CHAPTER 5: MONORAILS

When you do your interview for the Walt Disney World College Program, they ask you to pick three jobs you’d want to do if you were selected to work at Walt Disney World.

Being a smart ass, I declared “well if you’re going to let me do whatever I want, I want to drive the monorail!”  Now, I didn’t think for one second that someone would look at my goofy ass and think “here’s a young man that should be put in charge of a multi-million dollar train and guests’ lives.”

I think it was on the third or fourth day that we got our work assignments.  Mormon was on Big Thunder Mountain.  Buffalo was going to be working in Pleasure Island, which suited him just fine.  David was working in the Wide World of Sports as a janitor. Or custodial engineer. Whatever. He wasn’t happy.

When I opened my envelope, it just read “TTC”.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re working in the ticket and transportation center by the Magic Kingdom. I guess you’re selling tickets.”

That old Adam luck had stuck again.  I had the most boring job imaginable and I wouldn’t even be inside an actual park or hotel.  But such is life. So I went to my job a few days later, expecting to be bored out of my mind and stuck in a hot booth for the next 5 months.

“You’re a monorail pilot.”; my supervisor, Jules explained.

“Are you fucking with me?” I don’t know if I actually said that, but I’m sure it was what I was thinking.  Disney had to have one of those hidden camera shows and this was surely a prank that would leave the world laughing at my pain.

Except, no.  I was a monorail pilot. Or I would become one if I passed the test.  Unlike most positions for CP students, you had to pass a test to get the job or you would be shipped off to a different department. Again, you were in charge of the safety of guests, so that made sense.

Unfortunately for my trainer, Evelyn, I was a poor student. There was a lot of math involved in running the monorail.  See, despite the word “pilot”, you weren’t flying or even driving the train.  You had two jobs when piloting a monorail.  The first was simply letting guests board and exit the trains without injury.  The second was to control the speed of the train and stop it when ordered by the dispatcher.  The monorail lines have markers with numbers. You had to memorize the sequence and it wasn’t like 1,2,3… it was a pattern that they used.  If the dispatcher said “Monorail Pink, hold on 227.” I was supposed to know the sequence so that I could stop properly on 227. 

I was never very good at remembering the sequence. 

I think I had two weeks of training with Evelyn, but don’t quote me on that. 

For our test, we went to the Monorail warehouse behind the Magic Kingdom. Let me tell you, I was a little dumbfounded at the place.  At the end of each night, the monorails are parked in various stations.  A few were always stored in this warehouse.  It was the literal end of the line for the monorails.  But the thing is, the monorail line doesn’t have a proper station like the Magic Kingdom or Epcot or the one in the Contemporary.  The lines themselves simply stop.  No cushion or holding platform. The lines just end.  So how do you know when to stop so that the monorail doesn’t fall off the line?

There are tennis balls hanging from the ceiling.  You stop when the balls touch your windshield.

I’m not kidding even a little bit.  

Our main test proctor was a retired New York Police Officer named Frank.  I liked Frank. He was easy to talk to and had a nice sense of humor.  Frank was to assign a specific monorail and test proctor to each CP for their test, with the caveat that one of us would be forced to drive Monorail Pink for the exam. This news caused an audible groan throughout our class.   Monorail Pink had broken down 2 days prior and had to be towed back to the station. It was only just finished fixing that morning and it wasn’t clear how well it would perform.  

Frank chose me last and said he would be taking me aboard Pink.

“You’re going to have to buy me dinner first, Frank.”

“What?”

I’m kidding.  I actually threw my hands in the air and screamed “WOO! We’re all gonna die!”  No, Frank didn’t think I was funny either.

There’s no punchline to this part of the story. I passed the test.  The next day I went to work.

I was always given the worst shifts.  I was always on the main line either for the early morning shift, which began at 6:30 in the morning, or the late night shift which ended a couple of hours after Magic Kingdom closed.  Sometimes I would get home at 1 am or later. And I was always working the Magic Kingdom line. And it is noteworthy that the other CPs didn’t have my schedule. Some of them worked a few of the same shifts, but they also got some of the cushy jobs on the other lines. Not me.

Monorail Pilots don’t just get to sit on the train all day. You take turns. The rest of the time you would be opening and closing gates to let guests board the train. I actually kind of enjoyed that part. It kept me active and I lost a fair amount of weight. I would often jump the gate and run my fingers along the trains as they pulled into the station. I was scolded several times for this, because it was a safety issue. I guess maybe you could lose a finger?  I did it anyway.

My absolute favorite part of the job was driving the train during the fireworks.  Fun fact, transportation doesn’t run during fireworks.  Every bus, boat and monorail stops when the fireworks go off.  Now, if you’re very lucky, you’ll be driving the train through the Contemporary Resort during this time.  The Contemporary has a monorail station inside it and the train runs through it all day long.  When the fireworks start, they stop the monorail with its nose just outside the hotel.  It is the absolute, unquestionably best spot to watch the fireworks.  You have a perfect view… and there is no one there but you.  

It’s a perfect moment from my life. One that is irreplaceable.

I got fired from monorails after a few months.  As the story goes, I was fired for almost crashing the train.  It's a bit of an exaggeration that I indulge for comedic effect.

Monorails has a “three strikes and you’re out” rule.  As I said, I never quite got that sequence down.  I missed my holding mark multiple times.   The third time it happened, I panicked and stupidly hit the emergency brake.  The emergency brake on the train shuts down the entire system and they have to reboot it.  When I realized what I had done, I yelled “FUCK!!” as loud as I could.  Then I remembered the 3 small children sitting in the front of the train with me. I gave them all honorary Monorail Pilots licenses and told them not to tell their parents.

A week later I had a meeting with my supervisor Jules.  I had a bit of a crush on her. She was from New Orleans as well and knew some people that I knew.  Jules wasn’t what I would normally consider my type, but she was insanely hot.  She still is, by the way. 

She informed me that I could no longer work in Transportation, but she had secured me an incredible job!

…I was going to sell princess dresses in Toontown.  I no longer had a crush on Jules.

I was supposed to give back my pilots wings that I was assigned on orientation day, but I lied and said I lost them.  I still have them to this day. Unless someone from Walt Disney World is reading this; in which case, they were lost in a boating accident.