Were The Rocket Rods Sabotaged?

[Kevie]

Did anyone visit between September 25, 2000 and April 2001 and see the Rocket Rods when Disneyland had them closed for "rehab"? Were they seriously doing ANY work at all? Where were all the Rods? Did they just sit in the loading area that whole time? Or did they leave when the rehab began?

Im very curious as to whether or not Disneyland was actually refurbing it or just said they were to let it die.

So can anyone answer my questions?

[ksejr1]

I did hear that they had put the rocket rods on ebay, sorry, but they are gone.

[Disneyphile]

I worked for the outside vendor that was contracted to design the track of the Rocket Rods. The same company also made the floats for Light Magic, and the Observatron. Needless to say, the company went under a few years ago. Need I explain more?

[Kevie]

Well was anyone there during the supposed rehab period, were the Rods in the load area, was there any work going on, etc?

[Corith]

Were The Rocket Rods Sabotaged?

Yes, by Presslers own gross incompetence

[Disneyphile]

Well was anyone there during the supposed rehab period, were the Rods in the load area, was there any work going on, etc?

That would have been right about the time the outside vendor company folded. So, no, there probably wasn't any work going on. The last transaction that Disney had with the ill-fated company was the outright purchase of the "Fog Dogs", which were the company's patented super fog machines that operate off of steam. Those are the ones they use today - it's how the fog can be blasted in very quickly and disappears just as fast. (Just like in "It's Tough To Be A Bug".

[Kevie]

I heard the tunnels were boarded up on the tracks during 2001. Also I heard you could see a rod from the DL Railroad or something.

I know this isnt something you ask for, but since Im usually very nice, can someone give me positive rep points? I only have two little dots! Please, someone. I will reciprocate.

[melmel]

I worked for the outside vendor that was contracted to design the track of the Rocket Rods. The same company also made the floats for Light Magic, and the Observatron. Needless to say, the company went under a few years ago. Need I explain more?

Hahaha... Oh, man. :lol:

I don't have anything relevant to say. I just thought it was HILARIOUS

[Disneyphile]

I don't have anything relevant to say. I just thought it was HILARIOUS

And sadly, it's not a joke!! 85 people lost their jobs when that company folded. They didn't even get their last month's worth of paychecks. It was sad, actually. And, I was probably stupid for not grabbing the set of Rocket Rods blueprints on my way out. But, then again, it's not like they'd be worth anything.

[Jspider]

Did anyone visit between September 25, 2000 and April 2001 and see the Rocket Rods when Disneyland had them closed for "rehab"? Were they seriously doing ANY work at all? Where were all the Rods? Did they just sit in the loading area that whole time? Or did they leave when the rehab began?

Im very curious as to whether or not Disneyland was actually refurbing it or just said they were to let it die.

So can anyone answer my questions?

youknow some things can't simply be refurbed I mean they were damaging the buildings they went through o_o

I'm not sure how it all works but I'm sure at the point it went down Disney already knew they probably wouldn't be brought back

[crinklebat]

I don't back them up, so I can't give anything like an exact date, but I even seem to remember Al's reports saying that the "refurb" that they were under was almost definitely permanent, relatively soon after they closed. I remember my friends were going to DL and asked me when the Rods would open again and I told them "never".

[Derekuda]

Hey Disneyphile. Sence you did stuff with the company that made the rocket rods, can you answer me somthing? How did the rocket rods work?
I had the impression, that they were all remote controlled. I remember the time that i rode it that the comand consol had a screen with dots moving on it (the dots being the rods). Sence this ride does not work on gravity, my impression was that all the rods were operated by remote control. And that the computer would controll each one of them adjusting their speed as directed on the map and such, which was also the reason why it broke down so frequently, because the pc had a hard time controlling twenty-some rods running around on a track spreeding up and slowing down frequently without having them getting to close to each other.
But like I said, these are just my observations and speculations. I was hoping someone could shed some kight on the situation.
Also, I wanted to know why the motor was soooo huge on the rods. If the track was what the rods were powered from then what was the big motors for. the rods didn't ever go "that fast" and i wouldn't think they would need that much power to zoom people around. Was alot of it extra for looks? Because when you look at the size of a golfcart motor and compare it, the size difference is huge.

