Utilidors
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Utilidors are tunnels built underground to carry a utility, most often water and sewer. They are most common in very cold climates where direct burial below the frost line is not feasable (like in Alaska, where the frost line is more than eighteen feet below the surface and is frozen year round. They are also built in places where the water table is too high to bury water and sewer mains and where utility poles would be too unsightly or pose a danger (like in earthquake prone San Francisco). These tunnels range in size from just lage enough to accomidate the utility being carried to very large tunnels that also can accomidate human traffic.
The largest and most famous utilidors are at Disney theme parks. They were first built for Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Florida. A smaller Utilidor system is built under the central section of Epcot's Future World, primarily beneath Spaceship Earth and Innoventions.
The word "Utilidors" is a contraction of "utility corridors." The Utilidors are a part of Disney's "backstage" (behind-the-scenes) area. They allow Disney employees ("cast members") to perform day-to-day park operations, such as trash removal, out of the sight of guests.
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[edit] Conception and construction
According to Disney legend, one day while at Disneyland, Walt Disney was bothered by the sight of a cowboy walking through Tomorrowland on his way to his post in Frontierland.[1] He felt that such a sight was jarring, and detracted from the guest experience. When plans for the Magic Kingdom in Florida were being developed, designers conceived the idea for the Utilidors, to keep park operations out of the guests' sight.
The Utilidors are beneath the Magic Kingdom, but they are not a basement; they are actually the ground level of the Magic Kingdom. The park is actually the second level. Parts of Fantasyland, including Cinderella's Castle, are at third-story-level (this is why the castle seems to loom so large when guests approach it via Main Street, USA). The ground's incline is so gradual that guests do not realize they are ascending to the second and third stories.
The Utilidors are built on nine acres, and the floorplan resembles a wheel with spokes. The hub lies beneath Cinderella's castle, and tunnels to all the other lands branch out from this central location. The walls of the tunnels are color-coded, to make it simple for cast members to tell which land they are in (and to keep Buzz Lightyear from popping up in Liberty Square). The Utilidors can be accessed from a main tunnel entrance in the cast member parking lot, or through various unmarked doors located throughout the Magic Kingdom. Some shops, restaurants and attractions have direct access to the Utilidors.
Cast members navigate the tunnels on foot or in battery-operated vehicles that resemble golf carts. Gasoline-powered vehicles are not allowed in the Utilidors, with the exception of armored cash pickup trucks, and, in extreme emergencies, ambulances.
[edit] Functions
The Utilidors have been referred to as an "underground city," and with good reason. Its functions include:
- Waste removal: The Magic Kingdom uses an Automated Vacuum Collection system for waste removal. Sanitation crews remove trash from the park twenty-four hours a day, and dump it into AVAC system processors throughout the park. The trash then travels through pneumatic tubes to a central location where it is processed, compressed, and/or recycled.[1]
- Electrical operations: The park's computer system, the Digital Animation Control Systems (DACS), is operated and monitored from control rooms in the Utilidors. This system monitors everything in the park, from sound systems to attractions, Audio-Animatronic figures to parades, fire prevention and security systems to cash registers.
- Deliveries and storage warehouses: All deliveries are received, processed, and stored at the Utilidors until use. This ensures that guests do not see delivery trucks pulling up at the Magic Kingdom's gate, nor do they see cast members carting merchandise through the park).
- Food service: The park's cooking and prep kitchens are housed in the Utilidors.
- Costuming: The park's costuming department (for cast members and Audio-Animatronic figures) is located in the Utilidors. Over 1.2 million costumes are housed here, making it the largest operating wardrobe department in the world. Each costume is bar-coded. Cast members show their ID and are issued the proper costume. When a cast member is through with a costume, they scan the bar code, then deposit the clothing into laundry bins that are located throughout the tunnels. From there, all the laundry is transferred to Walt Disney World's central laundry facility.
- Cast member services: Separate locker rooms for men and women are located in the Utilidors, as well as cast member cafeterias. There is also a check cashing service, an employee hair salon called "Kingdom Kutters," rehearsal rooms, and administrative offices.
