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Imagineer Ed Feuer Interview: Disney Monorails and Epcot · Project Horizons

• Mike: So today I'm thrilled to welcome an imagineering legend, Ed Foyer, who served as mechanical engineer and later project engineer on several attractions for the Disney parks, most notably serving as mechanical engineer on the Mark III monorails built by Wedd for Disneyland, the Mark IV monorails built by Martin Marietta for Walt Disney World, and as project engineer, Ed did incredible work on the American Adventure Pavilion and World of Motion Attractions at Epcot Center, and also the Mark V monorails for Disneyland. So Ed, thank you so much for Taking the time to join us today, it is indeed an honor to have you here on the show. How are you doing today, my friend? Eduard Feuer: Good, thank you. Mike: Excellent, you could just tell us your life story, from your early beginnings to when you came to America and started working for Disney. Eduard Feuer: I have to go way back to the time where a German princess, Katarina, was alive and got married to a Russian tsar. And she was one who got the idea to bring German craftsmanship into Russia. And she offered the German people some land in the Ukraine if they immigrate to the Ukraine. So a lot of Germans, especially the one who had a lot of kids, immigrated to Ukraine, got some land there, and Built German villages and it was a German colony, and that's where I was born in 1936. In 1939, or it was 38, Ukraine belonged to Poland at that time, and Hitler. wanna overtake Poland. But he was afraid that Stalin would interfere. So he reached the agreement with Stalin that if he takes Poland over and Stalin doesn't interfere, he will get the Ukraine. But since there was a German colony the Germans living in Ukraine were allowed legally to immigrate out of Ukraine. And that was the reason why my family left nineteen thirty nine and we got immigrated to Poland because the deadline was thirty first of December nineteen thirty-nine. And we lived in Germany until forty-five when the Russian soldier started to come in and take Poland back. and we had to leave Poland very very urgent since we were illegal at that time occupate Poland. So that's the reason why we kept on going west nineteen forty five, and We had the first stop in Brandenburg, East Germany, where the Russian soldiers came in and stopped our immigration to the West. We lived one year in East Germany, occupied by the Russian soldiers, until we get the permission to immigrate to the West. with the last transport ever leaving East Germany going to West. so after four days the decision was made and we could go and we arrived in West Germany in about April forty six. And that's actually where my education started I was in the meantime ten years old. So starting going in West Germany to school, they put me in the first grade. But I had some remarkable talent in calculations and they had a problem because I was too good in math and no good in reading and writing and when I was fourteen years old, made the eighth grade despite missing four years of schooling. Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: and I became a machinist, apprenticed as a machinist. And Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: During that time I learned to fabricate things and build things So I went to a teacher. I said, I would like to be become a designer, And he said, You to become an engineer. And so I finished my studies and applied for a job and wanted design compressors and air conditioning things. And the director interviewed me and after the interview he said, I have a much more interesting job for you. He said I want you to design butter machine for sour cream butter. I said, I just know that Sabirk is white. How can I design a butter machine? And so it took me three and a half years and design was in Munich in 1972 at the first convention and it was very successful and then I got hired by another company, a small one who was building tunnel ovens and I was just a kid of twenty-six years. And every time I suggested something, made a presentation, they said, You may be right, But we did it always this way and we know it works that way, so we stay with the old system. And so I had a conversation with my wife. We were young married and I said, you know, I have to change jobs So put some applications in and I had three interviews. And the first question every place had, do you speak English? And I had zero English. I spoke Russian, Ukraine, Polish and German, but no English. So they rejected me in all three jobs. And I said to myself Mike: Well Eduard Feuer: that will be my handicapped all my life and I was twenty nine years old. And I had a brother and a sister in California and I said to my wife, Why don't we go to California for five years? And I learned the English. properly so I can use it my wife was right away in agreement. She loved that idea. So that's how we arrived in California. Of course I had no problem with the immigration, with my education I had and my wife and We in the meant and had two kids, And we arrived in California and then I had two jobs and the second job where I got hired by Dave Gengenbach. Who worked for Tubiler aircraft. I was hired by that company to build a assembly line for a post office vehicle that had a contract, eight thousand post office vehicles And I right away found some designs which were not correct and I pointed that out and they tested that and they thought I was right and Dave Gengenbach went to the production manager and he said get yourself for that job somebody else I keep that guy in engineering and Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: that's how I start to review the whole design on the post office car and we corrected things and build it and got ups accepted by the post office and then the production supposed to go on but what I didn't know is that in the meantime Disney wanna