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Monorail personalities

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:52 pm
by CptnSkippy
I once overheard one of the pilots mention Orange having a personality conflict with him and he traded out with someone from the platform when we rode up front, and then based on BW's comment regarding red and her dislike of resort, it got me wondering.

What other personality traits do they have? Do the pilots really feel that much of a difference from train to train?

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 8:46 pm
by Monorail_Red
CptnSkippy wrote:I once overheard one of the pilots mention Orange having a personality conflict with him and he traded out with someone from the platform when we rode up front, and then based on BW's comment regarding red and her dislike of resort, it got me wondering.

What other personality traits do they have? Do the pilots really feel that much of a difference from train to train?
Not a pilot myself but I can point out a few from what I heard:

Lime "slides"
Lime is also one of the fastest
Doors fall off Green :twisted:
Red purrs like a kitten :)
Purple's C6 horn is crazy
Blue can be trouble
Red throws random overspeeds
Black is great on Resort
I've found the coolest spot on the fleet. Coral car 5. ;)

Pilots: If you're having any personality conflicts with any of the trains I will be more than happy to bump ya :D: hehe

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:31 pm
by turkeyham
My friend works at DL-ODV. She mentioned that the park got these junky registers. She said one day the machine was ringing an alarm and not working. Something about Matra? At Target they have POS. We call it Piece of $hit. Excuse my language. Same register and same problems. I told her just wait until it breaks down and maybe they will get the clue. :cool:

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 12:58 am
by dazyhill
Ha! The merchandise POS systems at Knott's are old enough to vote (Seriously!) and go haywire when a cell phone is present. The latter came in handy when I caught one of my clerks with a cellphone in her pocket. :D: (The phones are supposed to be kept in their lockers.)
Inventory is going to bite this year because earlier this year, the POS system failed and had to be in stand alone mode for weeks. The stock reports are a mess because merchandise is getting logged in stores where the product doesn't physically exist. :mad:

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 3:58 am
by Main Streeter
turkeyham wrote:She mentioned that the park got these junky registers. She said one day the machine was ringing an alarm and not working. Something about Matra?
Matra is the type of computer/program we use @ DLR cash wraps. Almost positive WDW uses Matra also, as I've called for tech support & gotten help from WDW. Matra system crept in during summer 05. We are stuck with Matra & all its unique frailties :( until a new trade show sells Disney on another "perfect" system. :rolleyes: Many computers have their own personalities & will take a CM down a path never expected. The Matra system is in sync, or linked with (hobie, help me here) WDW. What a pain this has been. Our DLR Matra used to be very slow or freeze when WDW closed until abt 9 months ago. Don't know who fixed what nor how, but Matra has not been slow nor down anymore when WDW closes. DLR Matra does go white (101) when WDW Matra has issues. Go figure. :confused: If DLR Matra doesn't come up when we close out (due to WDW probs) we have to "bulls eye" our count. This means using the old closing forms, pens + calculators. An absolute challenge for some CMs. Bulls eyeing with Matra system does separate the CM cream. Even brings tears. Best explanation of Matra beast - it is what it is. :banghead:

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:01 am
by hobie16
Main Streeter wrote: Matra system is in sync, or linked with (hobie, help me here) WDW. What a pain this has been.
I'll base my comments on some common assumptions.

The POS units in each location contain stand alone processors that draw information from, and feed information to a common database. The database resides on a system that's probably located in a corporate data center remote from both parks.

The slowdown in the DL units when WDW closes is caused by all the WDW units uploading their day's info to the common database. I would think the system the common DB resides on was not sized properly for the number of users.

There are a couple of fixes that may have been implemented. Increase the processor for the DB, buffer the common system with a network cache system, a number of other things.

An analogy might be the size of a car engine. If you're just putting along, there's not much need for a lot of power. If you suddenly start climbing a hill there is a need for more power. if you're in a rice burner, your foot may be all the way to the floor. If you're in a Shelby Mustang, you may be actually accelerating up the hill.

