4. The Walt Disney World debut

The monorail system at Walt Disney World opened at the same time as Walt Disney World itself, in October of 1971. Even so, the development of the system had its share of hiccups. Read this Theme Park Tourist article to get an in-depth look at those issues.

What made it so difficult was that the Orlando area was pretty remote before it became a theme park destination. Some of the specific problems the Walt Disney Company encountered included the lack of availability of concrete beams, the delivery of those beams and the difficulty of getting those heavy beams on to the trains. However, everything ended up sorting itself out and Disney World premiered its monorail system on October 1, 1971. It’s proven to be a wild success in the last 40+ years. Currently the Walt Disney World monorails carry an average of over 150,000 passengers daily.

5. The EPCOT connection

Walt Disney’s plans for the monorails expanded beyond theme parks. He believed that monorails could solve the growing transit issues the major cities. Sadly, monorails never really caught on in the United States outside of theme parks. By the time the system had debuted at Disneyland, America (especially Disney’s home Los Angeles) had become too attached to its automobiles.

However, the Disney monorail system was still of huge importance to Walt Disney’s original vision of EPCOT as an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. It was intended to carry residents on more lengthy journeys, from the Magic Kingdom to factories to research labs to the airport to the fringes of EPCOT. But city authorities moved too slowly on the installation of mass transit systems like the monorail, and by the time of Walt Disney’s death cars were already the dominating method of transportation. The only area to adopt monorails as a major transportation system in the U.S. was Las Vegas (which originally used second-hand trains from Walt Disney World).

6. Monorails today

Monorails never became the global game changer that Walt Disney wanted them to be, but they remain a memorable part of the Disney park experience. You can even consider the monorail systems the most expansive and elaborate attractions at the Disney parks.

Disney has gone so far as to theme the trains to promote certain characters and films. Walt Disney World debuted Monorail TRON, in commemoration of Tron: Legacy. Later Disney World would also theme trains after movies like The Avengers, Iron Man 3 and Monsters University and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 

Disneyland, meanwhile, used the monorails to celebrate the debut of Cars Land with trains with names and narrations based on the Cars series of films. The trains at both parks have since reverted back to their original narratives, but it’s fun to see that Disney makes an effort to make the monorail system more than just a form of transportation. It’s truly a technological marvel and an important part of the Disney parks legacy.