Designer Times
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I spend virtually every waking hour visualizing configurations of an endless variety of how things might look, how things might be physically arranged to work real neat. I do lots of sketchy doodles to depict on paper how these ideas might look. I constantly go over in my mind all the do's and dont's of what might work best before I do too much sketching. After a while, some of the major configuration begins to get set down in more detailed sketches, and even some drafting layouts. I steadily develop a list of items, what they might weigh, and where they might be located in the train. A weight distribution plan is crucial to a successful overall configuration.

You'll notice that this think-doodle-draft method is not linear, and not really organized. You bounce from one group to another, allowing the train to slowly take shape in your mind, then show up on paper....obviously the way the intuitive mind probably works. This drives organized people nuts because you'll talk about almost any detail of the Monorail design in a random order. Not until I've decided on design details that I like will there be anything to show others. By the time I'm at that stage, I've gone over numerous internal mental trade offs until I'm sure I have the winner in every detail.

This is the heart of design. You must choose the overall configuration that will ultimately be the simplest, the easiest to engineer and build, and the one that will perform best for a long time. Sure, I could insist on a fancy and sophisticated far out deal that will need basic research and innovation before you could build it. Some designers love to do this so they can show off how smart they are. That was just not my way.

When the overall configuration gets pretty clear, I can then draft up master layouts to hand over to our drafters. I can follow up with detail part layouts to give them for manufacturing documents. Only then does the Monorail design become visible to others. Looking back, I must have been so blessed with the trust that my boss Roger Broggie gave me to work like this.

As we determine and order the store- bought systems and parts, we also design the manufactured parts in the order that they needed. The long lead items and the big structures go out first. Then we can do the secondary structures, mounting bracketry, seating and trim stuff. Since all the heavy thinking was done in the overall configuration stage, the following detail designs just flow along quite smoothly.

By the time that the first Monorail cars are fairly well built, there's still lots of little details to do yet. I've had these details in mind all thru the job, and they are now easy to do by shop sketches, art direction, and the usual arm waving. As the underlying structures are ready for the finished interior panels for example, I can design the overall look to be clean and devoid of ugly fasteners since I had the desired finished look in mind from the get go and planned the structure to be ready for easy final trim installation.

In hindsight I cannot tell you that I made a grand decision early on to design things this way. It just seemed to evolve as the fastest most natural way to get things done for Walt at the time. I suppose that the business method climate with Walt Disney in those years allowed a freedom to do what ever it took to do it. Most certainly, if I had been burdened with formal college engineering, I would never have been free to just jump in and "Do It".

oOo

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