built a new monorail. The old monorail was ten years old and they figured it's time to build the new one before that breaks down, because the monorail was a very popular item in the park. And so I was surprised myself that they announced that Dave Gengenbach quit and while he was leaving he Told the president pointed at me and he said, Make him chief engineer and the project will be in good hands. I was in charge of forty-two people in the engineering and I hardly could communicate with them because I was just nine months in the country. Dave Gengenbach starts the engine the design of Samanre and he wanna have me coming over to Disney. but I I couldn't expect that I become a chief engineer there while I was at two be the aircraft chief engineer. So I turned him down. And he and his wife, they called my wife, invited us for a barbecue and tried to talk me in to come to Disney. And told me how difficult it was to get into Disney at that time. but I turned them down several times. and went back to to video aircraft. And then something happened the director definitely didn't like me and try to get rid of me. And so I quit. and that was a big mistake, to quit without having accepting the job at Disney. So when I came to Disney and for the interview, the personnel manager asked me, do you have still a job? I said no. because I knew that they needed me right away. then they came back with a very low salary. And I said, I already was making much more. I said, no. And so Dave Gengenbah called me up in the evening and we talked two hours on the phone and he said, if you get in, we take care of you. But it's hard to get in. Accept what they are offering you and we take care of you. So he Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: convinced me and I accepted the job and start with Disney. and I started to learn the Disney philosophy. there was a wetway which were motors in the track with wheels turning and the wetway design went over these and got pushed ahead. For a normal engineer, it's a pretty inefficient design. So many motors Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: and just one car. So I said, that's terribly inefficient. He said, Walt Disney doesn't look for efficiency. He looks for something nobody else has, which is different. Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: And that's where I start to adapt the philosophy of Walt Disney. And there at that time there was a lot of talk about. Disney philosophy also in the park and all over the place it was very refreshing to see the other ideas and not just the efficient design which is money saving you look at the project with different eyes. And so they brought me to the monrail, which they had the whole chassis made out of wood. And I believe that was Bob Girl's design And as a young engineer, a new design. I really was impressed because they build it everything from wood. and they said now your job is to design that so we can build it out of steel. So I start to design every part and every things for that new manorial and I was so thankful to Dave Gengenbach that he got me in and I was so happy with my new job, with the responsibility that I just worked, worked and worked. Mike: sounds incredible just where you started and coming to America and learning English and the challenges that you faced getting into Disney and knowing how tough that was to get into Disney at the time and acclimating to the Disney environment, the Disney philosophy, and now you're working on the monorails. did you have a chance to meet Walt Disney and Bob Gerd Eduard Feuer: time. Mike: during that time? Eduard Feuer: Yeah, one time I met Walt Disney Babgar I met more often because Mike: yeah. Eduard Feuer: every time they had something which was involved in stresses I was known that I knew my stress calculations. then I got assigned shortly to other projects and I got assigned to Bob Girl who was working on the Redway and we were in the meantime developing a linear motor for the Redway we needed some careful calculations. and Babker was involved in that too so they assigned me to Bab Girl to do the stress calculation and the design for that chassis and I never forget how impressed I was about Babgirl's talent. He explained to me the chassis and which I saw for the first time. And while he was explaining, he was catching the chassis. By the time he was finished with the explanation, I had the whole picture of the body of the chassis right there in front of me that I just had to design and calculate it. He showed me in his sketch how the finished product already works. And I never forget what great talent as that was. And I had a difficult time with Bob Curls in the future after that because of other reasons and Our boss at that time at one time said, Ed, take Bob Girl out for lunch and explain to him that, you are different than he is. and so I took him out and I said, Pop, you have such a talent, which nobody has. what I know, the engineering, anybody can learn. can use it. the talent you have, you can't learn that. You have to be born with it. we went together later for projects which we did for others like the Houston People Mover, they sent Morihauser, Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: our boss, Bob Girl and me out there to look whether we want to do that project. And on the way back I was sitting with Bob Girl because that was a non smoking section, while our boss was smoker, I had a long conversation on that trip. with Bob Girl and learn some positive things about Bob Girl but all this experience and all these tries I could never get close to Bob Girl to be say a good friend because he wanna be always recognized as engineer. And he was a industrial engineer, not a mechanical engineer. But Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: for some reason that's what he tried to be. so I got early involved in many other things, not just in the manrail, but the