A monorail plagued by electrical issues at the Dallas Zoo will reopen Friday.
A monorail plagued by electrical issues at the Dallas Zoo will reopen Friday.
The zoo closed the train in 2014 to complete $3 million in renovations to the cars, which were 25 years old.
“We have gotten questions about this for every day since we've closed it for renovations,” said zoo spokeswoman, Laurie Holloway.
The ride became of growing concern after three incidents from 2011-2014.
On each occasion, the monorail abruptly shut down with passengers on board, requiring dozens to be rescued from the cars.
“Those were all power surges that were offsite,” Holloway explained. “They weren't even on our grounds.”
To remedy the issue, the zoo removed a fail-safe mechanism that caused the train to turn off during a power surge. They have instead installed a new safety measure that will allow the cars to still operate without electricity.
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“We have a tug now. It's a separate engine, a diesel motor,” said Holloway. “Should something happen with Oncor again or power surge, we can just go run that on the track and push the train to the station.”
The cars are also now equipped with air conditioning, which will be run through an auxiliary system if a surge knocks out power. Currently, only one train comes with air conditioning; however, the remaining two trains will be equipped with it by summer.
“They've tested it under load and all different conditions, and it's gotten through all of its checklists,” Holloway said, “She's going to be rolling a lot of people through there.”
Tickets for the monorail cost $5.
