Speaker 1: Welcome to Text Time, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And those of you
Speaker 1: who know a little bit about me know that I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of Disney theme parks and theme parks
Speaker 1: in general. I'm a roller coaster fiend for example. Now,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, I am not claiming to be
Speaker 1: the biggest fan of Disney theme parks on our network
Speaker 1: because I sometimes think that Holly Fry actually lives at
Speaker 1: a Disney theme park. I mean I once went to
Speaker 1: Epcot down at Walt Disney World and I ran into Holly.
Speaker 1: And I didn't even know she was in Florida at
Speaker 1: the time. I mean I was there completely independently and
Speaker 1: just ran into her in the World Showcase. So while
Speaker 1: I won't take first prize for the biggest theme park
Speaker 1: fan over at I Heeart Radio, I think I can
Speaker 1: at least hold my own anyway. My wife and I
Speaker 1: had plans to visit the Disney parks this year, but
Speaker 1: we've decided to hold off due to COVID nineteen. Now
Speaker 1: the parks have reopened, as I'm sure some of you know,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of measures in place that
Speaker 1: are intended to keep visitors and cast safe. Cast, by
Speaker 1: the way, is the word that Disney uses for employees,
Speaker 1: as the company treats the theme parks like they are stages,
Speaker 1: and every employee is in part a performer on that stage. Now,
Speaker 1: all that being said, personally, I worry about opening something
Speaker 1: as big as a theme park during a pandemic, even
Speaker 1: with limits on how many people can come into a
Speaker 1: park per day and mask man dates and temperature checks
Speaker 1: and everything else. I particular really feel a lot of
Speaker 1: compassion for the cast, who run a higher risk of
Speaker 1: catching something because they could potentially encounter thousands of people
Speaker 1: every day that they are at work. So my wife
Speaker 1: and I have put our Disney plans on hold for
Speaker 1: the time being, but I figured I could take the
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk a bit about how some of the
Speaker 1: ride systems work. So my wife and I have put
Speaker 1: our Disney plans on hold, but I figured I could
Speaker 1: take the opportunity to talk a bit about how some
Speaker 1: of the ride systems work. Now, you guys might know
Speaker 1: that I've done a few episodes kind of in this vein.
Speaker 1: In a classic episode of Tech Stuff, Chris Pallette and
Speaker 1: I broke down a special effect called Pepper's Ghost and
Speaker 1: explained how Disney used that in the Haunted Mansion. So
Speaker 1: there will be some overlap here, and I'll talk about
Speaker 1: Pepper's Ghost again just briefly, but mostly I want to
Speaker 1: talk about some interesting ride systems associated with Disney, though
Speaker 1: some of them originated elsewhere. Now, when Disneyland opened on
Speaker 1: July seven teenth, nineteen fifty five, the list of attractions
Speaker 1: available to ride was rather modest. You had snow White
Speaker 1: Scary Adventures. You had Peter Pan's Flight, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride,
Speaker 1: Storybook Land, Canal Boats, the Jungle Cruise, the Mad Tea Party, Autopia,
Speaker 1: and the King Arthur Carousel. Plus you had the river
Speaker 1: Boat and the Railroad. A little later in n the
Speaker 1: park would also introduce the Casey Junior Circus Train and
Speaker 1: Dumbo the Flying Elephant. To kind of set the stage,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Peter Pan's Flight. It's a type of
Speaker 1: dark ride, and a dark ride takes place indoors. Passengers
Speaker 1: board a vehicle that moves through a series of scenes
Speaker 1: or tableau. Typically, these tell us story or follow a
Speaker 1: narrative arc. That's not always the case. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: a series of thematically related scenes. Like there are a
Speaker 1: lot of horror house seamed rides that you'll find at
Speaker 1: carnivals and amusement parks that don't really tell a story.
Speaker 1: They just have seen after scene of stuff jumping out
Speaker 1: at you. Lighting and sound effects create a certain experience,
Speaker 1: and they grew out of stuff that were called mill rides.
Speaker 1: Old mill rides. Now, this is a ride in which
Speaker 1: boats would travel down a guide way through an indoor space,
Speaker 1: typically one that is pretty darn dark. And uh, they
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily have any kind of operator on the boat.
Speaker 1: They didn't need one because the pathway was set in
Speaker 1: a single direction. There wasn't really any way to get
Speaker 1: off track. This is where we got the old Tunnel
Speaker 1: of Love rides famous in cartoons, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever actually seen one, But in these rides, amorous
Speaker 1: couples would get on a self guided boat in the dark,
Speaker 1: and it was so that they could commence to necking,
Speaker 1: you know, or whatever. I never got to ride on
Speaker 1: one with somebody else, and I assume there's a very
Speaker 1: special kind of pity in the eyes of a ride
Speaker 1: operator who would see me getting on a Tunnel of
Speaker 1: Love ride by myself. But the idea was that these
Speaker 1: rides created a socially acceptable reason for couples to be
Speaker 1: close and affectionate with one another, because the general perspective
Speaker 1: on affection was that should never ever be done in
Speaker 1: public back when these rides became popular. But the genius
Speaker 1: is credited for taking that concept and then evolving it
Speaker 1: into the dark ride format were the owners of an
Speaker 1: amusement park in New Jersey. The park was called the
Speaker 1: Tumbling Damn Park d A M. Not that Tumbling Damn Park,
Speaker 1: and the owners were Marvin Ripfer and Leon Cassidy in
Speaker 1: n They wanted to build an old mill style ride,
Speaker 1: but they found that if they were to construct didn't
Speaker 1: maintain it, it would be prohibitively expensive. And that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, if your ride involves hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: gallons of water, keeping everything ship shape as it were,
Speaker 1: is going to really cost you, not just to make
Speaker 1: sure it's all watertight, but you know, to maintain the
Speaker 1: ride and the boats and make sure that you're not
Speaker 1: getting mold or wrought and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's expensive, so instead they commissioned an indoor ride with
Speaker 1: cars kind of like bumper cars, and they would travel
Speaker 1: down a track. The riders would not have control of
Speaker 1: the cars, so you wouldn't be able to steer it.
Speaker 1: The track itself was electrified, kind of like the electric
Speaker 1: rail on a subway. The cars had contacts that touched
Speaker 1: this electrified rail, and that way the track could provide
Speaker 1: power to the cars, which had electric motors on them
Speaker 1: to power the wheels. It was all pretty simple stuff,
Speaker 1: but it was innovative. Legend has it that one rider
Speaker 1: said after being on this attraction that the ride was
Speaker 1: really herky jerky, and he felt like a pretzel afterward,
Speaker 1: and so the ride became known as the Pretzel Ride.