monrail Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: was my major thing and then when we had the chassis first chassis assembled, they went at night to Disneyland and was driving the chassis without the body on it to see how that Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: worked and they made a big mistake not inviting me, just Dave Gengenbach and Bob Gör they could have made our life much easier if they would have taken me along because We had some problems which I had to find out because a year later, we were building the Mark V in Florida and Babker and Dave Gengbach stayed a year in in Florida while I was straightening out these little small problems we had as Mark III here and it was difficult for me to see the suspension because the bodies were already on. And Ken Kohler, who was very supportive in all my work with the monrail, cut the hole in the bulkhead. So I could see the suspension People were already riding in the monrail and Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: they got one car assigned to me with the open bulk so I could see the suspension and figure out what is the reason that our mileage for the tyres were twenty thousand miles shorter than the old monorail and we expected Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: to get better mileage because we had a steering. The steering supposed to give us a better mileage, but it didn't. And nobody had an explanation. Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: So it took me quite some effort to find out Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: and my English at that time was so bad that I doubted whether they understood what I wrote. Mike: being a mechanical engineer, as you described, these machines, these vehicles, the monorail the Wedway, the people mover, the inner workings of making them work, mechanical engineers make that happen. how it's gonna go from A to B and from in this direction to that direction. And, you being there, being a part of that to give us these working machines is a great gift for all of us as Disney fans. Eduard Feuer: And these things I had to do on the monrail and discovery was the reason why I got then assigned to every problem we had in designs, Mike: Yeah. Yep. Eduard Feuer: including the work tractor, which supposed to pull the monrail in. when we had a flat hire of something wrong and we came up with a design built the work tractor and they were testing that at night and every time they drove out with the new work tractor it broke down and the old were had to pull the new one in. And the Vice President the Raja Brogi, every time Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: something like that happened, he said, Ed, go and take a look. So I went that night and they had the fifth test, which was a fifth improvement and power they tried to get was not enough and they increased the hydraulic pressure, it was a hydraulic motor. Increased the hydraulic pressure higher and higher and end up with 7500 psi. And while we were driving I heard some noise and I bent down to wanna listen to the noise. And was very close to be killed because a hose pupped with seven thousand five hundred PSI and the Mike: wow. Eduard Feuer: hydraulic stream went right by my face and it would have killed me right there. So I came back and I went to Rajaprogi and said, first of all, We don't have to look at that design, I think that this a bad thing to have a hydraulic system because when you pull in a manrail and you have a leaking hose like that and the people are in the park in the hydraulic Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: fluid goes all over the people, he then said you design a new work tractor we can use. So I designed one, we put it on the beam and Ken Kooler, the manager from the Manuel, has said with that work tractor you can pull down the building. two we kept here in Disneyland and two they sent to Florida and they sent me with the work director to Florida to demonstrate the function of that. And that's first time I be in Florida and at the same time we got the Mark V for the first time on the beam which was completed. Mike: what did you think of being in Florida from California? the weather is slightly different than California. Eduard Feuer: th it was such such a surprise. I flew with the Mickey Mouse that was Well Disney's private plane and and Mike: Plane, yeah. Yep. That's awesome. Eduard Feuer: and opened the door from the plane and I was the first one getting out without just a few people and that air hit me. Like I wash i was in the washing room and laundry room. I couldn't believe the heat and it was Mike: it's heat shock, it is. If you're not used to it Eduard Feuer: Yeah. I must say they treated me extremely well. I got so lucky to be Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: so successful fitting into the Disney company because at that time every ride had tickets and if the ride had four thousand people per hour and broke down, they knew these were four thousand tickets a hour. and it was clear Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: to everybody that that was a lot of money. Later when we got rid of the tickets, some said, they paid already anyway. It's no loss. And I said, then we can s close all the rights down if it's so unimportant. But I always justified the quality of s and selection of the machinery I bought that it shouldn't break down because the people already paid for that. Disneyland was built from very talented designers. There was no engineering involved. they built it and they made a prototype, they tested that, improved it, and installed it in the park. and every time engineer is not involved, you are sometimes making here and there a mistake. And That's what happened and every time they had a problem they asked me because I was in Disneyland very often because of Samanaria. and I told them what they can improve and they said everything what he says it always works. And I made