Designer Times by Bob Gurr
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INDEPENDANCE LAKE As Mineral King ground it's way thru one fight after

another, Disney became involved in yet another ski resort proposal, this time at Independance Lake north of Truckee California. This job featured the same cast of corporate and consulting ski enthusiasts as did Mineral King.

It too, wound up on the pile of Projects from Never.

1963 NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR MONORAIL Disney was asked to look at a

transportation system which would circle around Flushing Meadows in New York City, site of the then under construction New York World's Fair. This was to be a Monorail System using the then current Disneyland Mk II Monorail Trains. But when the civil engineers discovered that the Monorail beamway pylons would have to anchor to pilings going deep into the ground, the job was abandoned.

Some of the pilings would have had to go down 125 feet before hitting anything solid. Flushing Meadow was an ancient dump site which filled in an earlier swamp. One day I was watching a pile driver pounding relentlessly on a pile for a new building when suddenly the pile sunk in faster on it's own weight than the driver could keep up. "Hah, just hit an old iron bathtub and punched thru it" one engineer observed!

1964 LA BREA MUSEUM RIDE Walt was asked by the operator's of the La Brea

Tar Pits Museum in Los Angeles to see if a ride system could be developed which would convey guests thru a proposed new museum display. The idea was to bring a more interesting presentation of the early animal life found in the deep tar pits of the Wilshire District of Los Angeles to museum guests.

Walt had developed four attractions at the New York World's Fair based upon Disneyland's great way to showcase story content thru ride systems. I made some preliminary mechanical drawings of a system, but we did not proceed further on the project.

1974 BOB-A-LONG BOAT Since the new Walt Disney World featured a lot of

watercraft available to Disney hotel guests, WDW managers were always willing to try out new watercraft. They felt that a group of guests might enjoy a slow silent cruise on WDW lakes in small electric powered craft that they could drive themselves. Unlike sailing or powerboating, these new Bob-A-Long boats would be the perfect little party boat. Preliminary themed drawings were prepared and passed around to both Disneyland and WDW management to gather "committee" comments.

After a year or so of constantly changing specifications, I was handed the package to engineer and test one boat. The boat was the size of a very large hot tub with seating for 4-6 guests. Equipped with a built-in ice chest and cute canopy top, the thing looked like a floating bird bath. We did a lot of testing out at Disney's Golden Oak Ranch duck pond before shipping it to WDW for guest testing.

After only a few weeks it was obvious to all that this floating turkey just had no performance, and no chance at making any rental money. But the guys in the MAPO shop poured their hearts into the job the same as if it was going to be a real deal.

I think hindsight now tells us that the projects that are inspired and unique, ones that have a clear champion that will inspire and lead the whole team to conclusion are the jobs that endure. Conversely, the committee pass-arounds which nobody really loves are the ones that are re-specified and re-budgeted to their ultimate doom no matter how clever they may have looked. And the jobs you can't control internally have little chance of survival in the pit bull arena of exterior politics. Yep, the Never Graveyard has many sad tales to tell.

oOo

Next Month: Maglev Monorail?

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