Progress City, U.S.A.

The first few decades of Walt Disney Imagineering were marked by a series of escalating technical innovations that built on previous achievements while preparing Walt Disney Productions for subsequent phases of development. Under Walt’s guidance the profits and knowledge gained from each new project were funneled into the next, with every step pushing the limits of the company in new and unexpected directions. At the time of his death, Disney was preparing for the greatest challenge of his career - the creation of Walt Disney World in Florida and the design process for the “city of the future” that he called EPCOT.

The original concept for EPCOT was a massive and risky undertaking, which sought not only to entertain or inform but to completely change the way the American public thought about their cities and communities. EPCOT would be a complete, functioning city designed to not only provide services for its residents and guests but to act as a testbed for new technologies and theories of urban design which could then be exported to the country at large. EPCOT would not be built so that one could travel to Florida and ride a monorail, it was designed so that guests might be able to one day ride a monorail in their own community. Corporations and designers would come to EPCOT to test and refine their designs, which would then become part of the urban fabric nationwide.

When Walt Disney died in 1966, the seeds of EPCOT’s own demise were sown. EPCOT was such an exotic and expensive project that many believed it couldn’t be built, but those same words had been spoken about many projects from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Disneyland itself. Disney scholars will disagree to the end of time whether, had Walt lived, EPCOT would have been completed. Knowing Walt’s track record, though, I can’t help but to believe it would have happened. Without Disney himself at the helm, though, the project had no champion or unified vision.

Yet even after Walt’s death, Walt Disney Productions didn’t immediately abandon the plan for EPCOT. Walt’s brother Roy rededicated the company to the purpose of completing Walt Disney World in Florida by 1971, and in the process of creating the resort they developed and prototyped many of the technologies intended for use in EPCOT. The master planning process in Florida mirrored many of the guiding theories behind EPCOT, and even as EPCOT city itself faded into history a great number of the programs that had been created to prepare its design continued their work.

One of these divisions was Community Transportation Services, a branch of the company founded in 1974 “in response to numerous requests from cities, airports and shopping centers interested in applications of the company’s monorail and WEDway PeopleMover systems.” Disney had debuted both the monorail and PeopleMover in his theme parks with the intention of promoting both technologies for use outside the berm. The PeopleMover, which opened at Disneyland in 1967, was created specifically in preparation for EPCOT. A more refined design, which opened at Walt Disney World in 1975, would mark the first use of linear induction motors for public transportation. The CTS division would spin off these technologies for outside use, helping to fulfill the mandate of EPCOT even as plans for the city itself fell by the wayside. CTS would “consult in the master planning of new short-range intra-city mass transportation systems, license Disney-developed systems for these applications, and administer their construction and installation.”

The following document is dated to June 3rd, 1974, and both promotes the CTS division and gives a selection of its monorail-based designs. It appears that the main goal of the CTS designs was flexibility; the document touts their modular construction and the wide array of configurations available to customers. If you notice, designs were made for standard, medium and narrow gauge tracks. Trains were available with high or low ceilings, and wide, standard or narrow bodies. The modularity of the design allowed for cars to be as long as desired and feature any number of seating arrangements. Trains could have cabs on one or both ends, or could even operate without drivers.

Click below for some scans of the document; it’s a fascinating peek into a hopeful era of Imagineering and a time when Disney was still trying to forge into new frontiers and to lead instead of follow. With gasoline at record highs and more people longing for functional mass transportation in cities worldwide, wouldn’t it be nice to have a CTS-designed rail system to take to work in the morning?

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A recent story on MiceAge detailed the problems that continue to plague the rollout of Disneyland’s new Mark VII Monorails. Since the delivery of Monorail Red last December, a series of mechanical and operational issues have repeatedly pushed back the attraction’s opening date far past its original February timeframe.

In fact, it had been projected that by summer of this year all three refurbished trains would be fully checked out and in service. While the second new train has indeed been delivered to Disneyland from its Canadian factory, neither of the Mark VII vehicles have been cleared for guest use and it has been left to the lone remaining Mark V train - itself nearly falling apart at the seams - to continue monorail service to the Disneyland Hotel.

