The Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover is an attraction in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. Designed as an urban mass-transit system of the future, vehicles take passengers on a grand circle tour of the realm of Tomorrowland that provides elevated views of several other attractions.
Ride experience
The attraction has a single station, which resides in the center of Rocket Tower Plaza and beneath the Astro Orbiter. Passing the queue, passengers step onto the Speedramp (inclined moving walkway) to the second level. They then step onto a moving platform which matches the speed of the PeopleMover trains, and board before they depart the station. Leaving the Rocket Tower Plaza Station, the trains make a sharp left turn, followed by a sweeping turn over the plaza. The track then makes a right-hand turn, running along the outside of the northern show building and above the former queue for Stitch's Great Escape! and passing by the Tomorrowland main entrance at Central Plaza. The track enters a tunnel through the northern show building and passes a large diorama containing a portion of the Progress City/"Epcot" model, which originally resided in the upper level of the Carousel of Progress at the New York World's Fair of 1964-1965 and at Disneyland starting in 1967-1973, before encountering a diorama of two robots and crossing the Star Traders shop. Leaving the northern show building, the ride passes over the walkway to Fantasyland, the Tomorrowland Speedway, and access to the Tron Lightcycle Power Run. Afterwards, the ride crosses the Walt Disney World Railroad tracks and pass through a switch, which leads to the ride's storage and maintenance bays as they make a right turn to enter Space Mountain. Inside Space Mountain, the trains then make a left turn and pass in between the lift hills of the roller coaster tracks. The vehicles then pass two lighted signs reading "Starport: Seven Five" (an oblique reference to the opening year of the attraction), before open space to the left allows a view down into the post-show dioramas. After the view of the post-show, the track makes a right turn, wrapping around the Omega track's loading station, and travels along the back side of the building, which is in complete pitch black darkness. It is possible to look up and see the projections from the ride and the tracks. The trains make a sharp S-turn to merge with the storage track, and run along the outside of the building perimeter to return to the railroad bridge. The Space Mountain segment of the PeopleMover has gained heavy notoriety among park guests for offering an accessible view of Space Mountain when the interior work lights are on. Because the two attractions have separate operating systems, the PeopleMover does not have to stop during Space Mountain breakdowns, so guests riding the PeopleMover when the work lights are on get a rare illuminated look at the roller coaster tracks. After crossing the railroad tracks again, the trains backtrack to a point above the Tomorrowland Speedway before turning south. After passing over Space Mountain's entrance plaza, the former Skyway terminal and the restrooms, the track travels along the exterior of Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, before crossing over the former Galaxy Palace Theater entrance and entering the south show building. Entering the building, guests pass a diorama of a futuristic salon and then get a view down into Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, similar to the one given of Star Traders. Exiting the tunnel, the ride travels along the side of the south show building, and passing by Main Street U.S.A., the Tomorrowland sign entrance and the Cinderella Castle again, and above the queue line for Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, and the queue line for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. The ride then returns to Rocket Tower Plaza, where guests disembark and unload.
Operation The attraction uses on the WEDway system, and consists of five-car trains of constantly-moving four-passenger vehicles which are passively propelled by drive units in the track rather than motors within the vehicles themselves. The trains slow down and ride bumper-to-bumper through the station, where passengers board and alight via a large speed-matched rotating platform. The ride follows a level 4,573-foot-long (1,394 m) mainline track (5,484 feet (1,672 m) including maintenance and storage areas). There are 569 drive units embedded in the track, plus an additional 71 in the storage and maintenance areas, spaced approximately one every 10 feet (3.0 m). The spacing decreases to 5 feet (1.5 m) in the station and 2.5 feet (0.76 m) in acceleration zones, and there is an extra drive unit every 40 feet (12 m) for redundancy. The drive units consist of 10-by-15-inch (250 mm × 380 mm) linear induction motor "primaries" which operate off of 240 volts and 60 Hertz. The "secondaries" of the motors on the trains consist of a 1⁄8-inch-thick (3.2 mm) aluminum plate backed by a 3⁄16-inch-thick (4.8 mm) steel plate that ride 0.15 inches (3.8 mm) above the drive units. Trains travel at a speed of 10 feet per second (3.0 m/s), slowing down to 3–4 feet per second (0.91–1.22 m/s) in the three show scenes.
History
Wedway PeopleMover (1975–1994)
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