“Tomorrowland Transit Authority Metroliner non-stop now departing Rocket Tower Plaza Station for a round-trip Super Skyway Tour”. For train buffs, the term “Metroliner” can refer to many things. It may refer to the high speed Amtrak service (or the associated multiple unit trains) that ran between DC and New York before replacement before being replaced with the Acela Express. It was also the name of Lego set 4558, am Amtrak inspired passenger train that was launched in 1991 as part of the 9 volt line of Lego trains. For a short time, however, it was used as part of the narration for the Tomorrowland Transit Authority at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom amusement park in the Tomorrowland section.
Today, that ride is now simply branded as the PeopleMover, a throwback to the original “WEDWay PeopleMover” name the ride opened with (and still used by many fans). It is a ride that simply “moves people”. Opened in 1975 as a “D ticket” attraction – on par with the Skyway and the riverboats, higher than the steam train, and lower than Space Mountain.
Although not a train in the conventional sense with only a single “station”, the ride still runs on rails and provides a way to transport around Tomorrowland. What makes the ride unique, however, is that the vehicles do not have any motive power, nor is there any third rail to provide such power and there are no brakes. Instead, the ride uses linear induction motors (LIMs). Like conventional rotary motors, LIMs take electrical energy and convert it to mechanical energy through the use of electromagnets that create magnetic fields that induce force in metal plates in the vehicles, propelling them forwards. The train is continuously moving, even in the station, where they slow down to sync up with a rotating platform to make boarding and alighting easy (I believe that cast members who work this attraction have some very impressive daily step counts). In the event that the ride must be stopped, the motors can briefly be run in reverse, often resulting in trains rolling backwards for a short distance.
The PeopleMover at Magic Kingdom was modelled after the original PeopleMover at Disneyland in California, however the latter operated on a more primitive technology. Instead of LIMs, the ride was driven by drive tires (brought to you by Goodyear) located along the track that instead used friction to propel the vehicles. Unfortunately, with a desire for more “thrilling” attractions over the slower-paced PeopleMover, the ride was closed in 1995 to be replaced with Rocket Rods, a short-lived attraction that re-used the track structure, but was ultimately a failure for numerous reasons, including technical issues and low capacity. For those few who did have the opportunity to ride, it was not even highly thrilling due to frequent braking needed to safely travel around the tight curves designed for the slower PeopleMover trains.
There have been many grassroots movements to restore the Disneyland PeopleMover to its former glory, however there have been various reasons that this has yet to happen – modern building and safety codes, as well as concerns about damage to the structure caused by the Rocket Rods have made this prohibitively expensive. Fortunately for those on the east coast, the Florida version did not suffer the same fate and continues to be popular today. With its massive capacity, even on busy days, the wait time is often minimal, especially when compared to other attractions like the Astro Orbiter and Space Mountain.
The PeopleMover was a ride that (like the monorail) was intended to revolutionize the way that people travel over short distances. Walt Disney himself was a lover of all things that ran on rails (which sometimes makes me wonder if he was on the spectrum in some capacity himself) and train rides of all kinds were a major part of Disneyland in California and the Magic Kingdom in Florida.
Even Epcot (or EPCOT Center as it was originally known) stems from Walt’s original visions. The original “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” was significantly more ambitious than the theme park we know today. The original idea was to built a completely planned city that was clean and efficient. Car ownership was unnecessary as a monorail system would cover longer distances and PeopleMover systems would cover the last mile. This grand vision, however, went little beyond a being a figment of Disney’s imagination, however the planned town of Celebration, located within Walt Disney World, did draw inspiration from this idea, though on a significantly smaller scale, and unfortunately without monorails or people movers.
Ultimately, while the WEDWay PeopleMover technology did not revolutionize travel (car dependency is sa big of a problem in the United States as it has ever been) or create the great big beautiful tomorrow that Walt had hoped for, it did see a single installation outside of an amusement park in Houston as the Subway at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, providing land-side transportation for airport travellers (and their luggage). Similar to the system used at Disney World, the cars are propelled by LIMs, however the system also adds friction brakes to allow the vehicles to stop completely at stations. YouTuber and Disney fan Alec Watson of Technology Connections, made a detailed video about this system, as well has how it compares to the installations at the Disney parks and other people-mover systems commonly seen at airports.