New Ride System for Disney?

[Gavin]

I just saw this over at Screamscape, but no idea how official it is. Basically, it's saying that Disney have put in a patent for a new, tracked, dark ride system that allows the tracks to cross over each other.

The cars are also mounted on a pole. The only reason I can think of for this is that the cars might actually slide up the pole to pass over others, but I'm not the best person to comment on technical aspects of rides.

The concept art shows Monsters Inc. cars, so the thoughts at the moment is that this could be for the Shanghai park. Anyway, here are the pictures posted on Screamscape, with a link to the news story below.

http://www.screamscape.com/html/shanghai_disneyland.htm

 

[nadroJ]

Cool. Bit elaborate to make cars 'jump' over each other though, couldn't they just sync the ride so that they cross over without obstructing each other?

 

[Gavin]

^Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what the poles could be for and not coming up with anything. I literally have no real idea.

 

[Hixee]

If the poles run in the track, and then lift the cars up, they still can't cross over each other I don't think. The only way they would/could is if the ride vehicles were longer, but they don't look to be from the drawings. Maybe they would just be used for simulating drops and stuff?

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I like the sound of this, sounds like it might be a little more dynamic. I think the issue with most of Disney's rides is that they... aren't dynamic. Omnimovers are great in small doses, for a very specific kind of story telling. The Little Mermaid kinda shows that they seem to cling to it? Where as I was impressed with Toy Story, BECAUSE it navigates a space in an interesting way.

I think Hixee's logic is more sound, the poles are just about simulating up and down movement. Maybe allowing for an "all around" scenery experience, like Peter Pan?

 

[Mike]

It's an interesting concept, but I can just imagine the ride e-Stopping itself A LOT, or continuously stopping and starting in different lengths of time with no flow whatsoever in the ride.

From figure 1, it looks like the only time the ride goes up is in the door sorting vault bit, so it would look like you're going along the door track.

 

[nadroJ]

Quick thought, haven't Disney already developed trackless technology? I swear they already use it on some of their dark rides? If so, shouldn't that negate the need for poles that would mean cars can 'jump' over each other, or even any track at all? Especially for something like this with lots of cross overs, just makes more sense to me to not have any track at all?

 

[cookie]

The trackless system can't have that many cars traverse the floor at the same time, though.

 

[Lofty]

The first time I saw this, it reminded me of the spinning ride that's in Cars Land. It certainly does look interesting, I'd really like to see how they maneuver the track, it's worth a following I think.

 

[Gavin]

Quick thought, haven't Disney already developed trackless technology? I swear they already use it on some of their dark rides?

It's on two rides at the moment: Pooh's Hunny Hunt and Aquatopia, both at Tokyo Disney. Rumours are pointing to it being used for Mystic Manor, the new "Haunted Mansion" ride in Hong Kong opening this year.

It's a much more complex system though, with cars moving pretty fast, spinning, interacting with each other etc. It would be a bit of an overkill, plus a huge extra expense, for a normal, slowly-move-through-the-rooms kind of dark ride.

The idea of the poles being used to give some variances in height is clearly much more realistic than my original idiotic one, which no doubt will continue to be discussed despite being based on **** all and clearly quite moronic.