[socal05]

I personally felt the "always breaking down" charge was exagerated because I was an AP the last year of operation and it was never broken when I was there.

I know, I know - I'm sure it's true ;-)

[gibbage]

The rods worked off of electricity. Feeding off of wires in the track like a trolly feeds off wires above the car. They were on a set track like Autopia so they were not controled by anything other then speed. Along the track they had sensors that would feed the Rod data on how fast to go, or if something went wrong, to stop.

If you can dig up an old photo, or look even today, you can see 3 long strips on the left and right side of the track. This was the cable's the rods used for the juce. The motors were most likley not that big. Sizeable yes! But that large CHUNK between the two back wheels was most likley all the electrical gear for the car in 1 area. There was no room under the feet, plus that area pivoted.

Ow how I miss those rods screaching around TL.... =~(

[Disneyfreak]

I personally felt the "always breaking down" charge was exagerated because I was an AP the last year of operation and it was never broken when I was there.

I know, I know - I'm sure it's true ;-)

Yeah out of how many times I go to Disneyland I only saw it down a couple of times.

[Crispy]

20,000 Leagues went down for rehab at WDW. After being boarded up with the subs sitting at the docks and no work being done, it was finally listed as "closed indefinitely." I believe the Rods went through the same process.

Cris

[monorail1]

I worked at Disneyland right around the time they closed the Rocket Rods. From the moment they did, me and my fellow cast members never saw any work done on the rods track. I worked on the Monorail and the rods track went right by our track and station. I do remember in the mornings before they opened the park they would test the rods and slowly send them around the track, but after they "temporarily" closed the attraction we never saw them again. (note: They did place a rod in the hollywod pictures backlot at DCA as a prop for a couple of months.)

In addition, I did go into the Rocket Rods shop just a couple of months after they closed the attraction. It was located on the second story of the Innoventions building. As for the shop being visible from the train, I'm not sure about that, but I do know you could see the shop from the Monorail right around the portion of the trip when you "enter the park" after riding alongside harbor blvd. The side of the shop was open and they had a crane installed so that they could remove the rods for repairs. As for the interior of the shop, all the rods were stored there side-by-side on the two interior shop tracks along with a tractor. Much like the monorail diesel tractor which pulls the trains to the shop if they are inoperable, the rocket rods tractor was bright yellow and about 3/4 the size of the rods.

Anyways, the short answer to your question is...no, we as cast members did not see any additional work done on rods after they were closed.

[Kevie]

Rocket Rods didnt really break down that much in my 1999 visit. They seemed pretty efficient/reliable. Maybe I just went during a "good maitenance period" for that ride or something.

The waits when I went (1999) were about 50 minutes average, nothing too bad...

[Alan]

I rode the ill fated rods. The day I went there was a short line waiting for the possible reopening of the rods. It was down the first part of the day. We finally got into our car and the one in frot of us died. The mechanics had to take it back to the shop. I asked the CM and she said that the ride broke down mostly for blown circuit boards and failed motors.

[Bacon]

We rode them the day they went down for good. According to the CM, the problem was programing. As a matter of fact, one of the main problems was rain, and "rain mode" (it happened to be raining on and off on that final day of operation). Because of the racing slicks they used, whenever it rained, the system would automatically go into "rain mode" which increased braking distances to prevent loss of traction. Well, that change in timing apparantly wreaked havock with the track sensors, which caused the ride to go 101 in the rain quite often (I'm guessing due to cascade failures, which is when the sensors decide that a vehicle has entered a part of the track it isn't supposed to yet based on where the other vehicles on the track are).

So the reason there wasn't much visible activity was because there was very little physical work to be done, it was mostly a ride control programming issue. Of course, they also realized pretty early on that it just wasn't going to be worth the effort so I'm sure the whole thing was scrapped much earlier than the outside world knew.