As a kid I was always fascinated with the Walt Disney World monorail.
The Disney monorail opened in 1971 and as of 2013, it was calculated to be the second most heavily used monorail systems in the world. The three Disney routes transport up to 150,000 riders per day. Beating that number would be the Chongqing Rail Transit in Chongqing, China. The China monorail, which comes in at number one, has an average of 500,000 daily riders on Line 3 alone.
Monorail technology started in the 1950’s. As for Disney World in Orlando, FL… all of their current monorail cars (12 full fleets), are 1990 to 1991 models. The system in Disney has been in continuous operation since 1971. The electric system of 13 miles in length is powered by 600 volts of DC propulsion which includes eight DC motors with 112 horsepower each.
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney (1901-1966)