Speaker 1: To spice things up, the owners added some effects in
Speaker 1: the ride, so when the car would hit specific points
Speaker 1: along the track, it would trip a switch that would
Speaker 1: provide power to whatever the effect was, which could be
Speaker 1: a light going off or you know, powering an actuator
Speaker 1: so that some sort of critter pops up from behind
Speaker 1: a barrier, typically a skeleton that was kind of like
Speaker 1: the go to And thus the basics of the dark
Speaker 1: Ride were born. Now over the next couple of decades,
Speaker 1: dark rides popped up in amusement parks all around the world,
Speaker 1: mostly in the United States, most of them following that
Speaker 1: sort of spooky horror theme and having very little coherent
Speaker 1: story to them. But Disney would change that dramatically, and
Speaker 1: that brings us back to the dark rides of Disneyland.
Speaker 1: There were several of those that I mentioned. Snow White
Speaker 1: was one Mr Toad Peter Pan, and if you've ever
Speaker 1: been on Peter Pan's Flight at while disney World in Orlando,
Speaker 1: you know that ride is on a system that is
Speaker 1: in continuous motion, and I'll be covering that kind of
Speaker 1: system later on this episode. But the Disneyland version was
Speaker 1: the type of ride that actually comes to a complete
Speaker 1: stop at the end of a ride cycle, and that
Speaker 1: allows the people who are writing it to get off
Speaker 1: and new passengers to get onto the ride. Right. Operators
Speaker 1: would actually control this. They would you know, hit a
Speaker 1: button to send a vehicle on its way, and otherwise
Speaker 1: they would hold it until people were safely, you know,
Speaker 1: secured inside the vehicle. One of the cool things about
Speaker 1: the Peter Pan ride was that, unlike the others on
Speaker 1: this list, it's actually a suspended track ride, so the
Speaker 1: track is suspended above the passengers. The vehicle isn't sitting
Speaker 1: on a track, it's being it's hanging from a track.
Speaker 1: So the rider's cars, those are pirates shipped themed in
Speaker 1: the Peter Pan ride, are hanging beneath this suspended track,
Speaker 1: and that allowed the rides designers or imagineers as Disney
Speaker 1: calls them, imaginative engineers to create sections where the car
Speaker 1: appears to soar over scenes like the City of London
Speaker 1: or never never Land. The original Disneyland attraction had nine
Speaker 1: of these ships on the track during a day, and
Speaker 1: I had a tenth one in reserve in case something
Speaker 1: went wrong. Each of those ships was made of fiberglass
Speaker 1: and weighed about two fifty pounds or around a d
Speaker 1: and they were able to carry you know, two or
Speaker 1: maybe three people if the people were kind of smallish,
Speaker 1: and a tenth vehicle, like I said, would stand by
Speaker 1: in case one needed to be removed from the ride
Speaker 1: at any given point. There was a company called Cleveland
Speaker 1: tram Rail that actually built the track and the drive
Speaker 1: devices for the ride vehicles. And it's interesting because this
Speaker 1: was a company that wasn't known for making amusement park rides.
Speaker 1: They built out systems for overhead cranes, cranes that would
Speaker 1: transport heavy materials above industrial sites, and these cranes would
Speaker 1: go on trolleys along tracks, and they were using a
Speaker 1: similar system for these these rides on Peter Pan's Flight.
Speaker 1: So the motorized trolley would sit on a girder rail,
Speaker 1: and the trolley had an electric motor that had one
Speaker 1: whole horsepower to it. The wheels on the trolley would
Speaker 1: pinch the rail on either side, and thus you had
Speaker 1: what was called a friction drive. The wheels would have
Speaker 1: enough pressure on that rail and would provide the gripping
Speaker 1: power necessary for things like the vehicle to to go
Speaker 1: up an incline so they could climb an altitude, or
Speaker 1: to break so that it wouldn't just slide down a
Speaker 1: downward slope out of control. That would be disastrous. The
Speaker 1: ships hung from the trolley by a pair of masts,
Speaker 1: and the connecting points on the trolley itself were hinged,
Speaker 1: so the ships could maintain a level position as it
Speaker 1: moved around the track relative to the ground, instead of
Speaker 1: swinging like out at a weird angle. But that swinging
Speaker 1: bit became something of a problem. You know that that
Speaker 1: pivot meant that you could swing the ships left and right,
Speaker 1: and kids found that out and with a little wriggling
Speaker 1: started to cause them to swing all sorts of ways,
Speaker 1: and that could sometimes cause the ride to stop. For example,
Speaker 1: in one case, someone was making one of these rides
Speaker 1: swing so hard that it swung out and hit the
Speaker 1: interior wall of the attraction, and a component on the
Speaker 1: ride got embedded in the dry wall of the interior wall,
Speaker 1: and so the whole thing got stuck and they had
Speaker 1: to stop the ride. The track segments are electrical blocks,
Speaker 1: so you can think of the the entire ride being
Speaker 1: a series of electrical blocks, and each of those blocks
Speaker 1: have their own electrical circuit that supports one vehicle at
Speaker 1: a time. So as a ship moves from block one
Speaker 1: to block two, another ship can move into block one,
Speaker 1: and the ship that wasn't block two has moved into
Speaker 1: block three, and if you time it just right, that
Speaker 1: allows for an uninterrupted trip from London to Neverland. The
Speaker 1: original Peter Pan ride at Disneyland was missing one important
Speaker 1: character among all those tableau that it moved through, and
Speaker 1: that character was Peter Pan himself. The reason for the
Speaker 1: emission was actually on purpose. The original imagineers thought of
Speaker 1: the ride as taking place from the perspective of Peter Pan,
Speaker 1: so the passengers were effectively taking on the role of Pan.
Speaker 1: The problem was passengers didn't really get that, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of them walked away one or why Peter
Speaker 1: Pan was absent on his own ride. It would take
Speaker 1: nearly thirty years, but Disneyland's ride would eventually add Peter
Speaker 1: Pan into the experience in nineteen eighty three. The other
Speaker 1: versions of the ride, like the one at while Disney World,
Speaker 1: would sidestep that problem entirely. They built Peter Pan into
Speaker 1: the ride from the very beginning. They would also install
Speaker 1: a different drive system to achieve the same sort of
Speaker 1: effects that were at the Disneyland ride, but without having
Speaker 1: to contend with the numerous maintenance problems that the tram
Speaker 1: rail system had in the original Disneyland version. And it
Speaker 1: was also a very loud system. Imagineer said that the
Speaker 1: original drive system on the Disneyland ride was was distractingly loud.
