Sea World Monorail Permanent Closure

[TV15]

After spending five years closed, with the last two years in limbo following the construction of the New Atlantis precinct, the Monorail has finally been officially announced as closed after being temporarily out of service. The Monorail originally closed in late 2019, and just two years ago, the COO of the company assured us it wasn't going anywhere. Unfortunately, those promises have now been broken.

This day was inevitable, but it’s still disappointing to see the Monorail officially gone. What do you think the park will replace it with?

[STRAWS]

It wont get replaced by anything and if Seaworld wanted to keep it they could have they didint even try otherwise they wouldnt have let the track just to rot there. Does The private equity company own Seaworld as well or just Movie World?

[Tricoart]

6 minutes ago, STRAWS said:

It wont get replaced by anything and if Seaworld wanted to keep it they could have they didint even try otherwise they wouldnt have let the track just to rot there. Does The private equity company own Seaworld as well or just Movie World?

Owns a large stake in VRTP, so all their properties are affected

[STRAWS]

20 minutes ago, Tricoart said:

Owns a large stake in VRTP, so all their properties are affected

Thanks for letting me know.

[TV15]

From what I've heard, Intamin also offers replacement trains that are compatible with the Von Roll Holding Mark II beams, so there might have been options if they wanted to keep it going - but they didn't choose this option.

42 minutes ago, STRAWS said:

It wont get replaced by anything

VRTP has let areas like Doomsday Destroyer and Arkham Asylum (for years) sit without much attention. Still, there must be a reason they’re taking the track down now. It’s going to be a massive project, likely involving significant closures in the park, and the logistics of removing it seem like a nightmare. Getting a long enough flatbed truck into some areas of the park, especially where they can’t erect a crane, would be nearly impossible, so I get why it might feel like it should’ve just stayed up. But who knows, maybe they have something big planned - at least, that’s what we can hope.

[Tricoart]

53 minutes ago, TV15 said:

VRTP has let areas like Doomsday Destroyer and Arkham Asylum (for years) sit without much attention. Still, there must be a reason they’re taking the track down now. It’s going to be a massive project, likely involving significant closures in the park, and the logistics of removing it seem like a nightmare.

The only section that’s known to be being removed is the section behind Levi, which is solely over backstage area, likely the reason why they’ve deemed that part worth removing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of it stays standing ‘til it becomes a hazard & they’re forced to remove it, or if other individual sections have concrete plans for the space to be reused (like the stations, for example).

Edited August 16 by Tricoart

[New display name]

I never understood why people enjoyed seating in a hot sardine can.   I'm glad it's gone and we can move onto better rides.................

[Spotty]

Without breaching confidentiality by going into too much detail of the process behind this decision. I can tell you this for certain, at the time that Bikash made the comment about the monorail staying they did plan to keep the attraction. They did several studies and mechanical / engineering investigations and from what I heard the actual structure was too far gone to be economically viable. They 100% did look into replacement rolling stock as well for the monorail to be compatible with the current beams. But given the results of the investigations it was much too costly for the time being hence the announcement of it's closure. 

I can assure you that this kind of decision would not have been taken lightly, and it was always the original intention to get the Monorail operating after Atlantis opened. Hopefully we will see something similar in the future, who knows.

Edited August 16 by Spotty

[Park Addict 93]

Can confirm I heard similar to Spotty, that said I think the announcement video is a bit of a cop out and only made now that they do plan to remove some track.

It would have been a very costly endeavour for ultimately an attraction that doesn't drive attendance but it could have been done, I don't blame the park for not investing in it currently but I do hope some form of transport is built at some point.

[Narra]

I would hazard a guess the track is in such a state of disrepair that they need to remove it for safety reasons? It surely requires some sort of ongoing maintenance to ensure it doesn't collapse so if there's no chance of it returning they should remove it ASAP.

[Tricoart]

10 minutes ago, Narra said:

I would hazard a guess the track is in such a state of disrepair that they need to remove it for safety reasons? It surely requires some sort of ongoing maintenance to ensure it doesn't collapse so if there's no chance of it returning they should remove it ASAP.

If it was in that bad of disrepair that it currently has to be removed for safety reasons, one would hope/think they’d have not spent so long weighting options & performing tests, and actioned it once that was found to be the case. It sounds to me as if all that’s been shown in their testing is that the structure is no longer in a state to support an operational monorail, not necessarily that it supporting it’s own weight is in question.

Edited August 16 by Tricoart

[TV15]

Two of the trains were removed in May 2022. Does that mean they knew the results of the testing since then? If so, why did it take them an extra two years to officially announce the Monorail as permanently closed?

Also, I just realised that they announced the Monorails closure on Thursday, August 15, 2024 - exactly 38 years after it originally opened on August 15, 1986.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

14 hours ago, TV15 said:

Two of the trains were removed in May 2022. Does that mean they knew the results of the testing since then? If so, why did it take them an extra two years to officially announce the Monorail as permanently closed?

Judging by this comment above, i'd say the removal of the train is not indicative that they had made a decision to close the attraction at the time.

On 16/08/2024 at 2:41 PM, Spotty said:

They 100% did look into replacement rolling stock as well for the monorail

 

[webslave]

They were publicly admitting in NPS responses in September of last year that the Monorail was not coming back.

[19Michael96]

RIP to the Australian Monorail dream of the 80's. First Expo, then Sydney, then Broadbeach and now Sea World.

I hope Sea World will consider a new people mover system in the future. New cable way, new train, something different altogether?

 

[Spotty]

I doubt a cableway will be built again, as due to the strong winds that Sea World gets the one they had was often closed. 

[themagician]

But when there aren’t strong winds it can be open and make those guests experience better!

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 24/08/2024 at 2:40 PM, Spotty said:

I doubt a cableway will be built again, as due to the strong winds that Sea World gets the one they had was often closed. 

Honestly I think a cableway and a wheel would be the perfect fit for the park. Surely the technology we have today handles wind better than the old system we used to have? 

I wouldn't have thought the wind on the GC was much different to say - Ngong Ping (Lantau, Hong Kong) or Mount Faber (Sentosa, Singapore) and they're massive.