Monorail Red Will Open to the Public Tonight!
From the OC Register:
Disney’s Monorail Red (or Mark VII) will open to the public this evening as part of a “soft opening.”
Disney Spokeswoman Betsy Sanchez said this afternoon that the new monorail train will be open on and off again throughout the weekend.
The Mark VII line of trains (three in all) will slowly replace the current monorail trains. The red monorail is the first to roll-out and the blue train arrived a few weeks ago. No word yet on when the orange train will arrive at the park.
CHECK BACK tonight for an update and photo slide show of the new trains in action.
The public launch of the new red train with blue glass windows was expected to be in late February. But, testing and adjusting the monorail to work perfectly has pushed the opening back again and again.
The biggest change to the monorail trains is in the look: The first electric cars have blue glass and red stripes that change color in the sunlight. The next two cars will be blue with purple glass and orange with blue glass.
Bench seats will face the windows, allowing visitors a full view of the parks, Downtown Disney and the Disneyland Hotel. The capacity and speed will remain the same.
The Monorail started in 1959 as part of Disneyland’s first expansion and the track was extended to the Disneyland Hotel in 1961 to a length of two and a half miles.
For three years, Disney Imagineers have been working on the train upgrades.