Speaker 1: Another ride system that would find its way into a
Speaker 1: couple of different Disney attractions came from the Matter Horn,
Speaker 1: which was the first steel to roller coaster it opened
Speaker 1: back in nineteen fifty nine, or steel tubular coaster if
Speaker 1: you prefer so. It's housed in a replica of the
Speaker 1: matter Horn the Mountain in Switzerland, but it's at one
Speaker 1: one scale. And this actually would end up being another first.
Speaker 1: It was the first coaster housed inside an enclosed structure.
Speaker 1: Most roller coasters are outdoors. And you might wonder why
Speaker 1: Disney would build a matter Horn themed attraction in the
Speaker 1: first place. Because I'm a Disney fan, or at least
Speaker 1: I think of myself as such, and I wondered why
Speaker 1: there was a matter Horn ride. But at the time,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine, Disney's movie studio was getting ready
Speaker 1: to release a live action film called Third Man on
Speaker 1: the Mountains set on and around the matter Horn. Now
Speaker 1: I had not heard of this film, so I guess
Speaker 1: it didn't quite reach the level of instant classic. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are many Disney fanatics out there who are
Speaker 1: very familiar with the movie. This one was a new
Speaker 1: one on me. Uh. Though. To be fair, when it
Speaker 1: comes to the live action films, particularly of the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, I lost track Man because that studio
Speaker 1: made a ton of them. However, the matter Horn Ride
Speaker 1: is still at the park today, even if people don't
Speaker 1: remember the movie that inspired it. The coaster cars on
Speaker 1: the matter Horn are little bob sleds that whizz around
Speaker 1: the track actually tracks, because there are two intertwined tracks
Speaker 1: on the matter Horn Ride. The tubular track allows for
Speaker 1: a much smoother experience than traditional wooden rail based coasters.
Speaker 1: The Bob sleds wheels could be made from a hard
Speaker 1: plastic material like you know, nylon, rather than metal, and
Speaker 1: the wheels would fit against the track, on top of
Speaker 1: the track, underneath the track, and on the sides of
Speaker 1: the track, on the tubes as it were, and that
Speaker 1: would anchor the coaster car to the track, allowing it
Speaker 1: to take really steep turns without any fears of the
Speaker 1: coaster flying off because it was really there. With those
Speaker 1: wheels and those various orientations, the original Bob sleds could
Speaker 1: hold up to four people each. Now Bob Ger, an
Speaker 1: imagineer who really was sort of a car guy before
Speaker 1: he came to work with Disney, helped install the system
Speaker 1: for the matter Horn Bob sleds that would allow for
Speaker 1: more than one sled on the track at a time.
Speaker 1: The ride had track mounted wheels that can make contact
Speaker 1: with the bob sleds as they moved along the track.
Speaker 1: So these wheels are built into the track itself, and
Speaker 1: the wheels can either slow down a bob sled or
Speaker 1: it can give them a boost. You know, if the
Speaker 1: wheel is turning really quickly and the bob sled rolls
Speaker 1: up to it, then the bob sled gets a push
Speaker 1: from these wheels, or if the wheels are moving very slowly,
Speaker 1: they can break b R a k E the bob
Speaker 1: sled and so Gert calls them booster breaks. With the
Speaker 1: booster breakes, the bob sled speeds could be controlled a
Speaker 1: bit better, and it was safe to have more than
Speaker 1: one bob sled on the same track at the same time.
Speaker 1: That was another first. A lot of the roller coasters
Speaker 1: before that you only could allow one car to go
Speaker 1: on the track because otherwise you could be inviting disaster.
Speaker 1: But with the system, even if a car were stopped
Speaker 1: on part of the track, you could use the booster
Speaker 1: brakes to stop other bob sleds so that there aren't
Speaker 1: any collisions. The company that actually developed this technology was
Speaker 1: Ero Development. That was a company that partnered with Disney
Speaker 1: on many of Disney's early rides. Walt Disney himself would
Speaker 1: inform ger Bob ger in nineteen sixty one that he
Speaker 1: was going to build out a much larger version of
Speaker 1: this an attraction for the World's Fair that was going
Speaker 1: to happen in a few years in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: That particular event would also feature attractions like It's a
Speaker 1: Small World and the Carousel of Progress. And this attraction
Speaker 1: was the Ford Magic Skyway, in which passengers would climb
Speaker 1: into what look like a forward car and ride along
Speaker 1: a track, and along that way they would see stuff
Speaker 1: like animatronic dinosaurs and the futuristic City on either end
Speaker 1: of the journey. It was essentially a time travel narrative.
Speaker 1: Some of those set pieces would later find their way
Speaker 1: into other attractions at Disney Parks. Now, the forward cars
Speaker 1: of this ride weren't really cars. There were no motors
Speaker 1: in them. The engineers had stripped them down to be
Speaker 1: as lightweight as possible. They installed a flat plate on
Speaker 1: the underside of the chassis of these vehicles, and the
Speaker 1: track that the car would travel down had these booster brakes.
Speaker 1: These wheels set up in the track every three feet
Speaker 1: or so, so the car frame would roll up to
Speaker 1: one of these sets of wheels, and those sets of
Speaker 1: wheels would give the car frame the push it needed
Speaker 1: to roll further down the track, or it would slow
Speaker 1: down the vehicle in order to make it come to
Speaker 1: a stop and let people off, depending on whatever was needed.
Speaker 1: The car models that were simulated included Lincoln's, Mercury's Falcons, Comets,
Speaker 1: and a brand new sports car called the Mustang. This
Speaker 1: same propulsion system would later be used for the People Mover,
Speaker 1: an attraction in tomorrow Land at Disneyland and the Magic
Speaker 1: Kingdom in Orlando, and that lets people get a view
Speaker 1: of other stuff that's going on in Tomorrowland. Now, the
Speaker 1: Disneyland version of that attraction closed back in to make
Speaker 1: way for an ill fated ride called Rocket Rods. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are people in California wincing as I mentioned that,
Speaker 1: But the Walt Disney World version of the People Mover
Speaker 1: is still going strong, or at least it was the
Speaker 1: last time I was there, which was not long ago. Now,
Speaker 1: when we come back, will jump on a Doom Buggy
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about how those work in the Haunted Mansion.
