The long awaited updating of Disneyland’s Monorail fleet is finally nearing reality. The new design is known as the Mark VII and is actually just an upgrade to the old Mark V monorail. The new monorail features a sleek retro feel that hearkens back to the
very first Disneyland Monorail (although without the pilot bubble).
A few years ago Monorail Orange one of the four Mark V monorails was decommissioned and sent to Imagineering in Glendale to be reverse-engineered. WDI then teamed with TPI Composites to build a new fleet. Each existing Mark V will be sent north to Canada and converted to a
Mark VII model then sent back to Disneyland to join the fleet.
Yesterday the first of these monorails was delivered to Disneyland. Darkbeer was around to take some great photos (about 20 pages worth) from offsite and Disneyland has released some official photos and a timelapse video of the Monorail being lifted onto the track as well. The OC Register and the LA Times has some additional coverage.
(Thanks to Darkbeer, BoingBoing, and LaughingPlace.com)
I think it is a good sign that Disney is doing this. It would have been all too easy for them to scrap the monorails or even to just stick with the three remaining Mark Vs even longer, doing whatever it took to keep them running.
It would be even better, of course, to see the monorail take on additional stops at the Disneyland resort and possibly the surrounding area, but I won’t hold my breath for that.
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