Designer Times
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The Ford folks took Roger and I out to see many factories, and introduced us to their assembly line suppliers. One such supplier was the Jervis B. Webb Company, from whom I learned a ton about conveyor stuff. And we gradually educated the Ford staff in the very competent Disney methodology of engineering new and unique show and ride systems. But the cultures were so different. They always wore suits and ties, Disneyland was more casual. Walt's team would make quick decisions and start to build things right away. Ford took forever to get agreements. At that time the big glass walled Ford Corporate office building in East Dearborn Michigan was known as "Panic Palace......at least we had a Castle!
Back in Burbank, Walt moved all the WED folks out of the Disney Studio over to Glendale into one building at 800 Sonora Avenue in August 1961. I charged ahead with the ride detail design. Ford gave me some scrap cars to modify into ride vehicles. Actually they were hand built test cars (costing hundreds of thousands of dollors each) that were to be destroyed afterwards. One was the biggest and heaviest car I had to make fit on the ride, another was the lightest. The big one, the first 1961 Lincoln convertible ever built, was a terrible driving heavy rattletrap. By chopping out everything but the visible body shell, I got the weight down below 2,000 pounds. We would not need to carry the extra weight of engines and transmissions.
I layed out an oblong shaped test track which we built on the Studio backlot for our first demonstration runs. We ran this first test track in November 1961. In 1962 we added more track complete with turns and grades, as well as various track construction methods. The cars were able to travel at a steady low speed next to a Stevens-Adamson Speedramp moving belt so the guests could board at the same speed. They could then accelerate to higher speeds and climb upgrades, then come down a hill back to the load/unload belt. We tried several electrical schemes to vary the car speeds and to keep the cars evenly spaced apart. Roger Broggie, Lee Adams, and I were later granted some patents for our ride system invention.
It's easy to understand how propulsion wheels can move a car by rolling a car with a flat bottom panel over the drive wheels. A panel, called a platen, was attached to the chassis of each car. Typically three or four drive wheels would be in contact at one time. As a car would enter a speed change zone, each drive wheel ran at an increasing or decreasing rate of rotation. This meant that if all the wheels were contacting the platen at the same time, some motors would be forced slower and some faster. We used ordinary squirrel cage type electrical motors which can withstand this under/over speed condition with little strain.
The cars were steered by a guide wheel and spindle riding in a recessed track slot which thence operated the normal automotive steering geometry already on the car. But this caused an irregular platen path over the track drive wheels, which was different on the various length cars. I had to design a very tricky lateral sloppy spring suspension on the drive units. After trying many designs, the best one used a steel frame with pockets for a group of loose rubber balls to allow side shift, and shear mounts to transmit the drive forces. The ball that worked best was an orange 3 inch diameter dog chasing ball. Everyone always laughed at the sight of the thousands of orange dog balls.
As each drive wheel engaged the sloped edges of the platens, a momentary skidding would occur. Going around turns would also cause a king of tilting and skidding path. When we tried the most reliable materials, urethane treads and aluminum platen faces, the "squeegee noises were awful. I wound up facing the platens with upside down masonite, and the wheels with neoprene. The drive was silent, but oh my gosh the masonite dust was terrible. We added some masonite fuzz collecting brushes and that worked out fine.
With the successful tests completed, we drew up final plans for the NYWF complete ride system installation based on our proven specifications. From mid 1962 to April 1964 a second clash took place. Walt Disney usually built things his way without any excess effort at cost reduction. Ford always took an idea and threw it at the accountants. Now my poor monster was to suffer a long period of "budget whacking" which caused everyone a mad scramble to get it working right on opening day. I'll never forget the sight of the low bidder's low cost budget whacked electrical cabinets filled with blue flashes and clouds of smoke. And there was yet to be the doggonedest car destruction derby of ride systems I ever worked on. But that's the next story of the Ford NYWF Magic Skyway.
oOo
Next month: More Ford Magic Skyway at The 1964-65 New York World's Fair
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-- 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 March 13, 2002
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