Speaker 1: But first, let's take a quick break. The next innovation
Speaker 1: I really want to talk about is called the omni mover,
Speaker 1: which is sort of the foundation for a ride system
Speaker 1: and found in rides like the Haunted Mansion. It was
Speaker 1: named by Bob Gurn, although he was not the only
Speaker 1: person to work on it. It was actually a group
Speaker 1: effort by numerous brilliant imagineers, and it was an approach
Speaker 1: to solving a crowd management problem, particularly for dark rides.
Speaker 1: So dark rides have a limited capacity. I mean every
Speaker 1: ride does right. You only can fit so many people
Speaker 1: on a ride within a given amount of time. And
Speaker 1: traditional dark rides had vehicles that had to come to
Speaker 1: a stop for unloading and loading, and there had to
Speaker 1: be a great deal of space between vehicles to avoid collisions.
Speaker 1: And each vehicle can only carry a certain number of people,
Speaker 1: which is all dependent upon the specific ride, of course.
Speaker 1: And if you look at how long it takes on
Speaker 1: average to unload and load a vehicle, you can factor
Speaker 1: in the number of guests who can ride a vehicle
Speaker 1: at any given time, count the total number of vehicles
Speaker 1: that are active on the ride, and how long the
Speaker 1: ride takes from start to finish, and you do a
Speaker 1: little math, you can come up with how many people
Speaker 1: can ride a specific attraction within a certain amount of time,
Speaker 1: such as an hour, and you can call this the
Speaker 1: theoretical hourly ride capacity. Now, you know, in reality the
Speaker 1: number is going to be a little bit lower than
Speaker 1: the theoretical capacity because you know, stuff works in the
Speaker 1: real world, and then sometimes stuff doesn't work, so you're
Speaker 1: never gonna really hit that ideal number. On most days,
Speaker 1: you'll just get, you know, somewhere in the range. But
Speaker 1: the dark rides at Disneyland, the stuff like Peter Pan
Speaker 1: and Mr. Toad and snow White, had capacities of around
Speaker 1: five hundred two maybe upwards of one thousand people per hour.
Speaker 1: That really depends upon which source you're looking at, but
Speaker 1: most sources actually put Peter Pan closer to around seven
Speaker 1: hundred fifty riders per hour. So if you have more
Speaker 1: than people in line ahead of you, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: waiting more than an hour to get on that ride.
Speaker 1: And Peter Pan is one of those rides that tends
Speaker 1: to get super long lines, partly because it's also a
Speaker 1: ride that thematically doesn't have any scary parts in it,
Speaker 1: whereas a lot of dark rides did have scary parts,
Speaker 1: so it's very popular with kids. Plus the soaring thing
Speaker 1: is kind of fun anyway. What if you could design
Speaker 1: a ride so that, you know, barring certain circumstances, the
Speaker 1: vehicles would remain in motion and never come to a stop.
Speaker 1: What if each vehicle on the ride was actually part
Speaker 1: of a larger moving system, so you can actually pack
Speaker 1: in tons of vehicles on this ride and you never
Speaker 1: have to worry about collisions because they're all moving or
Speaker 1: stopping all at the same time. They're they're not independent
Speaker 1: of one another. What if you paired that system with
Speaker 1: a moving sidewalk so that guests could step on the
Speaker 1: sidewalk when they were getting ready to get on or
Speaker 1: get off the ride, and the sidewalks moving at the
Speaker 1: same speed as the ride vehicles are moving, so from
Speaker 1: the perspective of the ride vehicle, the sidewalk appears to
Speaker 1: be stationary, or if you want to reverse that, from
Speaker 1: the perspective of the sidewalk, the vehicles appeared to be stationary,
Speaker 1: makes it easier to get on and off. All of
Speaker 1: this would be a brilliant approach to expediting guests getting
Speaker 1: to experience a ride. Bob Ger would work with another
Speaker 1: imagineer named John Hench to design the Omni Mover system,
Speaker 1: and technically they designed it for a different ride. It
Speaker 1: would only get used for the Haunted Mansion a little
Speaker 1: later on. In fact, originally the Haunted Mansion was going
Speaker 1: to be a walk through attraction, but that has its
Speaker 1: own problems because people walk at different speeds, you can't
Speaker 1: really predict what the capacity of such an attraction is
Speaker 1: going to be. This ended up being a nice solution
Speaker 1: to that. So they had developed the Omni mover for
Speaker 1: a different ride, but famously, the Haunted Mansion would really
Speaker 1: make it well known. Generally speaking, think of the omni
Speaker 1: move as a chain that makes a complete loop. So
Speaker 1: it's a loop of chain, and the links in this
Speaker 1: case are the vehicles, the cars, the doom buggies in
Speaker 1: the case of the Haunted Mansion. The whole chain moves
Speaker 1: as a unit around the course of a ride, and
Speaker 1: the cars will pass through each segment in turn. And
Speaker 1: because all the cars are linked together, they are all
Speaker 1: either moving or they are all stopped. And it'll be
Speaker 1: a lot easier for me if I just use the
Speaker 1: Haunted Mansion as the specific example, because then I can
Speaker 1: refer to the ride vehicles as Doom Buggies, and let's
Speaker 1: face it, that's just playing cool. The Doom Buggy is
Speaker 1: a fiberglass ride vehicle that has a sort of clamshell
Speaker 1: like structure. So there's a seat. Passenger sit in the seat,
Speaker 1: and it curves up behind you and over you, so
Speaker 1: it's like you're kind of cupped in this buggy. And
Speaker 1: there's a front panel with a safety bar and that
Speaker 1: rises up as if by magic. According to the narrator
Speaker 1: of the ride, the ghost Host, he is lowering the
Speaker 1: bar into place for you. Spoiler alert, he's not. But
Speaker 1: I'll explain how this works a little bit later. So
Speaker 1: when you walk up to the loading area for the
Speaker 1: actual Doom Buggies and the Haunted Mansion, you see a
Speaker 1: moving sidewalk that's traveling at the same speed as the
Speaker 1: Doom Buggies. The Doom Buggies are pretty close to each other,
Speaker 1: and under the Buggies is a track consisting of a
Speaker 1: frame and rails. The track itself is three dimensional rather
Speaker 1: than a traditional two dimensional track. And it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a little challenging to talk about this without visual aids,
Speaker 1: but I will try to do my best. Okay, So
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a length of track from the
Speaker 1: Haunted Mansion ride in front of you, and you're looking
Speaker 1: at it head on, like a cross section, so it's
Speaker 1: just from one end of the track you're looking down
Speaker 1: the length of it. If you were to look at this,
Speaker 1: you would look like a metal rectangle, but the longer
Speaker 1: sides would on the top and the bottom and the
Speaker 1: shorter sides are the actual size of the rectangle. And
Speaker 1: on the top side you would see that it's not
Speaker 1: a complete line. There's actually a gap in the middle.
