Disneyland Roundhouse Facility - Monorail / Steam Trains

Welcome to the Monorail Shop.  This is where all four Disneyland Monorail trains park at night or while they are out of service.  Housed in the upstairs of the Roundhouse Facility, any maintanence, repair, refurbishment, or rebuilding is done within this facility.

Here's another perspective of the Monorail Shop.  This gives you a much better idea at the immense size of this Facility.

This facility also houses the 600 Volt DC rectifiers that offer the bus bar power that provides the electricity necessary to run the monorails and their four 100 horsepower traction motors each.  The Monorail Shop personnel also control the spurline switches that allow a monorail to proceed to or from the main line to any of the 4 monorail shop beams.  The Console to the left is where control to these switches and rectifiers is handled.  This is the current console, part of the first phase of a new ride control system for the Disneyland Monorail System.

Occasionally, whenever the rectified power to the monorail beam is lost or a monorail train has broke down on the main line, it may be necessary to tow the monorail to the nearest station to evacuate guests, or to the Shop for repair.  In that event, The Disneyland Monorail System has two 6 cylinder diesel powered tractors, each capable of towing a full train anywhere along the beamway.  These tractors are capable of impressive speeds, and according to shop personnel, speeds of 50-60MPH are occasionally achieved along the beamways.  Also, in the need of track maintenance, the tractor trailer is available to haul extra equipment or personnel.  To the right is the blue tractor and trailer switching shop beams to unblock a monorail train that it was parked behind.

To the left is the red tractor, just returning from an engine rebuild, and looking brand new.

Downstairs in the Disneyland Roundhouse Facility, is where you will find the berthing places of all four steam engines and trains of the Disneyland Railroad. In this facility, the engines receive daily maintenance, and servicing: greasing, oil, polish, and fueling.  This is also where engines will receive full refurbishings, boiler washes, and other occasional repairs.  The Disneyland Facilities Group, however, is not equipped with the metal machinery necessary to resurfaces wheels, mold new cylinders, etc.  Occasionally, this kind of work has been contracted out to the machine shops of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Durango, CO, and more recently, major work for engine 2 the E.P. Ripley's rebuild had been in Rhode Island.  However, recently, the Roundhouse crew and Disneyland Facilities has taken on the task of a whole engine rebuild with engine #1, the C.K. Holiday.

This page is still work in progress..   more to come soon!

Last updated 3/24/99.

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