 1971
brought a new type of ALWEG monorail to the world- the Disney
Mark IV monorail. As in Disneyland before it with the Mark I
in 1959, the Mark II in 1961, and the Mark III in 1969, the Mark
IV was designed specifically for Walt Disney World. In the 18
years these 10 Mark IV trains were in service, they traveled
millions of miles and carried millions of passengers. These trains
were so good, two of the later built Mark IV's were later used
for the MGM-Bally's Monorail in Las Vegas, a starter line for
what is now the Las Vegas Monorail. The ten Mark IV trains had
a reliability of 99.962% in the '78-'79 timeframe. The Mark IV
trains were actively marketed for possible transit use up until
the mid-1980s. At that time Disney Imagineers decided it was
time to replace the fleet of Mark IV trains with similar-looking,
but updated designs. They put out for bid the manufacturing of
the new trains. Bombardier Mass Transit Division of Canada won
the bid to manufacture 12 new trains at a reported cost of $3.575
million per train. These were to be called the Mark VI. These
current trains have been in service since the first trains arrived
in 1989. |
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