Speaker 1: That's the slot through which the Doom Buggies base travels.
Speaker 1: It's where the doom Buggie connects down to the chassis
Speaker 1: that goes down this track. A little more than halfway
Speaker 1: down the sides of this metal rectangle, you would see
Speaker 1: the pair of guide rails, one on either side, one
Speaker 1: on the left, one on the right. These are the
Speaker 1: rails that hold up the buggies. If you were thinking
Speaker 1: of the buggies like a railroad train, these would be
Speaker 1: the railroad tracks. Now, each buggy is mounted on an
Speaker 1: H shaped chassis and that fits onto the track, so
Speaker 1: you can kind of think of the buggies as being
Speaker 1: sort of like office chairs that are on casters, except
Speaker 1: in this case, instead of being on casters where you
Speaker 1: can roll in any direction, you're mounted onto a track.
Speaker 1: You can only travel along that track. The wheels on
Speaker 1: the buggy chassis can roll over these guide rails. If
Speaker 1: you were to pull the chassis out of the track,
Speaker 1: you would see that the chassis also has two other
Speaker 1: pairs of wheels in addition to those guide wheels, and
Speaker 1: those two pairs of wheels are on the top of
Speaker 1: the chassis, not not below it. So what are those
Speaker 1: four Well, one pair of those wheels are pitch orienting wheels.
Speaker 1: If you go back to the description of the track,
Speaker 1: along that top section of the rectangle where the slot
Speaker 1: is on either side of the slot, you would see
Speaker 1: a T shaped rail on either side. One of those
Speaker 1: T shaped rails is the pitch orienting rail, and the
Speaker 1: wheels along the top of the chassis grip either side
Speaker 1: of that rail, and these wheels are connected to an
Speaker 1: arm that ultimately determines the pitch orientation of the buggy itself.
Speaker 1: So as these wheels move along this rail, and as
Speaker 1: rail changes shape, it causes the buggy to change its
Speaker 1: pitch again. I could walk through a deeper explanation of
Speaker 1: how this actually works. But without visual aids, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to convey that information properly. I guess the simplest
Speaker 1: way to put it is just imagine that there are
Speaker 1: some pivots and levers connected to these wheels, so that
Speaker 1: a small change at the wheels results in a large change,
Speaker 1: that being the pitch of the buggy itself. Now, these
Speaker 1: rails are designed in such a way so that when
Speaker 1: the buggies are either going up or going down a hill,
Speaker 1: the buggy itself maintains a more or less level orientation
Speaker 1: relative to the passengers and the ground below. With some exceptions.
Speaker 1: There is a steep hill in the Hot and mansioned
Speaker 1: ride where the buggies have to turn around so that
Speaker 1: you're kind of in a reclined seating position as you
Speaker 1: go down this hill. It's just too steep to be
Speaker 1: able to uh to compensate for that with the pitch
Speaker 1: orientation rail. Now, the other T shaped rail, because remember
Speaker 1: there are two of them. One of them is the
Speaker 1: pitch orienting rail, the other one is the swivel orientation rail.
Speaker 1: And so the chassis has a pair of wheels that
Speaker 1: grip this rail as well, and these wheels connect to
Speaker 1: a gear assembly that controls the direction the buggy faces.
Speaker 1: It can swivel the buggy in a specific direction, so
Speaker 1: as the wheels move along this rail, changes in that
Speaker 1: rail caused the buggy to swivel in specific directions, and
Speaker 1: by shaping that rail precisely, the ride designers could make
Speaker 1: sure that the passengers are facing the proper direction for
Speaker 1: any specific parts of the ride. So to recap the
Speaker 1: guide rails and the guide wheels are what allowed the
Speaker 1: buggies to travel along the pathway of this ride. The
Speaker 1: pitch orienting rail and wheels maintain the buggies level to
Speaker 1: a degree, and the swivel rail and wheels determine which
Speaker 1: direction the buggy is facing at any given moment. These
Speaker 1: are all purely mechanical systems. There are no electronics here,
Speaker 1: so there's no circuitry. It's just physics based upon the
Speaker 1: shape of these rails and the wheels against those rails.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool now. The chassiss are linked together and
Speaker 1: there are one hundred thirty one of them at the
Speaker 1: Disneyland attraction, so Buggy number one is linked behind Buggy
Speaker 1: one and in front of buggy number two and so
Speaker 1: on all the way around, making a full chain all
Speaker 1: the way through the ride, and they all move together,
Speaker 1: but they can swivel and pivot independently depending on where
Speaker 1: they are along the track. So that's safety bar I mentioned.
Speaker 1: How does that move into place, Well, it's not ghostly magic.
Speaker 1: This part of the clamshell design of the buggy is
Speaker 1: mounted on a pivot arm, so it can move up
Speaker 1: or it can move down, and the arm has tensions
Speaker 1: springs on it, and those springs the way the tension
Speaker 1: is it normally holds the safety bar in the lowered
Speaker 1: or closed buggy position, So when there is no other
Speaker 1: force acting on this buggy, it's naturally closed because those
Speaker 1: springs are holding it closed. But mounted on the end
Speaker 1: of this pivot arm are stabilizing wheels, which through most
Speaker 1: of the ride aren't making contact with anything. They are
Speaker 1: these tiny wheels that are on the back of the
Speaker 1: doom buggies and they're usually just up in the air,
Speaker 1: not touching anything, so that bar stays in place because
Speaker 1: the springs are holding it because of the tension. But
Speaker 1: in the loading and unloading zones there's a special stabilizing rail,
Speaker 1: a guide rail mounted at a level that will engage
Speaker 1: those wheels. Uh. This guide rails actually higher up than
Speaker 1: the track that the chassis is traveling along because that
Speaker 1: actually extends down beneath the floor level quite a bit.
