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Imagine for a moment the potential complexity of rehabbing a system like the WEDWay in 2021. All the Disney employees who developed the technologies, like the liner induction motors (which they patented), are retired or dead.
There's probably no internal resource to manufacture or repair the Linear Induction Motors, which were hardwired to propel the cars at the designated speed though each area, using embedded sensors to know when to turn on and off, or reverse in the case of an estop.
The 7 original Nova 2 computers that monitored the system were probably replaced years ago with PCs. Now those PCs have to be replaced with new ones, and communication protocols have come a long way since then. Whatever they use now has to interface somehow with the old hardware.
A most remarkable statistic: from October 1975-June of 1977 the system had a total of 19.97 hours of downtime. The most unreliable component was the "comb plate," whatever that is. Vehicles got stuck or stalled only 10 times in nearly 2 years.
And it was remarkably inexpensive to run, costing $.39 per rider to service in 1976 dollars. No wonder it's been around so long!
