Deadly Monorail Crash

[Blixzit]

I just saw this on the news. They showed some pictures that where quite shocking. The front of one monorail was INSIDE the back of another monorail. I'm still in shock over the whole thing. To my knowledge, nothing like this or this bad has happened with the monorail system at Disney EVER.
Breaking News: Deadly Disney World Monorail Crash - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando

At 2am Sunday morning, Reedy Creek Emergency Services responded to a call at the Ticket and Transportation Center at the Magic Kingdom. Two monorails collided. 8 people were evaluated total following the crash. One monorail driver was killed. The other driver is fine physically. There were 5 to 6 guests on the monorail at the time of the crash. Disney World Public Relations tells Local 6 that they will release more information later this morning. They are on scene right now gathering information about the incident.

A witness tells Local 6 that he heard a huge crashing noise when the monorails collided. He was able to get pictures and video of frazzled guests walking off the train.

Another report indicates that a moving pink train hit a stationary purple train.

Local 6 has obtained dramatic pictures from the scene of the crash. Stay with Local 6 for more information about this crash.

Copyright 2009 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Tim]

I just saw this on the news. They showed some pictures that where quite shocking. The front of one monorail was INSIDE the back of another monorail. I'm still in shock over the whole thing. To my knowledge, nothing like this or this bad has happened with the monorail system at Disney EVER.
Breaking News: Deadly Disney World Monorail Crash - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando

Just horrible. Glad the monorail was virtually empty. It could have certainly been much worse.

[Disney05]

Wow! How could this have happened?
http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2...ls_driver.html

[Lou Mongello]

While I won't speculate on the cause of this tragic accident at this time and until further details are officially released first and foremost my heartfelt prayers and thoughts go out to the family of the Cast Member involved.

Photos of the crash can be found here: http://bit.ly/QP1Dy

[trickster]

Geez - This is awful!

P&P are with all those involved with this tradgic accident.

[Lou Mongello]

Photo of crash at CNN.com: Disney World monorail crash kills driver - CNN.com

[kjunea]

This is so sad! My thoughts and prayers are with the CM's family! Were there any other guests riding in the front of the monorail? That is one of my son's favorite memories, "driving" the monorail.

[TestTfan1993]

Lou you may know this or someone else may know this. Is there a system thats stops the monorail when it gets to close to another monorial? Or possibly it wasn't working. Also my thoughts and pray's go out to the cast member, and there family.

[kate52]

I can't believe this! We were all having such a great weekend, the Live Show, the beautiful weather, picnics, fireworks, family time.....All we can do now is pray for the CM and his family and thank God for our own families and hold them a little closer.

[Tmntrans]

There is a system to prevent this. My wife and I was riding from the TTC ot the MK last May and Disney was putting the Red Monorail in service. This was early afternoon. They have numbers on each of the monorail support beams and he was setting the system some kind of way and telling Ops when brakes came on and when they stopped. They also told when and where to hold and at ANYTIME and that Ops can shut down the monorail.They Also guide rules and to how close the proximity to one in front. It took us well over 20 minutes to make it to MK but we learned alot about the monorail.
So very sorry to hear about accident and loss

[trickster]

Disney World Monorail Crash Kills Driver - News Story - WFTV Orlando

[RoE_Earth_Globe]

There is a system to prevent this. My wife and I was riding from the TTC ot the MK last May and Disney was putting the Red Monorail in service. This was early afternoon. They have numbers on each of the monorail support beams and he was setting the system some kind of way and telling Ops when brakes came on and when they stopped. They also told when and where to hold and at ANYTIME and that Ops can shut down the monorail.They Also guide rules and to how close the proximity to one in front. It took us well over 20 minutes to make it to MK but we learned alot about the monorail.
So very sorry to hear about accident and loss

My family also had the opportunity to ride the monorail when the pilot was testing the system (this was in April 2008.) Before we left the Magic Kingdom station headed towards the Contemporary he explained what was going to happen. There was a monorail train ahead of us parked at the Contemporary and the system was going to stop our monorail As mentioned above, each beam has a number and the pilot was tracking when the alarm came on and when the train stopped. Once the monorail ahead of us left the Contemporary station, there was a delay before we could proceed, then we were on our way. Our pilot performed the same test leaving the Contemporary and approaching the TTC. It was very interesting and informative to learn more about the monorail.

My thoughts and prayers are with the cast member's family, and with all CMs today.

[kleb111]

Lou you may know this or someone else may know this. Is there a system thats stops the monorail when it gets to close to another monorial? Or possibly it wasn't working. Also my thoughts and pray's go out to the cast member, and there family.

Here's what Wiki says about the monorail: "At any given time, there must be at least two holdpoints between a given train and the train ahead of it. When the train detects that there are fewer than two holdpoints between itself and the preceding train, the emergency brakes are immediately applied and cannot be released until sufficient spacing becomes available or the operator explicitly overrides the system. Failure to maintain adequate spacing is known as an "overrun", and is treated as an extremely serious offense"

Sounds like the safety system you'd expect form Disney.

[Spyne]

Oh, my...

I'm really sorry to hear this terrible news, and I can understand why the monorail would not be running today for investigations to occur (the Epcot loop anyway). But most importantly, my thoughts and condolences go out to the family of the Cast Member killed, this must be a terrible time for them right now.

[Luigi]

So sad...Our prayers go out to all involved.