a name for myself that For example, the director in charge of the maintenance asked somebody else from his employees who I was. He saw me in the shop and they told him who I was and he came and he shook my hand and he said, I heard about you. I'm glad to to meet you, you know, and and I said, Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: I I didn't know I was that famous. Mike: paraphrasing this, but you know, Walt Disney said, you can dream, design, create, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people And so, you know, you can design, the most wonderful thing in the world, but engineers gotta be a part of that process almost twenty-four hours a day. I mean, it's not exactly twenty-four hours a day, but it's Pretty close, Eduard Feuer: I have to tell you just a funny story. Dave Gengenbach who got me into the company, he was always making fun of me calculating everything, building nothing without calculation. and teasing my German accent and I was supervising the installation of a haunted mansion at that time exact the day when we landed on the moon and Dave Gengenbach came and he said Ed come over here he said what is the difference between an Italian engineer A German engineer and an American engineer. I said, I don't know. He said, the Italian engineer, when he designs something, then the form and everything has to look nice and proper. The German engineer, he sits with his slide rules and calculates to make sure everything is strong enough and so forth. And the American engineer He built that, he tested that, he improves that, it makes it work. And I said, like I said, at that exact same day we landed on the moon. And I said, I Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: would like to be on the moon right now and improve things so I come down. Mike: do the calculations, do the calculations. Eduard Feuer: Yeah, it happened exact the same day where we landed on the moon and were hoping to come down, you know. Mike: Yes, exactly. Exactly. in Florida, there was obviously a lot you worked on there, with the opening of Walt Disney World in nineteen seventy one. transition over to Epcot. I know the American Adventure is near and dear to your heart. as it is for many, of us who go see the show year after year after year and learning about how the lifts, the stages and everything involved in the show is doing its inner workings underneath your seats. So if you could please tell us how that attraction really works. Eduard Feuer: Yeah, that is a good question because I'm myself surprised, how reliable that whole hydraulic system is. and the reason for that is and I I'm convinced about that is in my engineering experience I have so many different things I was involved with, but I never been involved in the hydraulic system since schooling. So all I knew about hydraulic is the basic things. Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: So my whole design is complicated because it's big. But if you look at the individual designs, they are simple. They are simple. the any rookie engineer understands and can make it work. basic design that it's big is because the whole project is big. But if Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: you look at the individual things, I have opened the valve and let the flow go and pop these stages up. the first meeting we had with all the artists And maintenance people involved and so forth. They said, Ed, how fast can you make these stages coming up? They are up to 18,000 pounds. And I said, That depends what you need. I said if you wanna have it in ten seconds up, I I I can make it in ten ten seconds. We get together, they design the show, and they made these stages pop up every ten seconds. and now I had to deal with the weight, some stages are 18,000 pounds heavy. Bringing them up ten seconds. and since it was a showel, I couldn't have motors running, making noises everything had to be very quiet. Mike: Right. Yeah. Eduard Feuer: So I again used a very simple system, known to any rookie. you have a small pump someplace in the quiet area pumping hydraulic oil, pumping that hydraulic oil into the accumulator which is stationed close to the stage and having one valve, if you wanna pump up the the stage, you just open the valve. the fluid from the accumulator with high pressure going up and pops up the stage without making any noise because just the hydraulics doesn't make any noise. The pump makes a noise. But the pump I had in a quiet area. and beside that all the valves have big orifices, not small ones which can yeah cluck up if Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: there's some dirt which fancy valves have always small offices because they have to do certain thing. Mine I just had very simple valves with open and close Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: and that's all and that's why it's so reliable and then the mechanism of the stages all the valves, all the cylinders which bringing the stages up, not pushing them up, they're pulling them up. The difference between pulling and pushing is that when you push the rod of the valve of the The cylinder has some Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: side pressure. The side pressure is rubbing on this cylinder. And if you pull that up, the forces are equalized and don't push the cylinder which results Mike: Yeah. Right. Eduard Feuer: in nowhere or where all around even Mike: Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. Eduard Feuer: not just on one side and that design was so successful that I already was not at Disney. I had my own company when I hired somebody who was there and after twenty years he said they was wondering when they have to rehab. So they took one stage apart and to see how much where it is when they have to rehab that and they didn't find any reware. and so I think at least forty years they didn't have to rehab the stages. Mike: Yeah. it seems pretty flawless. I've seen