Designer Times
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17. 2004 - Walt's Monorail Dream Will Come True
Right after the summer 1959 opening of the Disneyland Monorail, Walt Disney brought numerous city transportation groups to ride his new Monorail. He was so enthused that a monorail would be perfect for solving the growing transit problems in America's cities. These presentations attracted a lot of attention.
Al Johns wrote a monorail story for the Real Estate section of the Los Angeles Times June 28, 1959. He described the obvious advantages of a monorail echoing Walt's enthusiasm. But quoting a skeptical young Bob Gurr....."city and transit line officials in Los Angeles are letting rapid transit get further and further away by studying and talking the the issue to death instead of getting in and building a system". Forty two years later, Los Angeles has no monorail......but Las Vegas soon will!
Las Vegas visiters have enjoyed a short monorail trip between the MGM Grand Hotel and Bally's since 1996 riding on two "retired" WDW Florida Mk IV Monorail trains. In 2000. The Las Vegas Monorail Co. purchased the MGM-Bally's monorail system and will expand the system to four miles by 2004. Ground breaking was held August 16, 2001. And right on top of this, the Las Vegas city council approved opening negotiations with the Transit Systems Development LLC (TSD) for a downtown extension opening in 2006. Transit Systems Development, a partnership between Bob Broadbent and Cam Walker, spearheaded development and funding of the now under-construction Las Vegas Monorail through the sale of $650 million in bonds last year.
The city and TSD will work on a franchise agreement, which would grant the management company use of the city's right of way for a three-mile monorail extension and authority to set fares. Probably the biggest endorsement of the potential expansion of the monorail came from Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who said "The future well-being of Las Vegas and the heart and soul of the city is dependent on this type of transportation." Well, whoop de doo.....Walt would love it. Whoa, how did all this happen so fast?
While working on projects in Las Vegas in 1993, I was approached by a group who had been invited to make a proposal for an elevated transit line to run between MGM and Bally's. The group wanted me to add design input and credibility to their transit design, a very clean and simple automated peoplemover style of concrete guideway transit system. We were one of four groups who were scheduled to make presentations in October 1993. Our presentation was made to Bob Maxey, then President of MGM Grand at their corporate offices. Maxey had assembled his MGM team, which included their outside electrical railroad consultant, Andrew Jakes.
As our presentation was getting underway, Jakes became aware that I was not a licensed transit engineer, and challenged my credentials to design any public conveyance. Uh oh. I then had to describe how I used to design vehicles (and monorails) for Walt Disney. Jakes reminded everyone that MGM-Bally's needed real public transportation, not amusement park rides. The next hour was spent describing in detail how big and successful Disney is with "public transportation", having engineered, built, then operated many very high capacity systems, especially the WDW Monorail System.
As Jakes and I got a bit testy in front of everyone, Maxey got up and left before any tempers got too high. The rest of our team's presentation sort of fizzled off after that. We never heard any response regarding any of the four proposals during the months that followed. But one day in mid 1994 I was consulting with Kent Bingham's Entertainment Engineering Company in Burbank. The phone rings......Dennis Hammond of the VSL Corporation in Las Vegas was looking for a monorail consultant to review the mechanical and structural condition of some "used Disney Monorails". Kent said " the designer is sitting right here". Search over.....get up to Las Vegas immediately.
Seems that Maxey and Michael Eisner had struck a deal; WDW sells old ride equipment (a Walt Disney no-no) and Maxey gets a two year head start on his overhead transit system. Even if it's a monorail rather than conventional transit as per the original idea. MGM had purchased two 6-car WDW Florida Mk IV monorail trains complete with maintenance tools, spare parts, and all engineering drawings. They even hired a WDW maintenance supervisor . The trains were being overhauled in a Las Vegas warehouse before being sent to Intermountain Design in Utah for new interiors. So, what did VSL really want? This gets real funny.
All new construction on The Las Vegas Strip is administered by Clark County Building & Safety. They require "wet sealed" construction drawings to be approved before they will allow anything to get built, including a monorail train. No matter that the old WDW Monorails have run for twenty years as proof of design. Nope, the design will have to be started over so there will be new plans to approve. But Clark County will accept a qualified mechanical engineer licensed in Nevada to "wet sign".
Entertainment Engineering was given a very nice contract to examine and approve my ancient old 1968 Mk IV design using new-fangled finite element analysis techniques. Kent Bingham and I roared all the way to the bank! He gave VSL an impressive report book filled with all kinds of data about my design that I never knew. The "New Las Vegas Monorails" were soon ready on the new beamway that VSL built in quick time. Each time I visit Las Vegas and pass by my old baby, I gave a chuckle that, due to a consultant's attack, both myself and the old Mk IV are enjoying retirement in the Las Vegas desert.
oOo
Discuss It
-- Bob Gurr
Bob Gurr began working with Disney in 1954. He retired in 1981 but occassionally consults for the Company. Since Disney he's worked on the sinking ship at Las Vegas' Treasure Island, Universal Studios' King Kong, Godzilla for the film by the same name and much more. Among his proudest accomplishments he lists "making Walt tickled pink that some of the things he wanted to build actually worked. You could tell how proud he was when he would show off things to his friends and the press. Lincoln and the Monorail were two big ones for him."
Designer Times is normally posted the second Wednesday of each month.
The opinions expressed by Bob Gurr, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted September 12, 2001
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