The problems plaguing the Mark VIIs come down to a few issues, many of which stem from poor cooperation between WDI, corporate management at Team Disney Anaheim, and the Canadian fabricators. The most glaring initial problem facing the cars was that their new design led to a number of issues with track clearance. Due to discrepancies in Disney records, the new chassis design did not allow enough room to clear a number of turns on the monorail track; this resulted in the monorail’s body scraping against the beam and a great deal of damage to the monorail’s chassis, body, and the beam itself.

While some of these problems with the suspension and chassis have been solved through various modifications, other issues linger and delivery of the remaining two trains was delayed by the need to retrofit them with the design fixes. A number of operational issues then began to show themselves, key among them the inability to open the monorail car windows more than a few inches. Disney lawyers and California safety officials, keen to absolve guests of any responsibility or common sense whatsoever, felt that the Mark V cars allowed guests too much access to open windows and mandated the change in design. Overlooked was the fact that the reason the windows on the Mark V trains were allowed to fully open was that the train bodies did not have enough space for adequate air conditioning equipment in the car and ventilation was necessary to keep guests comfortable. Now that the lawyers have sealed the windows, temperatures in the cars soar to intolerable levels even on seasonable days. It remains to be seen how WDI will solve this issue.

Sadly, the problems facing the Mark VII rollout could have easily been avoided by a little something which seems sorely missing at WDI these days - institutional knowledge. This is something that has concerned me for a while, and the monorail fiasco has only brought the issue to the fore.

When Walt founded WED Enterprises in 1952, he pulled his best designers and technicians from the studio to begin work on his concepts for Disneyland. These artists and engineers began a process that lasted decades, with each successive creative step building upon the lessons learned in their last project. From studio work like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea they proceeded to Disneyland, which led to the 1964 World’s Fair, Walt Disney World, and eventually EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland. Along the way they accrued a great deal of experience which allowed them to avoid mistakes - of which they made many early on - and push Imagineering to greater heights.

The 1980s proved the last hurrah for many of that first wave of Imagineers, as retirement and age began to claim many of their ranks. The huge staff that been needed for the construction of EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland were faced with layoffs, and following Eisner’s loss of vision in the post-EuroDisney panic even more Imagineers were let go. The 1990s saw wave after wave of creative staff leave for other companies as Eisner and his lackey Paul Pressler decimated the WDI ranks.

While some of the old guard remain, and some have returned following Eisner’s departure, there still was a great deal of common sense and lessons learned that were lost during those purges. This is not to slag on the new generation of Imagineers - anyone familiar with Disneyland’s disasterous debut knows that even the the most legendary of Walt’s creative team learned their lessons the hard way. It’s just that after thirty or forty years of experience, those mistakes had been cut to a minimum and WDI had enough organizational shorthand within its ranks to avoid issues as pedestrian as forgetting to have enough air cooling in a southern California ride vehicle.

The new generation will learn in time; it’s just that we’ll have to experience the growing pains with them. Hopefully the one thing we can take from all of this, and never let management forget (and eventually, no matter what, they will), is to never let this happen again. Never let Disney sell out its legacy and purge its Imagineering ranks for the benefit of middle management and the detriment of creative personnel. Keep the knowledge in-house, avoid outsourcing (a futile hope, I fear), and hopefully some day all we’ll have to worry about is when the next amazing E-ticket will be opening and not whether the darn thing will even move or not.

Two days ago the first of the new Mark VII monorails was delivered to the Disneyland Resort and boy, is she a saucy wench. The first new Disney monorail since the last of the Mark VI’s were delivered to Walt Disney World almost 15 years ago, the new Monorail Red is set to go online in February 2008 according to the L.A. Times. Two other new monorails, blue and orange, will follow in spring and summer.

The new monorail evokes the aesthetics of Bob Gurr’s original designs for Disneyland’s monorail, as seen in the attraction poster on the right. The L.A. Times quoted lead Disney Imagineer Scot Drake as saying the Mark VII design represents a “streamline optimistic vision” of a “fantasy future that never was.” Guess we’ve kinda given up on that future then, eh WDI? Good thing we have no need for sleek and efficient rapid transit today - whew! Silly old people and their silly optimistic views of the future!

Hey, at least they look cool. More pics are up at MiceAge.