the show several times, almost every year that I'm there. And I'm always thinking Eduard Feuer: Yeah. Mike: about how the mechanisms work and this amazing show happening underneath your seats and they're so heavy, like you mentioned. it's amazing how they're Eduard Feuer: You don't think hear any hear any Mike: able to be lifted up. Eduard Feuer: You don't hear any noises of the motor things Mike: Silent. Yes. Eduard Feuer: yeah. I have to add to that project which is important when I have built the first stage and we had here in Glendale on the parking lot I I had the first prototype bringing up and down and people already had the rumor that will never work and but it did work and and I was not careful enough that I mentioned to somebody who came by and he said, it did work. Surprising because people didn't believe that that system would work. And I said, yes, that's a small stage, but I worry about the bigger stages. They have moved different and so forth and so forth. I thought, you know, I didn't have to hide what my worries are. we had just had a celebration at Red Line, somebody from the shop as a celebration and we had some beers and somebody told me that they had a meeting on my stage while I was drinking beer media shop people they were pulling my prototype stage apart Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: and said it will never work. And it took me I don't know anymore how long it took me to convince them that I should continue. It's a project which they let me continue. And was glad that it went so flawless that Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: Everybody was surprised that it worked. Yeah, even Dick Nunes, the president. from time to time I I had some suggestion and I called Dick Nunes and he said how he's American venture doing. So I had to tell him about our American adventure you know, when you have a problem with the language, it's always a big downer. And here I got a new office and Dave Gengenbach and I was designing the work tractor. the second one which I designed. And Dave Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: Gengenbach came with Dick Nunes in my office and he said, Ed, explain what you're doing. And my language was so bad. knew it was bad, but I I couldn't do better. And Dave King and Mach finally picked up and finished my presentation, which Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: was really embarrassing. And I was embarrassed for a long time until I found out that embarrassed presentation I had to Dick Nunes, Dick Nunes remembered me. Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: and whenever I showed up, you know, he knew who I was. And whenever I had some suggestion about some new project or so, because I got together with some German companies and they Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: wanna give me ten million dollar. to design a high speed monorail which we can use in the cities if they are allowed to have a monorail method not say the star in front going to Epcot. Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: and I made a presentation in Germany and because they have an exceptionally nice shock absorbing system. for the trains in Germany and you sit in these trains and they are they are smooth like you can believe it. And Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: I said, with your shock absorber system and my experience with Monrail, we can come together with a monrail which can go high speed through the cities and so forth. and so they said, Okay, how much money do you need? I said, ten million. They said convince your company to put the manual on the beam through Epcot and you get the 10 million. So I called Dick Nunes and every time I called and said who I was, he never let me wait. He always accepted me right away. And Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Eduard Feuer: I said I had a big digital advantage. not expressing myself because of the language, but how many in the meantime the company got big and how many thousand engineers we have and how many Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: engineers Nunes knows. But he knows that guy who could express himself with with his English. He remembered me. Mike: Yeah. sometimes, you know, our biggest challenges as you just described during that presentation, could sometimes be the biggest opportunity, right? And you know, Dick Nunes, seeing that remembered you, knows who you are, knows the work that you do, knows the skills that you Eduard Feuer: Yeah. Mike: have to fix problems, to create these. machines and make them work and make them work effectively, flawlessly. someone like Dick Nunes remembers that. And that was a great opportunity for you to, become visible throughout Eduard Feuer: one of the Mike: the entire company. Eduard Feuer: one of the successful projects I have was the Marathon. right after we started operating the Marohorn, Disneyland went on strike and I had to stay overnight Mike: Mm. Eduard Feuer: to make maintenance. And I was have breakfast in the morning in the cafeteria and somebody comes and s grabs me on the neck and squeezes me. And I look, it's Dick Nunes. And he said, How does it feel to design a ride and then maintain it at night? they had a problem on the right system in Epcot Center with that big bar at the entrance, And I found in Germany a drive system which would fit perfect in there. and I came back from Germany and I called Dick Nunes, I said I have a perfect perfect system for that and it's hundred percent I guarantee it's going to work. And he said, do we have to shut the ride down? I said, yes, we do. But we can prepare everything so we can do it in a hurry. Now he said we can shut it down. So he shut me down just because we couldn't shut down. Otherwise, I would have convinced him to use that drive system because it was such a good fit to our problem Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: we