Since it was announced in late February that the refurbishment of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover at Magic Kingdom was extended until April, we haven’t seen the attraction moving very much.
Today, Cast Members were pushing the train cars, which we’ve seen in the past.
Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover closed on March 9, 2020, unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has now been closed for a full year.
We later saw some cars running as normal, even with the attraction’s audio playing at the hub of the ride. No other cars on the track were moving independently.
Hopefully, the PeopleMover will be ready to reopen next month.
The refurbishment of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover at Magic Kingdom has been extended once again, now through April 3rd, 2021.
The PeopleMover first closed in early March 2020, unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic closure. We have witnessed extensive testing of the attraction in the past few months, but the refurbishment has been extended multiple times.
The full nature of the refurbishment is unknown, but at this point, the PeopleMover will have been closed for almost a full year.
The PeopleMover… simply one of the best, classic attractions at Disney. There’s just something about gliding above Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World that makes our day! Now, Max Lark with D23.com shares the history of the beloved attraction with his “Worlds in Motion: A Celebration of the PeopleMover”. Enjoy!
The PeopleMover at Disneyland played a major role in conveying the message of Tomorrowland, a future-focused land all about movement, optimism, and the promise of technology.
In his book Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show, Disney Legend John Hench provided an elegant description of this kaleidoscopic place where bright colors, sleek shapes, and whirring technology inspired guests to dream of what could be possible. “In Tomorrowland the view from the Submarine Lagoon was dedicated to action, an orchestration of movement, including the aerial Skyway, the surface-level Autopia, the elevated Monorail and PeopleMover, and the underwater and surface Submarine Voyage. These were all woven into a pattern looping through, around, over, and under each other. The vehicles were streamlined forms with modernistic lines that implied movement. The entire area was staged kinetically to suggest the energy of modern urban life.”
In his book, Hench writes about how Walt discovered the core of his idea for PeopleMover, observing that “transportation as an attraction” had become a pivotal design element. “Walt was always looking for inventive new ways of moving guests around,” Hench wrote. “We discovered the idea for the New York World’s Fair WEDway PeopleMover system while on a business trip to the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. Walt and I were invited to visit the mill where Ford made steel for car bodies. We saw a device for handling steel ingots, masses of glowing red-hot metal. The ingots were moved around on tracks of powered rollers from one area to another while being transformed into sheet steel for making cars. Walt asked, ‘Do you think we could put some kind of seat on that type of conveyor, or some kind of arrangement for people to ride on… do you think this thing would handle it?” I said, ‘Sure, look at the weight carried here. I bet that Roger Broggie would know how to do it.’ Roger devised a platen, a flat metal surface, for the bottom of each guest vehicle to make contact with the powered wheels in the conveyor track. We could check the bed of rollers at night to make sure that they were all working. The system was so simple that it never failed to provide guests with a smooth ride.”
Walt first deployed the basic concept for what would become the PeopleMover at the 1964-’65 New York World’s Fair with his Magic Skyway at the Ford Motor Company’s Wonder Rotunda, where guests could ride through the exhibit in one of Ford’s new convertible automobiles.
The PeopleMover opened at Disneyland on July 2, 1967. The technology, innovative in 1967, featured electric motor-driven rubber wheels embedded in the track that propelled the vehicles. “The idea of track-mounted propulsion wheels that moved ride vehicles first appeared on the 1959 Disneyland Matterhorn Bobsleds, was then adapted for the Ford Magic Skyway, and finally used as a very practical propulsion method for the PeopleMover,” says former Imagineer and Disney Legend Bob Gurr, who, for nearly 40 years, helped move many a happy Disney theme park guest aboard vehicles and ride conveyances of his own design. “While the technical details varied, the basic scheme was the same.”
From the beginning, the emphasis was not only on moving guests from one place to another, but to contribute to a sense of non-stop movement for guests watching from the ground—while affording passengers a bird’s-eye view of surrounding attractions. “In the same manner as the Disneyland Railroad becoming wildly popular as a trip through a ‘new land,’ where one could get a glimpse of exciting attractions to explore after their trip, the PeopleMover would do the same,” Gurr adds. “From an elevated guideway, one could ‘preview’ an array of enticing futuristic places to visit. Walt also envisioned that a PeopleMover could do the same for other venues, such as shopping centers, expositions, and wild animal parks.”
“In designing Tomorrowland,” Hench says in Designing Disney, “Imagineers considered the track layouts and structures to be as much design elements as the vehicles, and intended them to convey the same meaning. On the PeopleMover, the structural forms are designed to support physical forms in motion. The cantilevered and curved track and the winding curves in the structural elements create continuous eye movement for guests, because the eye interprets line as the record of action. The shapes are organic, with softened and tense edges that look like muscles, expressing movement. The streamlined look was efficient, but also beautiful. Normally, it would have been easier to design boxed, right-angle columns; we opted for equally strong curvilinear structures supporting delicate, futuristic-looking roadbeds.”
Although the PeopleMover closed at Disneyland on August 21, 1995, a variation—the WEDway PeopleMover—opened at Walt Disney World on July 1, 1975, which provides to this day a journey in five-car trains, powered by environmentally friendly linear-induction motors. The attraction was re-named Tomorrowland Transit Authority in 1994, and rechristened again in 2010 as the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover.
Further proof, as if any is needed, of the visionary nature of Walt’s imagination, is the below-ground subway system at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. The system, which was built by Walt Disney Imagineering’s WED Transportation Systems in 1981, provides efficient transportation between terminals and the Marriott Hotel, operates in a circuit, and total round-trip time is approximately 18 minutes. The unique Subway train is the only WEDway PeopleMover built by The Walt Disney Company outside of a Disney property. It uses much of the same mechanical technology employed by the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover at Walt Disney World.
“Speaking for myself historically, I seriously valued its ‘not-too far-out’ conservative attraction configuration,” Gurr observes. “One that might be a bit mundane, but very reliable. I’ve discovered this fact many times over as more state-of-the-art attractions encountered difficulties. Having never been a trained engineer, that is my big discovery!”
Yesterday afternoon, reports broke out of smoke and a possible fire at the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover in the Magic Kingdom. Both the PeopleMover and the Astro Orbiter, which are housed in the same building, were evacuated. With the Reedy Creek Fire Department on the scene, the issue was resolved within the hour and both attractions were back up and running that same evening, however no further clarification regarding the incident was provided.
In a statement to the Orlando Sentinel, an RCID spokesperson said responders were called to the ride at 5:24 PM and confirmed that there was no fire at the scene. Responders spent a total of 12 minutes at the location before leaving.
The cause of the smoke has not been disclosed, but witnesses have stated that there was the smell of electrical and rubber burning in the area, which could be related to the moving ramp leading up and down the loading platform for the PeopleMover attraction. Cast Members were seen using a fire extinguisher on the ride’s exit ramp.
The Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover is a personal favorite of mine, as well as a fan favorite for many passholders and guests.
Well, due to its increased popularity, it seems they’ve added it to the ongoing list of refurbishments and improvements. Tomorrowland received a series of new paint jobs not too long ago, and more recently, we’ve seen Tomorrowland Light & Power Co. get new phone charging stations, as well as construction walls in Mickey’s Star Traders. Now, the PeopleMover appears to be getting refreshed support beams:
