39 passengers were brought to the hospital.

He said five required surgery, but he did not know the nature of their injuries. All were reported in critical condition. The remaining 34 suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises and would be released from the hospital after receiving treatment, SAWYER said.

He said another 19 passengers were taken to the Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, where they were treated for minor bumps and bruises.

Daily Herald Chicago Illinois 1978-12-04

The Southern Crescent

The Southern Crescent was an overnight long-haul passenger train operated by the Southern Railway between Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, Louisiana, with connections North and West in those two cities. The line was operated as a privately-run train for eight years after Amtrak took over most of the nation’s other passenger trains on May 1, 1971. The last run of the Southern Crescent, Southern train numbers 1 and 2, took place on January 31, 1979, with Amtrak taking over the route on February 1, renumbering them 19 and 20.

The original Crescent Limited train name dates to 1925 when Southern began a deluxe all-Pullman sleeper train (no coaches), equipped with observation and club cars that operated from New York to New Orleans through agreements with several other railroads. In 1926 it was assigned brand new heavy 4-6-2 passenger locomotives, painted green and gold with the train’s name on the tender. One of these elegant Ps-4 class Pacific’s is on display in Railroad Hall at the Smithsonian Institute’s American History Museum in Washington, D.C. This locomotive also hauled the funeral train of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945.

The original Crescent Limited name disappeared for four years during the Depression as the railroad downplayed the “luxury” aspect and coaches were added to the consist. The train was renamed the Crescent in 1938 as the older coaches were replaced by new air conditioned equipment . Diesels replaced the famed locomotives in 1941 just in time for heavy use during World War II.

1946 issue of Trains Magazine From Atlanta to Washington on the crescent.

Click for PDF file. —->

Immediately following the war, the Southern Railway placed huge orders for new light-weight cars to re-equip the trains with, as did most American railroads, and in 1949 the Crescent received new rolling stock. The Southern stock was the major part of a car pool to service the ‘Crescent’, with contributions from The West Point Route (Atlanta & West Point and Western Railway of Alabama) and the Louisville & Nashville, who each operated their respective geographic sections of the route. But passengers were deserting the rails for their new post-war automobiles, and despite the Crescent’s quality of service, ridership continued to fall.

The railroad replaced green and gold paint with black and white system-wide in 1958 as an economy move. By 1968, Southern was only running ten passenger trains. In 1970, the Crescent was combined with another money-losing train, the Southerner, resulting in the birth of the Southern Crescent train. Passengers would ride in luxury stream line Pullman cars such as the The ‘Crescent Sisters’. Railroad President W. Graham Claytor, Junior had the train upgraded with green and gold E-8A locomotives with the name embossed on the nose and a focus on Southern hospitality on board.

In 1971, the year Amtrak was created to save the national passenger system, the Southern was operating only four trains, two between Washington and Atlanta (the Piedmont, trains 5 and 6 – run as a mixed train with trailer flat cars, as well as being used for shuttling motive power on the system), and New Orleans (the Southern Crescent, trains 1 and 2), and two unnamed branch line runs, Nos. 3 and 4 in North Carolina and Nos. 7 and 8 in Virginia. Southern was losing $2.3 million annually but declined to join the infant Amtrak and opted to run their remaining trains for five years before seeking any change, subsidizing the trains with freight profits. The railroad also rerouted the Southern Crescent south of Atlanta via Birmingham over an all-Southern route, rather than Montgomery where the connecting railroads had decided to get out of the passenger business and join Amtrak.

But passenger losses continued to mount, and the fleet of cars and engines available was aging, the most recent dating to the early 1960s. By 1977, when the three lesser trains had already been discontinued (in 1975), Southern Crescent operating losses had grown to $6.7 million annually. Unwilling to invest in new rolling stock or to compromise the quality of the ride, Southern petitioned to end operation on April 5, 1978. However, outcry from affected communities and supporters of rail transit forced the railroad to go through ICC-mandated local train-off hearings before halting service.

After a wreck on Dec. 3rd, 1978 in Shipman, Virginia. Southern Railway negotiated an operating deal with Amtrak. The last Southern Railway runs of the Southern Crescent departed New Orleans and Washington, D.C. on January 31, 1979, passing each other early in the morning of February 1 near Salisbury, North Carolina. Amtrak assumed control of the train that day, renaming the train simply the Crescent. Today it continues daily operations.

Southern Railway

Known as the “First Railroad War,” the Civil War left the South’s railroads and economy devastated. Most of the railroads, however, were repaired, reorganized and operated again. In the area along the Ohio River and Mississippi River, construction of new railroads continued throughout Reconstruction. The Richmond and Danville System expanded throughout the South during this period, but was overextended, and came upon financial troubles in 1893, when control was lost to financier J.P. Morgan, who reorganized it into the Southern Railway System.

