“Welcome aboard the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover—your quiet and carefree highway in the sky. We invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy your grand circle tour of Tomorrowland.”
If anyone is thinking how I can possibly write an entire blog post about the PeopleMover, arguably Magic Kingdom’s simplest attraction, you are going to be pleasantly surprised. There is quite a bit of history behind this carefree highway in the sky and it begins all the way back at the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair.
Disney created four attractions for the World’s Fair: It’s a Small World, the Carousel of Progress, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, and Ford’s Magic Skyway. Three of these attractions are still operating today and elements of Ford’s Magic Skyway can still be found at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. The dinosaurs found their home in the Primeval World of the Disneyland Railroad and the WEDway track system of the Magic Skyway was used to create the PeopleMover.
Originally the PeopleMover was going to be part of Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, one of two forms of mass transportation in this futuristic city. The monorail would travel long distances and the PeopleMover would travel shorter distances.
On July 2, 1967, a PeopleMover opened in Disneyland on an elevated track in the skies of Tomorrowland and was originally sponsored by Goodyear. The attraction reopened in 1968 with some major improvements. The track had rotating tires embedded in it, each powered by electric motors and located every nine feet. These tires would propel the vehicles forward so there was no need for motors inside the cars themselves. The PeopleMover would take guests on a tour of Tomorrowland and would travel through many of the attractions. Each car had its own speaker and a commentary of Tomorrowland was provided. The Superspeed Tunnel was added in 1977 in the top of the carousel building, which currently was home to America Sings, and in 1982, the tunnel added Tron footage and changed names to the Game Grid of Tron to promote Disney’s newest film. The name of the attraction itself was also changed to PeopleMover Thru the World of Tron.
The PeopleMover in Disneyland closed on August 21, 1995 and three years later, the Rocket Rods took over the tracks. Fun Fact: The Rocket Rods was the first attraction at Disneyland to have a Single Rider line. This high-speed attraction was only open for about two years before it closed permanently due to multiple technical problems. Essentially, the new technology and the speed of the Rocket Rod cars did not work for the old PeopleMover track. The queue became the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters queue, but the empty tracks still remain, towering over Tomorrowland.
In Magic Kingdom, the WEDway PeopleMover opened on July 1, 1975 in Tomorrowland with Edison Electric Institute as the original sponsor. It became the Tomorrowland Transit Authority in 1994 and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover in 2010. This PeopleMover had some differences from the one in Disneyland. Instead of covered cars and an open track, the Magic Kingdom version has open cars and a covered track. The track technology is also different as instead of using the rotating tires, it uses linear induction motors.
Similar to Disneyland, Magic Kingdom’s PeopleMover gives an inside look at the different Tomorrowland attractions. The original narrator was Jack Wagner, who was known as the Voice of Disneyland and who also narrated the Disneyland PeopleMover from 1977 to 1982. In 1985, his narration was replaced with ORAC One “The Commuter Computer.” The narrator was again changed in 1994 to Pete Renaday and then again in 2009 to Mike Brassell. The safety spiel is provided by B.J. Ward, who was the narrator of Disneyland’s PeopleMover from 1982 to 1995. The 2009 spiel was changed back to be very similar to the original, though updated to include new attractions. Cameo voices were added to the narration including Buzz Lightyear and Roz from Monsters, Inc.
My favourite part of the PeopleMover is the Epcot model on display which can only be seen while on the attraction. This original model of Progress City used to be on display at the end of the Carousel of Progress when it was in Disneyland and showed Walt’s vision for the city.
And that’s the history of the two PeopleMovers in Disney Parks.
But wait, there’s more.
There is actually a third WEDway PeopleMover which can be found at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas—the only one to be found outside of a Disney park. Formally called the Inter-Terminal Train, and now called the Subway, Disney’s Community Transportation division used the same technology to build a PeopleMover to connect the terminals.
Is the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover a must-ride when you visit Magic Kingdom? Did you ever ride the original in Disneyland? Let me know in the comments below!
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