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Given last nights incident just outside of the TTC, I’m wondering if it’s the tipping point for someone in a decision making position to say enough. The infrastructure already exists. Although it would take some retrofitting, the trains themselves really aren’t that expensive comparatively. Say $10 million on the high side? That’s $120 million. They have cash on hand of $5 billion and annual profits of over $10 billion.
Short answer: No. The ROI on spending $120M would not be that great in that there is no revenue coming directly from the monorail.
Also, spending that amount just on trains is not enough. The entire electrical and computer systems controlling those trains are in dire need of maintenance and upgrades. Sure, the base infrastructure is there -- pylons and beams (and I am not so sure that they are not in need of a whole lot of TLC themselves) -- but there is a whole lot more to the monorail system than that. To do the necessary upgrades to the entire system would cause a large portion of the system to be down for, very possibly, years. They currently do just enough maintenance to keep the system running 90 - 95% of the time.
The numbers you quote: cash on hand and annual profits are for the entire corporation, not just for parks and recreation. Stockholders want those numbers to go UP, not down.
Just recently, we were at the Magic Kingdom for the day. The express monorail which we planned to take was down and everyone was being directed to the Resort line. Since many of us on board were headed to the Transportation & Ticket Center, there was a long line of folks waiting at the Contemporary and only a small portion of those waiting were able to board.
Last week, we spent a couple of nights at Disney and used the Epcot line a few times. On one trip, the monorail came to a complete stop two or three times on the way to Epcot. I'm not sure why we were stopping but I was certainly glad we were able to complete the trip - by the way, the car we were in on that day had no air conditioning.
Funny story... Siemens, before leaving sponsorship of Spaceship Earth, offered to help replace the monorail fleet... Disney said no...
Truth is, they see bus transportation as more efficient... And now with the Skyliner, the monorail is no longer a priority...
When we were waiting to board at Epcot a couple of weeks ago, we were chatting with the CM and she made sure to tell us "to get a car with air conditioning. if the one you get in doesn't work, hop into the next one". Seems the AC is another issue for the poor monorail.Quote:
Originally Posted by faline