Ultimately, it boils down to how much money do you want to spend to get places faster or move your data in a timely fashion. Fast movement and processing of data is an easy sell because, as MS stated, the longer it takes to process a transaction, the longer the sales person is idle. MS' idle hands ain't bringin' in no greenbacks and neither are the hundreds of other sales people using the same system. Multiply that lost time out over a day/week/month/year and you're suddenly talking about lots of idle time and lost revenue.

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 1:01 pm
by GRUMPY PIRATE
hobie16 wrote:I'll base my comments on some common assumptions.

The POS units in each location contain stand alone processors that draw information from, and feed information to a common database. The database resides on a system that's probably located in a corporate data center remote from both parks.

The slowdown in the DL units when WDW closes is caused by all the WDW units uploading their day's info to the common database. I would think the system the common DB resides on was not sized properly for the number of users.

There are a couple of fixes that may have been implemented. Increase the processor for the DB, buffer the common system with a network cache system, a number of other things.

An analogy might be the size of a car engine. If you're just putting along, there's not much need for a lot of power. If you suddenly start climbing a hill there is a need for more power. if you're in a rice burner, your foot may be all the way to the floor. If you're in a Shelby Mustang, you may be actually accelerating up the hill.

Ultimately, it boils down to how much money do you want to spend to get places faster or move your data in a timely fashion. Fast movement and processing of data is an easy sell because, as MS stated, the longer it takes to process a transaction, the longer the sales person is idle. MS' idle hands ain't bringin' in no greenbacks and neither are the hundreds of other sales people using the same system. Multiply that lost time out over a day/week/month/year and you're suddenly talking about lots of idle time and lost revenue.

And thus you have identified the main problem!!

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:37 pm
by darph nader
hobie16 wrote:I'll base my comments on some common assumptions.

The POS units in each location contain stand alone processors that draw information from, and feed information to a common database. The database resides on a system that's probably located in a corporate data center remote from both parks.

The slowdown in the DL units when WDW closes is caused by all the WDW units uploading their day's info to the common database. I would think the system the common DB resides on was not sized properly for the number of users.

There are a couple of fixes that may have been implemented. Increase the processor for the DB, buffer the common system with a network cache system, a number of other things.

An analogy might be the size of a car engine. If you're just putting along, there's not much need for a lot of power. If you suddenly start climbing a hill there is a need for more power. if you're in a rice burner, your foot may be all the way to the floor. If you're in a Shelby Mustang, you may be actually accelerating up the hill.

Ultimately, it boils down to how much money do you want to spend to get places faster or move your data in a timely fashion. Fast movement and processing of data is an easy sell because, as MS stated, the longer it takes to process a transaction, the longer the sales person is idle. MS' idle hands ain't bringin' in no greenbacks and neither are the hundreds of other sales people using the same system. Multiply that lost time out over a day/week/month/year and you're suddenly talking about lots of idle time and lost revenue.
Yeah. What hobie said. :confused:
(I love the anology about the Shelby though)

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:00 pm
by felinefan
dazyhill wrote:Ha! The merchandise POS systems at Knott's are old enough to vote (Seriously!) and go haywire when a cell phone is present. The latter came in handy when I caught one of my clerks with a cellphone in her pocket. :D: (The phones are supposed to be kept in their lockers.)
Inventory is going to bite this year because earlier this year, the POS system failed and had to be in stand alone mode for weeks. The stock reports are a mess because merchandise is getting logged in stores where the product doesn't physically exist. :mad:
Show me something at Knott's that isn't old enough to require carbon dating to determine its age. The turnstile at the Calico Railroad is a prime example. One of the engineers joked that Walter Knott bought the turnstyles at auction. That piece of junk had to be jury-rigged by maintenence on a weekly basis when I worked there. They didn't have parts to repair it, mainly because it was so old, but also because management is too friggin' cheap. So they had to come up with creative ways of fixing it.

I'm still waiting to hear that something major collapsed, and Knott's lawyers can't blame it on a guest or otherwise gloss over the seriousness. Do you know if they're still losing chunks of ceiling from the Mine Ride, by any chance?

Re: Monorail personalities

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:09 pm
by darph nader
At my last job.We (loss prevention) would pick out the best RF Scanners. :D:
We didn't want to dick around trying to get the audits done. Mainly at 01:15 in the AM. :o: