Disney's Skyliner

Yes. That makes sense. It enters the station and comes off the line, traveling at a much slower speed. (I don’t know, but I’m guessing they will have a moving walk-way that matches the speed for people getting on/off.) Then, after it completes the turn it will end up back on the line at normal speed.

Unlike the simplistic design of the Skyway and Skyride, the Skyliner is much more advanced and doesn’t require manual control of the gondolas to do all this, of course.

A bus is not on a cable that it has recently come off of and flying out of the depot.

Are you hanging outside the gondola, hanging on for dear life?

Both are enclosed transportation systems that go slow/stationary for boarding, and fast for transporting. That’s why “did you see how fast that thing is coming out of the station” seems like such a weird complaint to me, considering that buses move faster all the time.

it is all one cable. There is no detaching and re-attaching to the cable. It just slows down.

The walkway won’t be moving, the cabins move as slow as they do at the terminal stations, but the whole line slows down to accommodate that.

There’s no room for a secondary line there. The Boardwalk turn will also just slow right down to make the turn, all on one single cable.

Not everywhere.

For example, the “chairlift” at Blizzard Beach are attached to the cable and are static.

No reason you couldn’t add a PeopleMover-style turntable and do the same on these.

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So the whole line from CB to EP will slow down every time someone wants to get on/off at Riviera? How does that work? How would they know in enough time that someone wants off?
“Just yell real loud as you approach the station!”

Because the bus has at least 4 wheels on the ground and is not on a cable it can detach from. You’re also not falling hundreds of feet if something happens to the bus.

No, the whole line will move a lot more slowly as it approaches the station. Door s will open, you get off.

From a rider’s perspective, the effect will be similar to being at a terminal station, except there the cabins will detach and then slow down.

But … if there is an ECV, they will have to stop the line to let them off if they can’t manoeuvre it well enough. Likely the CMs at the loading station will radio through “Goofy cabin, nervy ECV user aboard, wants to alight at Riviera”!

This double loading thing at the terminals is unique to Disney and Dopplemayer. In London they are always stopping, only there you can be a couple of hundred feet or more over the Thames when you stop, on an incline. Not good for those scared of heights. I was in a cabin where a 7 year old started wailing when it stopped. :frowning_face:

I might have started wailing alongside him had I been there!

Okay. I’ll admit, I’ve been on the Skyride many times. I try to make myself go on it in my ever on-going attempt to overcome my fear. But I end up feeling terrified the entire time. The only way to survive it is to NOT look or think about it. Distract myself. Then, when I get off, I say to myself, “Why in the world did I do that to myself?” But in order to get on it to begin with, I have to have the adrenaline rush of having just been on something heart-pumping, etc.

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Okay, when you said it is all one cable, I assumed that meant one cable continuously moving through the station. Does this mean there is transfer to a slow cable in the station? Otherwise I don’t follow how the cable moves fast outside the station and slows down in the station.

It doesn’t. It comes OFF the cable in the station. Then the gondolas move within the station using a completel different mechanism that is powered/controlled. If there is a moving walkway, they can synchronize them in the same way the PeopleMover is synchronized with the trains and allow enough time for people to get on/off safely.

BUT if there is a circumstance that takes TOO long (such as with an ECV), you end up with a back-up of gondolas…at which point there is no choice but to slow down the cable (or, in worst case, stop altogether) to allow enough time to get the gondola loaded. Once loaded, they can resume the cable speed again.

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Good point.

So either there must be a parallel cable, because Lift_Blog definitely said it was one continuous cable from IG to CBR. In which case, all cabins will indeed detach and reattach.

Or the whole line crawls along. Nah, gotta be the first option, parallel cables with no special loading / unloading section for ECVs.

That makes more sense to me. I’m only a chemical engineer, but I think input = output + accumulation still applies, and I couldn’t see a way they’d be spooling up that extra cable between the cars during the slowed down portion! :grinning:

This video (Disney Skyliner Gondolas Testing at Full Speed - YouTube) shows the Skyliner testing, including at one of the stations. You can clearly see that the gondolas are at a NEAR stand-still inside the station, and then accelerate as they return to the cable. I doubt they use gravity (only) as is the case in the older-style Skyway types, but the principle is similar…they are accelerated to match the cable speed and then are lowered ONTO the cable. (They wouldn’t want the support arm to come in contact with the cable until they are at nearly identical speeds because that would cause friction, which would wear the cable prematurely.

They COULD be using a secondary cable, but I have my doubts. I think it is an overhead track (and perhaps even a mechanism in the platform itself along the base of the gondola) that is powered in some other way at some fixed speed. A cable isn’t out of the question, but you have two transitions to deal with then. I’m curious now. Gonna research this more!

Or maybe it IS another cable. If you look at this picture, you can see that there are TWO sides to the support. Only one side is needed to carry it overhead. So, what is the other side for? (The part I highlighted in red.) Probably to support the gondola IN the station.

image

It might be the tie -off point for rescuing riders from gondolas.

(Sorry, can’t help myself)

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This is how I’ve been thinking of it - it’s like way-back when the “detachable” ski lifts were all new-fangled and fancy. Now I feel old.

Ah. I guess I should work on my repelling skills. :wink:

There is no second cable at the loading/unloading stations. The gondola comes off of the main moving cable onto a track and will slowly move through the station. The main cable will VERY rarely slow down or stop. It’s the dual loading platforms that are unique to Disney so that the cars will actually come to a complete stop for ECVs and other disabled access.

That’s a much better explanation! Thanks!

But then at Riviera, is there still a track system? Because there’s no dual loading there. So the whole track will have to stop if needs be.