Disneyland: A Virtual Hotbed of Geothermal Activity!

There are truly some hardcore Disneyland fans out there; they know every square inch of the park and delight in finding details about some of the most obscure things. Daveland reader Kris pointed out to me recently the number of volcanoes in the park. I had never thought about it before, but was very happy to realize that I had photographic documentation for almost all of the ones that he’d written about. Here’s Kris' detective work in the flesh:

it’s a small world: in the Latin America section, there are 2 or 3 volcanoes on the right hand side.



Peter Pan: as you fly over the Neverland island, there are a few volcanoes you can look down into.



On the train: in the Primeval World diorama at the end with the T-Rex, a couple of volcanoes with lava flow.





Submarines: Under water volcanoes that destroyed Atlantis – also, now with the new Nemo version, there is the cool scene with the volcano and the lava flowing.





Tiki Room: on the video “The Flavor of Hawaii,” it starts out with volcanoes, plus the fire coming from Pele when she gets MAAAAAD.



Big Thunder: Ok, this one is a stretch. More geothermal activity than a volcano, but there are the hot springs (rainbow caverns) and the earthquake towards the end. Plus, back when this was Nature’s wonderland there were “bubbling pots of mud” and geysers.



Meanwhile, in PeopleMover news: Kevin Doherty has sent me an update with photos on his PeopleMover project:



3 weekends have passed. The PeopleMovers are all wired, batteries in and lights, sound and door motors working. Even without the skins, they look Great. The covered push-plate ends were quite a design issue but attached, with their metal covers and orange corner bumpers, they came out well and line up perfectly. We painted the outriggers red because they stick out from the frame. The outriggers are to hold on the white and chrome covers that were between and at the ends of the cars. Too bad I’ll not have these covers for a while as I need to fabricate them.



A fun distraction is that the PeopleMover control console came together faster than I expected. Not finished but, it looks very cool. The map warning lights actually “chase” and the big amber, red and green “warning lights” actually do operate the lights and doors on both PeopleMovers remotely. Very fun effect, can’t wait to show it off.



Painter has done all the outer skins (yellow) and says he’ll paint the interior parts (light tan) by the end of the week. Next, he’ll do the tops – when we sanded the top on 10B, we found a Bondo “patch” from here someone had tried to punch a hole in it. On 10C, the damage was even more severe as two of the aluminum post arms were cracked; one clean through. Just goes to show that Disneyland ride vehicles take a lot of abuse, but stand up to it quite well.



Once we get the skins and seats we can assemble. You know, assembling the fiberglass takes over 550 fasteners for each vehicle. We’ve over a thousand stainless steel screws, nuts, bolts and washers ready to go.





Thanks to all of my blog readers out there who send notes and make comments; sure keeps things interesting for everyone!

View more Disneyland photos on my main website.