well after having seen and ridden the new Mark VII monorails here is my review. I love the exterior design of the trains they are beautiful! also the LED interior lighting is very cool but that is where the love affair ends. The new center bench seating arrangement makes it hard for people who are NOT traveling alone because if boarding from DTD where passengers are not required to disembark chances are your party is going to be split up. The seats themselves are hard plastic and uncomfortable. The old padded seats in the mark V's used to feel pretty good after a day of walking around in the park all day, the mark VII seats kind of make you feel worse. As far as reliability from what I saw they are terrible! throughout the course of my 4 day visit all 3 of the trains went down at one point or other. on the first day I got there I left the hotel and went to the DTD station as I got there monorail red was leaving then blue came in loaded and I was to be on the next monorail in however on the way back to DTD monorail red's power pick-up shoe fell off so the tractor had to come out and tow it back in. After an hour the system was back up with only monorail blue. The next day Monorails blue and orange were in operation and that evening blue suffered some kind of problem that required it to be taken offline. the next day monorails red and orange were running and early in the day orange had to be taken offline and blue came out to fill in. If this is the daily routine for the mark VIIs the Disneyland monorail system is doomed!

The bottom line

Pros: Beautiful exterior design, cool interior lighting, offers monorail fans a chance to see the tractor in operation more than they normally would.

Cons: seating arrangement bad for families or groups, seats uncomfortable, unreliable

Wouldn't be so bad if they still had 4 trains - that allows for one to be down for regular maintenance, one can have an unexpected breakdown, and leave at least two still running. With three, the cushion is gone.

They need to build a fourth Mark VII train, fabricate a new chassis from the remains of the old ones or do some wholesale section and replace work - I'm thinking they built one out of the "undamaged" parts of two.

IIRC Mk.V Blue had some damage from running off the end of the beam rolling through an open switch, and Mk.V Orange allegedly had some stress damage from "Carlton's Wild Ride" (last day last run almost full speed banzai blast) - and the chassis of both trains should be repairable.

And this time, keep track of all the prints - including the "As-Builts" and a log of all the modifications. It costs too much to reverse engineer trains and recreate prints, especially when they get it wrong. (Clearance issues with the platform, and the clearance envelope, and the windows, and the power shoes, and...) This is all stuff they have fixed before.

--<< Bruce >>--

I have been to DL to 2 times since the Mark VII started running. On both of those trips, the operating monorails: Mark VII Red, Mark VII Blue, and the now gone Mark V Purple all operated smoothly with no problems what so ever.



I have ridden all 4 Mark V's and know that Mark V Orange was badly damaged and is being reversed engineered at WDI's HQ. IDK anything about Blue ever rolling off a switch though, either that or the damage wasn't bad but it got converted into Mark VII Red.

Here is my review:
Pros:nice design, cool lighting, cool windows, nice reminder of the Mark III, has more room for guest to sit with the pilot in the cab, really quiet and fast.

Cons: seats are VERY uncomfortable, problems with the A/C and ventilation, island seating design has a low capcity and is very unfamily friendly.

Overall out of 10 points, I would give the Mark VII 7.5.

Mark IIIs forever!!

I'll have to find the details, but somewhere (Monorails.org or MiceChat) we dredged up the story - Monorail Blue was supposed to go onto the mainline after some brake system repairs and they pulled out of the barn, but the switch wasn't lined right, so the pilot stopped short.

Problem being, the DL Monorails don't have spring brakes AKA air-brake parking brakes, and there was still an air leak. And the train lost air pressure, the service brakes released, and the train s-l-o-w-l-y rolled forward and off the end of the open end of the beam before the driver noticed or could react. Main power was not on so the air compressor was off, and the driver couldn't power back up and throw it in reverse in time.

And AFAICT they still don't have spring brakes on the DL trains, a very simple safety measure - you lose service air, and the spring applies the brakes. Been using them on heavy trucks for 75-plus years. The Tramzillas have them, you hear the air release when they stop, and the recharge before they pull out.

"But you can't tow a disabled Monorail train back to the barn with the brakes applied!" S'okay, they already hook up an air hose from the Monorail Tractor's compressor to provide air for the trains' service brakes, so it doesn't shove the tractor a quarter-mile getting stopped... It's no big deal to plumb that same air supply to disengage the parking brakes too.

--<< Bruce >>--