Speaker 1: The buggy moves along the track, and when the wheels
Speaker 1: make contact with this stabilization rail, it forces the pivot
Speaker 1: arm to you know, pivot. It strains against the springs,
Speaker 1: and the springs expand as the wheels are pressed up
Speaker 1: by this immovable rail, and thus the bar rises up,
Speaker 1: meaning the buggy actually opens. The clamshell opens up. As
Speaker 1: long as those wheels are pressed against a rail like that,
Speaker 1: the door remains open. But as it starts to leave
Speaker 1: the loading area, that rail starts to slope away, and
Speaker 1: when it slopes away, the wheels gradually lose contact with
Speaker 1: the rail and the spring is able to contract and
Speaker 1: it forces the bar back into the lowered or closed position. Again.
Speaker 1: It's a simple, elegant system, purely mechanical, and it means
Speaker 1: the body of the buggy itself doesn't need any electronic
Speaker 1: parts except for the speaker system. The sound system that's
Speaker 1: built into the buggies is electronic, but all the parts
Speaker 1: that are about moving are purely mechanical as for how
Speaker 1: the cars move. Again, that's built into the track. It's
Speaker 1: not part of the doom buggies. It's in the track.
Speaker 1: On the underside of the chassis is a grip plate.
Speaker 1: This is a vertically aligned metal plate, so it's like
Speaker 1: a shark fin, except it sticking out the bottom of
Speaker 1: the chassis, not the top, and the grip plate comes
Speaker 1: into contact with rubber belts mounted on drive motors on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the track. So think of two wheels
Speaker 1: with rubber belts on them. They're essentially pressing against each
Speaker 1: other and they're spinning really fast, and as the plate
Speaker 1: comes in between them, the belts grip the plate and
Speaker 1: push it through. That's exactly how this drive motor is working.
Speaker 1: So it can make the entire ride move, or it
Speaker 1: can bring things to a stop. These drive motors are
Speaker 1: only found on straight segments of track because when the
Speaker 1: vehicles are going around a curve, they wouldn't align that
Speaker 1: the grip plate would not come into alignment with those
Speaker 1: rubber belts. So if you're ever in a part of
Speaker 1: the ride that's curving, you are not in a section
Speaker 1: that is being powered at that moment. So when you're
Speaker 1: going around Madame Leota, for example, during the seance sequence,
Speaker 1: you know that it's other sections of the ride that
Speaker 1: are actually getting the power to move everything at that point. Now,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, there are speakers in the doom buggies.
Speaker 1: These are electronic obviously, and they play the audio for
Speaker 1: the ride, and those audio cues are are lined up
Speaker 1: with whatever area you're going through in the Haunted Mansions,
Speaker 1: So according to the relative position of your buggy, you
Speaker 1: hear a certain audio track. If you've ever been on
Speaker 1: the ride when it has come to a stop, as
Speaker 1: sometimes can happen, especially like let's say someone with mobility
Speaker 1: issues needs to get on or off the ride, they
Speaker 1: may have to stop it temporarily um or if there's
Speaker 1: a malfunction in the ride, it might stop temporarily. But
Speaker 1: that means you'll be stuck in a stationary position and
Speaker 1: you'll hear the same audio loop for a while. I
Speaker 1: always seem to get stuck on that hill leading down
Speaker 1: to the graveyard scene when you're in that reclined position,
Speaker 1: So I hear a lot of grim grinning ghosts whenever
Speaker 1: I ride this ride. The fact that there are more
Speaker 1: than one thirty doom buggies compared to the nine pirate
Speaker 1: ships on peter Pan's flight, and that these buggies never,
Speaker 1: for the most part, stop moving. A lot more people
Speaker 1: can experience the Haunted Mansion in an hour than peter
Speaker 1: Pan's flight. Even though the Haunted Mansion is a longer ride,
Speaker 1: it's more than twice as long as peter Pan's flight.
Speaker 1: Peter Pan's plays less than three minutes long. Haunted Mansion
Speaker 1: is more than seven minutes long. So the theoretical hourly
Speaker 1: capacity for the Haunted Mansion is more than three thousand
Speaker 1: guests an hour, and Peter Pan is closer to eight hundred. Now,
Speaker 1: I mentioned Pepper's Ghost at the top of this episode,
Speaker 1: so before I move on to other ride systems, I
Speaker 1: thought I would explain what that is really quickly. This
Speaker 1: is an old illusion and it pre dates Disney by
Speaker 1: a long stretch. In fact, there's an early historical account
Speaker 1: of this that dates all the way back to four
Speaker 1: and it's all based off of light and reflection. It's
Speaker 1: used primarily uh And in the Haunted Mansion in the
Speaker 1: ballroom party sequence, where a bunch of ghosts are gathered
Speaker 1: for a swinging good wake. So let's say that you've
Speaker 1: got a background upon which you want ghostly images to
Speaker 1: appear like a physical background. People are actually gonna be
Speaker 1: able to look at this thing. Well. With the haunted mansion,
Speaker 1: this would be the large banquet hall. And in front
Speaker 1: of this background you have a transparent pain of glass
Speaker 1: or plastic, and it's at a forty five degree angle
Speaker 1: with respect to the audience's point of view, and out
Speaker 1: of sight of the audience, off to some side or
Speaker 1: the other, you have a subject, in this case, an
Speaker 1: animatronic figure that is very well lit, but the audience
Speaker 1: can't see it directly. However, they can see the reflection
Speaker 1: of these well lit figures on that transparent pane of glass,
Speaker 1: And because the glass is transparent, the audience can actually
Speaker 1: see through the figures themselves. They are ghosts. You get
Speaker 1: yourself some ghosts in that sequence. It's pretty darn cool.
Speaker 1: So in that ballroom scene, you've got figures that are
Speaker 1: in a plane above and below the doom buggies because
Speaker 1: the actual figures themselves are above and below the track.
Speaker 1: Now you don't see a reflection of yourself in that sequence,
Speaker 1: because the doom buggies are not brightly lit. Whereas the
Speaker 1: animatronic figures above and below you are lit very very well,
Speaker 1: and just by dimming the lights around those animatronics, you
Speaker 1: can create the effect of ghosts disappearing as their reflections fade.