had there. I got assigned to Pirates of the Caribbean ride for Walt Disney World. and since we had already the Pirates of the Caribbean here in Disneyland, and I had a good relationship with the Disney people, I had no problem to convince them to show me after the a ride closes at one o'clock to show me and tell me their problems Mike: Mm. Eduard Feuer: they have with the pirates of the Caribbean ride. And so at one o'clock at night they brought me through the ride system and then we went through the channel where the water is flowing and they have little pumps taking the water here, here, and spilling the water out here. And that was what pushes the water around Mike: Exactly. Eduard Feuer: the boat. and while they went through, we found 35% of Disney Caps in the channel kids dropped and these caps blocked up the pumps So Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: that changed the ride system completely during the day and you couldn't do anything. So these are one of the main improvements I did when I got that right assigned for building a new one for Walt Disney World. And Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: I selected one big pump which picked up the water and then instead of these small pumps all over the place, having jets all over the place which just push the water. The other improvement was they had here boats with wheels when they're going down the tunnel they have wheels and these wheels have to take so much pressure that the boats cracked after so many years they had maintenance problems. So instead of wheels under the boat, I made a flat boat and I put where the down ramp was rollers where the boat could roll down that was another major improvement I had forty twenty-two people working for me. I gives them assignment for more than one month four weeks and Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: I made the request to go with my family to Germany and they accepted that. Roger Brogi and Morihauser they accepted that. What they didn't tell me was that they didn't like it because they was worried Mike: Mm. Eduard Feuer: about that I leaving that project unattended and so forth but I gave Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: everybody an assignment for at least four weeks and I Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: didn't worry at all and Tim Kelly was in charge he was my group leader and so I went to Germany when I came back they took a project away from me. Raja Brogi said you know if I don't worry about my project so much that I don't deserve to have it. pirates of the Caribbean for Florida. made all the improvements, they took it away and Dave Kingenbach finished the monarch in Florida and he came back and they gave him the project my Pirates of Mike: Wow. Eduard Feuer: Care Bean project. here I was a project engineer and I got demoted. I was troubleshooting here and there but I didn't have my own project. until something came to my help the marathon. They Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: Wanna double up number of sleds on the maron to increase the throughput. And they want to put two sleds together and double up on the number of sleds. But the right system has water carrying around the track. making all the brakes wet. And the brakes Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: are there in case something goes wrong, you want to stop immediately all the sleds Mike: Yes. Eduard Feuer: in this system. But Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: the brakes couldn't handle the weight of two sleds together. They slipped through because the brakes were wet. And I just happened to walk by when they made the test and failed I called the Disney guys up and I said set up a test here I'm drawing make that break and put it in and make the test. We made the test and it stops the brakes, the sleds. Right there and Jim Cora said, It's your project. And I became a project Mike: There you go. There Eduard Feuer: engineer again just because Disney Mike: Excellent. Eduard Feuer: guys they loved me so much they said they he insisted I will be the project engineer when I finished the Marathon Epcot just came up I got five projects on Epcot and Bill Watkins Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: became then chief engineer Bill Watkins was my later partner. and he came at one time and he said, Ed, I know you think you can handle five projects, but I think, you know, he hired some engineers and he says I wanna give everybody gifts one project. I had two because I had wealth of motion. and American adventure. And I couldn't say no, But I didn't like it. And I think he made a big mistake. And I told him later I said, Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: you have assigned these five engineers to me and left me in charge And they would work like a product engineer, only I would have to say so. I said that would have been the right thing to do. And he agreed with that because when he got the idea to go on his own, and on our own, he came to me and he said, If you go with me, I create a company and we have you as a partner. And Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: I said, Are you crazy? I didn't want to go because I Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: felt safe at Disney, but what I did not know Mike: Right. Yeah. Eduard Feuer: that they planned to shut down the whole engineering. And he went to these high level meetings. I didn't and he didn't tell me about it. so that's why we had the big layoff we late a lot of people two thousand five hundred people or so off. Then I went back to Bill and I said, Bill, you still wanna go on your own? He said yes. I said, We have a chance. I said, but only if I become the boss. and Bill just wanna have a design, not the sharp, but I said we going to have a shop because we needed the shop to rehab the chassis. And since there was some mechanics involved and I'm trained