Southern Railway came into existence in 1894 through the combination of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, the Richmond and Danville system and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. The company owned two-thirds of the 4,400 miles of line it operated, and the rest was held through leases, operating agreements and stock ownership. Southern also controlled the Alabama Great Southern and the Georgia Southern and Florida, which operated separately, and it had an interest in the Central of Georgia.

Southern’s first president, Samuel Spencer, drew more lines into Southern’s core system. During his 12-year term, the railway built new shops at Knoxville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia and purchased more equipment. He moved the company’s service away from an agricultural dependence on tobacco and cotton and centered its efforts on diversifying traffic and industrial development. Spencer was killed in a train wreck in 1906.

By the time the line from Meridian, Mississippi, to New Orleans, Louisiana was acquired in 1916 under Southern’s president Fairfax Harrison, the railroad had attained the 8,000-mile, 13-state system that marked its territorial limits for almost half a century.

The Central of Georgia became part of the system in 1963, and the former Norfolk Southern Railway was acquired in 1974.

The Southern Railway was notably the first Class I railroad in the United States to completely convert to diesel motive power. On June 17, 1953, the railroad’s last steam-powered freight train arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee behind 2-8-2 locomotive No. 6330.

From dieselization and shop and yard modernization, to computers and the development of special cars and the unit coal train, Southern often was on the cutting edge of change, earning the company its catch phrase, “Southern Gives a Green Light to Innovation.”

While the Southern’s most famous passenger trains included the Crescent and Southerner it also rostered an entire fleet of named trains. These include:

 

• Aiken-Augusta Special
• Birmingham Special
• Crescent Limited
• Peach Queen
• Piedmont Limited
• Queen & Crescent
• Skyland Special
• Sunnyland
• Washington-Atlanta-New Orleans Express
• Asheville Special
• Carolina Special
• Kansas City-Florida Special
• Pelican
• Ponce de Leon
• Royal Palm
• Southerner
• Tennessean

In response to the creation of CSX in 1980, the Southern Railway merged with Norfolk and Western Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1982, further consolidating railroads in the eastern half of the United States.

For more information about Southern Railway, visit:

 

Walt Disney World Monorail

For technical information, check out the Walt Disney World monorails tech page.

 With a travel span of 14.7 miles, the Walt Disney World monorail system is one of the most heavily traveled monorail systems in the world, second only to the monorails in Japan. The system debuted on October 1st 1971 with the Disney Mark IV monorail, built by Martin Marietta.

Lines and Routes 

The original operating lines were the Express loop, servicing the Transportation & Ticket Center to the entrance to the Magic Kingdom, and the Resort loop servicing the T&TC and the entrance to MK along with the Polynesian Resort and the Contemporary Resort, The Grand Floridian Resort was added in 1988. On October 1, 1982, an expansion line was added to service the T&TC to EPCOT. 

Identification

The trains are identified by their color stripe running along the length of the train.

The colors are as follows.

Yellow	Silver	Red	Coral	Lime	Orange	Black
Green	Gold	Blue	Pink	Purple	Teal	Peach

(Note: The colors Pink and Purple were retired after the July 4th/5th 2009 accident, and their trains rebuilt under new colors, Teal and Peach.)

Control

The Walt Disney World Monorail System uses a moving blocklight system to monitor the trains as they travel. Disney calls their system MAPO. 

The beam way is divided into 500-1000 foot block sections identified by the pylon numbers. The MAPO indicator lights, colored Green, Yellow, & Red, indicate how far ahead the next train is on the beam. A GREEN light indicates the next train is 3 or more blocks ahead, a YELLOW light indicates the next train is 2 blocks ahead, and a RED light indicates the next train is in the very next block. Under normal operations, trains must remain 2 or more blocks away from each other. If a “MAPO RED” occurs, the on board computer system disables the pilots throttle controls and applies the emergency break. Control is not given back to the pilot until the MAPO is cleared, or the pilot pushes and holds the override button. During ‘special’ operations, such as track switching, and night time storage, the pilot will need to use the MAPO OVERRIDE to avoid a red indicator. This override option is standard procedure for nightly closing of the system, and is a cause for the July 4th/5th 2009 accident. 

Safety and Evacuation

During it’s 4 decades in operations, there have been a few causes for evacuation.

In the event of an evacuation while the train is at a station, the large windows can be removed from inside, if need be, or
the right most door of each car can be opened by a cast member by releasing the air pressure with a safety release handle on the outside of the train.

 

In the event of a mid beam evacuation, passengers can exit through a roof hatch in each car, and the front and rear cabs.

 Passengers can then move along the roof to an adjacent car and await evacuation. In the event of a full train evacuation, passengers move along the roof of the train toward one of the cab units, where the pilot attaches a knotted rope to the top and bottom of the windshield, allowing passengers to climb down over the nose of the train to the beam where they can walk along, away from the train.

Station platform safety

The Express load platform at the T&TC and the Resort and Express load platforms at the Magic Kingdom station are equipped with automated gates which prevent guest from approaching the beam way. These gates are controls by cast members from a control kiosk (see photo). Other stations have manual operated gates.