Speaker 1: So the effect is that you're seeing ghosts flying near
Speaker 1: the ceiling or around the banquet table, when in reality
Speaker 1: they are animatronic figures that are actually above and below
Speaker 1: your doom Buggy spooky. And this sort of effect was
Speaker 1: possible because the ride designers could determine which way the
Speaker 1: audience would be facing. Alright, I got a little bit
Speaker 1: more to say about ride systems before we wrap this up,
Speaker 1: but first let's take another quick break. The omni mover
Speaker 1: system has been used in several rides at Disney, though
Speaker 1: according to Bob Gurr, not all the rides that are
Speaker 1: in constant motion are technically omni mover rides. For example,
Speaker 1: Girl says that the ride system of Spaceship Earth is
Speaker 1: not an omni mover, despite the fact that on casual
Speaker 1: glance it certainly looks like one, and in fact, a
Speaker 1: lot of sources referred to it as an omni mover ride.
Speaker 1: It's the type of ride that is in constant motion
Speaker 1: there's a moving sidewalk for you to get on and
Speaker 1: get off of the ride. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: is specifically that sets it apart, but Girr has said,
Speaker 1: quote it was a one of a kind conveyor, totally
Speaker 1: unlike and sharing no parts with an omni mover end quote.
Speaker 1: And he also said he opposed the ride system so
Speaker 1: much during the development cycle the supervisors moved him to
Speaker 1: another ride rather than have to deal with him anymore.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what the actual differences are. Anyway,
Speaker 1: rather than try and suss out how and why Spaceship
Speaker 1: Earth is different, I figure I would talk about a
Speaker 1: totally separate ride system that was pioneered over at Disneyland.
Speaker 1: That is the Enhanced Motion Vehicle or e m V.
Speaker 1: This system is the one that powers rides like India
Speaker 1: Jones Adventure, the Temple of the Forbidden Eye in Disneyland. Uh,
Speaker 1: There's Dinosaur in Disney's Animal Kingdom, and there's the Crystal
Speaker 1: Skull ride at Tokyo Disneyland. These rides at passengers get
Speaker 1: aboard a vehicle that looks a lot like a jeep,
Speaker 1: although it's a jeep that can see twelve people in
Speaker 1: three rows. I understand that if you were to ride
Speaker 1: with James Williams of Fun House Fame, you'd best allow
Speaker 1: him to be in the driver's seat, because he takes
Speaker 1: that extremely seriously. Passengers experience a wild ride as if
Speaker 1: the vehicle is moving along rugged terrain, taking real sharp
Speaker 1: turns and pitching and rumbling and dipping like crazy, all
Speaker 1: the while the actual ride vehicle is traveling along a nice, flat,
Speaker 1: simple surface. Now the secret here is that you can
Speaker 1: think of the ride vehicle as having three distinct parts.
Speaker 1: The part that you're sitting in, the passenger part is
Speaker 1: called the motion base, and is the bit that gets
Speaker 1: pitched around during the ride, and it simulates a much
Speaker 1: more dramatic scenario than what is actually happening. Then you've
Speaker 1: got the ride vehicle itself, which consists of the hydraulics
Speaker 1: and the pump, and the computer control systems, the motor,
Speaker 1: the wheels, essentially all the stuff to make the actual
Speaker 1: motions and to propel the vehicle. The third part is
Speaker 1: out of sight. It's beneath the floor of the attraction.
Speaker 1: There's again a slot in the floor that part of
Speaker 1: the ride extends down into. And this third part are
Speaker 1: they're well, they're called the bogies. Uh. Sometimes people would
Speaker 1: call them trucks. It really depends on where you're from.
Speaker 1: Bogeis tends to be British North America. People often use
Speaker 1: the word truck to describe this, but it's to describe
Speaker 1: a structure that typically has wheels and axles attached through
Speaker 1: bearings and intended for use on rail systems. So the
Speaker 1: base of a railroad car the wheels that that whole
Speaker 1: structure holds the wheel and axle. That's a bogeye. Now,
Speaker 1: in the case of the rides that I mentioned, the
Speaker 1: tracks and bogies are again below the surface of the floor,
Speaker 1: so you can't see them as you ride the ride.
Speaker 1: The ride vehicle connects to the bogies via posts that
Speaker 1: extend up through that slot on the floor. It's not
Speaker 1: too different from how the omnimover connects, although the actual
Speaker 1: propulsion system is very different from the Omni mover. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could argue in a way it's sort of the
Speaker 1: opposite of the Omni mover, as each vehicle on this
Speaker 1: system is independent of all the others, as opposed to
Speaker 1: moving in concert with them. So each vehicle has two bogies.
Speaker 1: One is in the front and one is in the rear,
Speaker 1: and power flows through the track through the bogies, providing
Speaker 1: electrical power to the vehicles. That four volts and two
Speaker 1: hundred amps. That's impressive. The bogies are also in charge
Speaker 1: of steering the front wheels. They manipulate the front wheels
Speaker 1: of the vehicle mechanically. Um It does this by following
Speaker 1: a tubular guide rail under the floor. The rear wheels
Speaker 1: are also steerable, but those are controlled by actuators aboard
Speaker 1: the actual ride vehicle itself, not the mechanical system that's
Speaker 1: being used by the front wheels and the bogies. The
Speaker 1: top half of the vehicle is really a doozy. It's
Speaker 1: mounted on actuators that can change the pitch, roll, and
Speaker 1: yaw of that section, just as a motion simulator would.
Speaker 1: So you can think of it as like taking a
Speaker 1: motion simulator off of its stationary pedestal and then mounting
Speaker 1: it to the chassis of an electric car. That's what
Speaker 1: one of these things actually is. The effect is that
Speaker 1: the passengers are feeling like they're on board and out
Speaker 1: of control vehicle, but in reality it's it's very much
Speaker 1: controlled and you can simulate all sorts of stuff. For example,
Speaker 1: to simulate rapid acceleration, the actuators can elevate the front
Speaker 1: of the passenger compartment, so the car starts to move forward.
Speaker 1: The actuators increase the incline of the passenger compartment and
Speaker 1: that presses you back in your seat, kind of the
Speaker 1: same way as if you accelerated really quickly. It's all
Speaker 1: just the basic simulator tricks, but added to a moving platform.