as a mechanic, it was logically to have me in Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: charge of the shop and the company and Bill of the engineering. And so Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: that's how how we divided our responsibilities up in our company. Mike: both you and Bill founded Ride and Show basically after the Epcot project had conversations with Steve Alcorn and others who Steve Alcorn says hello, by the way. He send you a hello. and Eduard Feuer: I I like Steve I he is a down to earth guy He knows his business. disney was glad about hearing that we going on our own and that we going to do the job the rehab because they trusted us knowing i i knew the monorail very very good and Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: they knew we come up with a good product Mike: so why do you think that, especially post Epcot, post Tokyo Disneyland, that lot of these layoffs were going to happen? I know the end of major project. Michael Leisner just took over the company. did that impact a lot of the decisions for layoffs at that time? Eduard Feuer: Yeah, because at the same time Disney made a decision not to do designs in-house anymore. a main mistake. And they thought they can hire other companies like us to do their design then they wanna takes the design and go to his company which can build that and it sounds pretty good on paper, but it didn't sound good in praxis because building and designing is always better. Nobody can point at the other party's fault but especially specially what I I think Disney realized that that it was a big big mistake. There were certain certain things only Disney had the knowledge and Disney people had the knowledge what was needed in the entertainment industry like Disneyland and when Disney laid off I think three thousand people and laid off all their talent, they went to other companies and gave them our knowledge, which only Disney had. certainly every amusement park had Disney knowledge and Disney projects. I went to a company in Holland. They tried me to one attraction and they knew there was a copy of our project and when I realized that they just looked at me how my reaction was. Mike: at that time, the the creativity, the engineering, the designs, you talk about Bob Gurry, you talk about the work you've done. it was something different from any other company. And when you built it in-house, it stayed in-house. You got to experience something that was built by this unique company that you didn't see in any other company, any other amusement park or theme park as what Disney does. And so now after the layoffs, you had a lot of people going to the new park Universal Studios in Florida and spreads out from there. And so you have a lot of these ideas, this engineering, this creativity being brought to other places when if it stood in house, it could stay in-house for the long term. So Eduard Feuer: There are so many little things you don't realize except if you are deep into the project. For example, the fire. Disney always has an interaction fire which looks so real. Nobody knew how to do it except a few people. And after a day off, everybody had fires. And we ride and show. hired some people who had certain talents and we needed them and we hired them. But Disney can't blame us because the the people were laid off. They needed work and we needed the talent. Mike: That's right. it was a culture change and Eisner came in, changed a lot of the Eduard Feuer: I I think I think Mike: philosophy Eduard Feuer: I think top management never realised what a mistake that was. I don't think Eisner at that time realised not to make the design in-house anymore going out, farm things out was a mistake. changed the whole entertainment world. Mike: it's one of those interesting things that, companies go through this where they make a decision in that moment that could change the whole trajectory of their design department, of their engineering department. And, in this case the imagineering department, which was formerly WED and then it became Walt Disney Imagineering. a lot of these changes were happening at that time and after at Epcot, after Tokyo, and then Eisner joining, they were gonna see some changes happen. and so back to Epcot. I know you mentioned obviously you went in a lot of detail about American Adventure, which was, an exciting story about how that attraction came to be. And so the world emotion. A world of motion was just a great show. it was an inspiring show, it was a happy show. So tell us about some of the work you did on World of Motion Eduard Feuer: did the design from scratch Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: I changed all the little mistakes we did on Haunted Mansion because I just came in when the design was done and I just checked the drawings. I did not design that and I didn't want to change major things and the world of motion I had a chance to do it from scratch. and I did it and they wanna see my idea and they said make a prototype. So I made a prototype of just a few cars on the parking lot and I could push the whole thing by hand, ten cars or so and because there were no shock absorbers the shock observer turned out was not needed and Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: there were so many cars and also I was lucky to be one of the first of engineers, Bill Watkins and me who got the first computer when the computer came out Disney rented one computer and we had to share it Bill and I for try-out, whether computer can be used in engineering efficiently. That's unbelievable that was a question at that time, you had to put the formula in and they made just the calculations and that just happened before I started the design on the world of motion. and we had design from Haunted Mansion because you have these cars and then they are connected by a toe bar and that toe bar is straight not like a chain which bends and goes with the track Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: and that chordal effect wants to make the line shorter or longer while it goes around. And that was realized by the designer who designed the first system and was realized by me, but it was a very difficult calculation to go through and figure out how much the line wanna expand or contract. And that Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: was the first calculation I made on the computer. And since Mike: Well Eduard Feuer: it was a tryout, they asked me, was it worth it to have a computer to do the calculation? And I said about three engineers would have used probably three years to make the calculation we saved a lot of money just because we had that calculations and that's why we decided to start buying computers. But Bill Watkin and I was the first engineers used the computer system. The system was going so easy that these five or six cars we had on the parking lot, we could push them with the hand. And Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: the others were so tense that we had to use a lot of power to get that whole ride system going. Mike: World of Motion, very smooth attraction vehicles didn't make a whole lot of noise compared to other attractions like Spaceship Earth. And so you saw the success of the ride system from World of Motion, Horn and Mansion adventures through inner space. Why wasn't that incorporated into, let's say, a spaceship earth or journey into imagination Eduard Feuer: I mentioned just shortly when Bill Watkins took these five projects away from me and assigned that to individual engineers, he should have let me in charge because I would have changed certain things during the design. And I try to be helpful Because I always had good relation with Bear. He is a professional engineer and he appreciated my knowledge and we communicated like two knowledgeable guys and didn't have to argue. and I saw some design like that globe that gearbox which is in every car i i Mike: Mm-hmm. Eduard Feuer: looked at that design and i i can say i'm a s specialized specially in the gearbox design very knowledgeable and i looked at that and i saw that it will not work and i went to bill and i said you know I wanna help you out. look at that design that has a problem and I told him what's the problem are and he was busy and he said, Ed, would you go to the project engineer and convince him to change that? And I went to the project engineer and he listened to me, you know, and he said, No, I don't want to change it. I think it's good. And Mike: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Eduard Feuer: I didn't want to go to Bill and say hey you know if you don't care let's let it happen. So I I walked away Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: and then as soon as we started the spinship out. Mike: Spaceship Earth, Eduard Feuer: Somebody was standing on top and turning every car around because the gearbox didn't Mike: yeah. Eduard Feuer: do it. and I didn't went to build and said, Hey, I told you so. but I would have avoided a lot of mistakes if he would have each project engineer assigned to the project but give me the overall say so and guide Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: them in they design that would have been the proper thing and later when we were on our own I said Bill that's what you should have done and he said I know Mike: Yeah. Eduard Feuer: I know Mike: I just wonder, thinking about Spaceship Earth, as Epcot's flagship attraction, how complicated that vehicle system was and the problems with that. I wonder if Because of how the ride system is, because of all the steep hills and going backwards down another steep hill, if a system like Haunted Mansion or Worlds of Motion probably wouldn't have worked as effective there, but you spent your entire career, solving problems, keeping you there to to make those final decisions 'cause of your track record, what you've done, what you've accomplished, and you know your stuff and you know how these attractions work. And how they should work effectively without many issues. And, experience matters. Experiences matter. And what you've been able to do to troubleshoot things and solve problems, it speaks volumes. And those that I spoke with have nothing but great things to say about you the work that you've done. and I also want to thank Alan Arena, who is another former Imagineer, introduced me to your son and you. And so, special thanks to Alan for setting this up. I did want to ask you one more question before we close out. what's one of your favorite memories happiest times from when you were working on these attractions for Disney? Eduard Feuer: That's hard to say because Mike: I it's an endless list, right? Eduard Feuer: Yeah, and was I was happy with every project because every project, ended good and everybody was happy and made me famous in some cases. it's really hard to say, but I I love to work for Disney and I never don't want to get embossed there. I loved the Disney company. I I really, really was happy there. Mike: you know, we as fans, of this company and of the attractions loved having you there and loved what you created and what you were a part of. that made these attractions work well and make them a reality. And so thank you for what you've done for all of us. Eduard Feuer: Thank you for your comment. Mike: Absolutely, absolutely. you always have a seat here at WW Connection to tell your stories, talk about your projects. This is what this platform is for. thank you, for taking the time to chat with us today. Eduard Feuer: I'm glad to be able to explain certain things and should you have some questions or other projects I was involved, I will be gladly to explain it and get again involved. Mike: Excellent. Excellent. That sounds wonderful. we'll definitely be in touch and we'll talk soon. So have a great rest of the day and wishing you all the best. Eduard Feuer: Thank you.