This week I had the opportunity to ride the newly refurbished Monorail Green. In addition to preventative maintenance work under the body, the interior cabins got a nice upgrade. I’m not sure what they did, but the ride definitely felt smoother than on unrefurbished trains.
There’s a very green new carpet on the walls, the seats were reupholstered in a lovely silver cover. There’s also an easy to read warning sign not to lean on the doors.
Monorail Silver also has a new interior with matching color. I don’t know if the plan is to do this on every monorail… if so, we’ll get gold, lime green, black, and coral interiors. Yuck. How about some plaid?
There is a recent rumor that a large order monorail Bombardier manufacturer reported in an earnings report, was part one of an order for Walt Disney World to replace its aging Monorail fleet. I’m not sure how much countenance to put in that until I see the receipts.
I think it’s more likely that Disney Transportation will continue to refurbish and repair existing trains for as long as they can while waiting for a cheaper alternative solution to appear.
Disney has spent a lot of time and money adding a train control and automation system to the monorail and I don’t think they’d do that if they planned to replace them soon.
Another recent improvement to Disney’s monorail network is the new exit from the EPCOT monorail station, that now deposits guests inside the secure area instead of requiring a second bag check after passengers coming from the Magic Kingdom had already been screened once. More updates from EPCOT’s transformation were posted on the blog yesterday.
How long do you think Disney can keep running the same monorail trains by performing more frequent refurbishment cycles? How much down time is too much?