Speaker 1: If you were to remove the actuators and the motion platform,
Speaker 1: you would see these simple electric cars following a curvy path,
Speaker 1: and they might stop or slow down occasionally, but otherwise
Speaker 1: they would be pretty boring to watch. It's all those
Speaker 1: simulator tricks that make this an exciting ride. The motion
Speaker 1: platform is mounted on three actuators powered by the hydraulic
Speaker 1: pump in the North American rides. In Japan, it's actually
Speaker 1: an electro magnetic system. Two of those actuators are in
Speaker 1: the front of the vehicle, one is on the left
Speaker 1: side and one is on the right side. The third
Speaker 1: actuator is in the rear center of the vehicle. Individually,
Speaker 1: each actuator can change pitch or roll, but collectively they
Speaker 1: can move along all three thrust planes X, Y, and
Speaker 1: Z and all three rotational axes, so pitch, roll, and
Speaker 1: y'all you get six degrees of motion. The North American
Speaker 1: ride vehicles have a hydraulic pump driven by a fifty
Speaker 1: horsepower electric motor, which means that the electric motor for
Speaker 1: one of these vehicles is fifty times more powerful than
Speaker 1: the electric motor on one of the Peter Pan's flight ships.
Speaker 1: I just thought that was kind of fun. It requires
Speaker 1: about thirty five gallons of hydraulic fluid per vehicle, which
Speaker 1: means that when a hydraulic fluid line breaks, and it
Speaker 1: does happen, it causes a huge mess. That is the
Speaker 1: reason why the Japanese rides don't use hydraulic systems. They
Speaker 1: have very strict environmental laws in Japan, and that's why
Speaker 1: they had to go with an electromagnetic system rather than
Speaker 1: a hydraulic system for those actuators. Uh. Now, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting things about hydraulic systems, but this episode
Speaker 1: is running long already, so I'm just gonna skip that
Speaker 1: and go straight to talking about the computer system that
Speaker 1: controls these actuators. It makes the motion platform move in
Speaker 1: specific ways that fit the narrative of the story, Like
Speaker 1: it wouldn't make sense for the ride to simulate slowing
Speaker 1: down when it's supposed to be speeding up. So the
Speaker 1: computer system has that all coordinated, but it also has
Speaker 1: some quirks built into it. So according to imagineers, they
Speaker 1: programmed each vehicle to have its own kind of personality.
Speaker 1: So one vehicle might be quote unquote afraid of loud noises.
Speaker 1: So if the vehicle gets to a part of the
Speaker 1: ride that triggers a loud noise, the vehicle might suddenly,
Speaker 1: you know, stop as if it were scared. Other vehicles
Speaker 1: might be scared of bugs or an Indiana would really
Speaker 1: relate to this or snakes, And that means that the
Speaker 1: ride experience changes from ride to ride. You can write
Speaker 1: it multiple times and actually get very different experiences, which
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. The computer system allows for variation, something
Speaker 1: that would be in possible with a purely mechanical ride
Speaker 1: like an omnimover ride. There's one effect in the Disneyland
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones ride that is truly bunkers because it's going
Speaker 1: to an extreme in order to simulate something that otherwise
Speaker 1: it's very simple. So at one point in the ride,
Speaker 1: you are on this ride vehicle and you come up
Speaker 1: to Indiana Jones. He's dangling from a vine and the
Speaker 1: boulder from raiders. The lost arics starts to roll down
Speaker 1: towards you. The vehicle tries to back up, but then
Speaker 1: it has to stop because the way back is trapped,
Speaker 1: and so it lunges into motion to move forward and
Speaker 1: move under the boulder before I can crush you. Only
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Those vehicles can't back up. I mean
Speaker 1: they physically cannot go into reverse. So the ride designers
Speaker 1: had to simulate the ride going into reverse, which meant
Speaker 1: they mounted the entire scene, everything that's surrounding you on
Speaker 1: a movable platform. So it looks like you're going in
Speaker 1: reverse because stuff is moving away from you, but the
Speaker 1: vehicle itself is staying still. The motion platform, uh, the
Speaker 1: actual thing on the hydraulics or the actuators, It tilts
Speaker 1: a bit to simulate motion, to simulate that you're actually
Speaker 1: moving backward, but the wheels on the car are not turning. Instead,
Speaker 1: the scene around you is moving away as if the
Speaker 1: car is backing up, which is just plain bunkers. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's an entire section of this ride that has to
Speaker 1: move around the vehicle just to make it seem like
Speaker 1: that car is in reverse. As I mentioned earlier, every
Speaker 1: vehicle on this ride operates independently of all the other vehicles,
Speaker 1: So part of this system is a communications network that
Speaker 1: keeps the overall ride control tower informed of what each
Speaker 1: vehicle is doing and where it is along the ride,
Speaker 1: And every vehicle knows where every other vehicle is because
Speaker 1: of that ride control tower. It sends out information via
Speaker 1: radio signal, and that keeps these vehicles from smashing into
Speaker 1: each other, which I think we can all agree is
Speaker 1: a good thing. The whole path of the ride is
Speaker 1: divided up into blocks. Just as I was talking about
Speaker 1: Peter Pan's flight, same thing is true for this Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones ride. There are segments of the ride that constitute
Speaker 1: a block, and each block has essentially a one vehicle
Speaker 1: limit to it, So the system won't allow another ride
Speaker 1: to go into a block if there is a vehicle
Speaker 1: they're already. It will slow things down and control it
Speaker 1: so that a vehicle can clear a block before a
Speaker 1: second vehicle can enter it, and the vehicles also trigger
Speaker 1: ride elements as the cars go through the ride. System
Speaker 1: so that specific sound effects and special effects and vehicle
Speaker 1: motions are all aligned properly. And to do all of this,
Speaker 1: every single car has sixteen gigabytes of programmable memory. Technically
Speaker 1: it's redo the memory, but it's read only memory that
Speaker 1: you can erase and reprogram, which sounds counterintuitive if you
Speaker 1: know anything about read only memory. And of course there
Speaker 1: are tons of other ride systems we can talk about,
Speaker 1: and I maybe I'll do a second episode to kind
Speaker 1: of cover some of those, like some of the boat
Speaker 1: based systems, or the submersible ride, or some of the
Speaker 1: others like Sarin, and talk about how those work. But
Speaker 1: for now, this has been more than enough. I've been
Speaker 1: going on for about Disney for way too long, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to conclude this. If you guys have suggestions
Speaker 1: for future topics I should cover and tech stuff, whether
Speaker 1: it's a technology, a company, maybe it's a theme and
Speaker 1: tech anything like that, let me know. Send me a
Speaker 1: message on Twitter. The handle for the show is tech
Speaker 1: Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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