The attraction opened July 1, 1975 and although today's Tomorrowland has been transformed into something very different, the WEDway ride system and vehicles have not change at all. It looks and feels like a WED attraction should.
As shown from the 1975 Magic Kingdom guide book, the WEDway was an E-ticket from day one.
Here’s an E-Ticket from June 1975. Sadly, this would be a short stay of the WEDway PeopleMover on the E-Ticket.
By September 1976, the WEDway found itself on the D-Ticket, where it would remain until the letter tickets stopped in 1982.
Here is a map from the 1975 guide book showing the new WEDway PeopleMover track. It runs 5,484 feet at an average of 6.84mph. It has 629 linear synchronous induction motors and 32 trains with 5 car per train!
On to the present. The front of the building is a victim of the 1994 New Tomorrowland. At least most of it looks like it can be removed, sometimes going “cheap” has its side benefits.
Oh yes a Gantry Tower, and it was in use! What fun to see the Gantry elevators, the Rockets and the People Mover all in motion at once! Fantastic sounds too!
The WEDway was temporarily down, but it didn’t stop a large line from forming. As soon as it opened it literally swallowed the line in two minutes. I love the Speed Ramps! I have no idea who the "thinking man" is on the right, but he looks at peace with the world of Tomorrow.
Loading area as seen while traveling up the Speed Ramp.
Your WEDway PeopleMover car awaits you. The door closes automatically, watch your legs and arms and please keep them inside the vehicle at all times.
As you head off the load platform, you are moving an excruciating 1.84 mph; you can hear all the kids saying “it too slow”. Mom & Dad know better and soon you are going fast enough for a nice breeze.
Come ride the first section and see for yourself.
After you go thru the first set of buildings you are on your way to Space Mountain. This is where you pass other WEDway trains that have just left Space Mountain. This is my favorite area of the attraction.
Inside Space Mountain you see the load area, then you see the lift chain which is neat and then you are in the darkness of Space Mountain with the ride, that part is very cool. Cool with awesome Air Conditioning and cool because it’s like you’re in the ride, but with no line, and its smoother! It's actually better than riding Space Mountain itself, trust me.
On my third (or was it forth) trip on the WEDway, I was taking the time in the dark mountain to review some photos on my camera when I realized that Space Mountain was not running and the light were ON! I only got 5 seconds of it, but its fun to look at.
Some of the outside track sections. The part around the load platform has been defaced with the “New Tomorrowland” junk.
But as you head away from the central area, there is plenty of the old architecture still available to see. It's true, I am a Disneyland Geek because this style of architecture looks so much more appealing to me. Yes that's the old Skyway building in the background, if you want to see more of it, come back on Saturday for a Skyway Saturday.
Now as we head thru more attraction buildings, we find part of the progress city EPCOT Model. This is very difficult to take pictures of because it’s behind glass. I was able to get a few pictures, but the flash really washed the poor thing out so bad it’s not fair to post them. The video mode shows less detail, but the lighting is much more as Walt intended it to be.
Well, our 10 minute ride is coming to an end. Neat set of stairs leading up to the Rockets, reminds me of Disneyland.
Thank goodness they left the inside of this attraction in its original state. The architecture is amazing, where's George Jetson?.
Time to hit the exit Speed Ramp, no running and please hold the hand rail.
I rode this attraction 5 times. I could have done it more, but I had more photos to take and more ice cream to eat!
This is a must do “E-Ticket” attraction for any diehard Disneyland fan.
No comments:
Post a Comment