Walkthrough Part 5: The Boiler Room--Part 2, the Upper Queue

While guests from the King's Library went to the lower queue, guests that viewed the pre-show in the Queen's Library funneled to the upper queue of the boiler room.  At the end of the boiler room hallway, the queue fencing directed them left and up a flight of stairs.

Looking back at the library exits from the Queen's side of the hallway.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

The layout of the upper queue was similar to the lower queue, with the exception, of course, of being upstairs.  The upstairs queue was on a catwalk of sorts over the lower queue, with the open air space on either side of the line being open to view the lower queue and have some set elements (such as pipes and dangling chains) extend between the two.

Here's the basic (not to scale) layout of the upper queue.  Note that what's not outlined was open space to the lower floor:

The stairs consisted of two sections with a landing between them.

Looking back at the end of the boiler room hallway from the landing.  That's the "man in boiler" boiler in the rear left of this photo.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

View of the lower queue from the landing.  This photo's view is almost directly behind the previous photo's view.  By Mrbellcaptain

Directly at the top of the stairs was a storage area, surrounded by chain-link fencing material and filled with dusty objects.  The most conspicuous thing about the storage area as one approached it, however, was likely a small plaque with a poem on it.  Guests directly faced this plaque as soon as they ascended the stairs.

Photo by Mrbellcaptain

If for some reason that image doesn't load, the poem read:

It's easy enough to be pleasant

when life hums along like a song.

But the man worth while

is the man who can smile

when everything goes dead wrong.

Strangely, this does not appear to be a Twilight Zone reference.  I've not found any lists or blog posts identifying this poem with any particular episode.  It certainly fits the ominous mood of the Tower, but it seems somewhat odd that something so conspicuously placed just came from nowhere.

EDIT: Apparently, this was the first few lines of the poem "Worth While" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  The full poem is significantly longer.  There still seems to be no connection between this poem and The Twilight Zone, however, despite it appearing in all three Twilight Zone themed Towers. /EDIT

The storage area was filled with a variety of junk.  There were two especially large, noticeable props in it.  One was a cabinet for holding the hotel keys, like the one behind the check-in desk in the lobby, which stood against the wall, partially draped by fabric.  The other, on the left side of the storage against the other wall, was a work desk with a bunch of clocks and trinkets on it.  On the wall to the left of the work desk was a vintage-styled pinup calendar, which had a photo of a blonde woman in a black bathing suit.  I can't give a definitive list of all the smaller props in the storage area, but they were things like bits of broken machinery, with the occasional fancy ashtray or other item that looked like it would be placed in the lobby after its theoretical repair.

Work desk on the left side of the storage area.  You can see the calendar on the wall under the light.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

A flash photo showing the whole storage area.  May 2016.  This also gives a view of the pipe-like fencing that bordered the catwalk of the upper queue.

The key cabinet.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

I haven't heard of any specific Twilight Zone references hidden in the storage area.

Past the storage area, guests saw the upper portion of the "man in boiler" machine.

The upper portion of the "man in boiler" boiler.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

From there, like in the lower queue, guests caught a look at the farthest-right elevator loading area.

Photo by Mrbellcaptain

The upper queue felt much more "open" than the lower queue.  Rather than the imposing row of valves and pipes in the lower queue, this section of the upper queue had a few chains dangling from the ceiling and a couple pipes running up from below.  The result was a relatively unobstructed view into the upper loading area on the right and a concrete wall with an industrial fan on the left.

Some dangling chains and pipes, with a clear view of the upper loading area's generator behind them.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain.

Looking down the left side of the queue.  Note the open space to the stairwell and the lower queue area.

A photo looking back over the upper queue, with a view down to the end of the boiler room hallway.  The fan in this photo is the same one as in the previous photo.  May 2016.

Now feels as good a time as any to mention the ceiling of the upper queue.

The upper queue's ceiling was comprised of some dark metal grating meant to hide the show lights and other "unrealistic" set elements.  Unlike in the lower queue, where the ceiling was too far away to see clearly unless it was the underside of the upper queue's catwalk, the ceiling in the upper queue did much more to potentially break the "realistic" illusion.  The blue and orange show lights were rather clearly noticeable through the metal grating, and one could see the faucet that fed the dripping pipe.

Speaking of the dripping pipe, the upper queue got to see it as they rounded the corner toward the loading area (see diagram).

The upper part of the dripping pipe, in the upper queue.  Note how visible the show lights are in the ceiling above it.  May 2016.

If one looked above the upper part of the dripping pipe, one could see a black pipe (clearly meant to be hidden) that drained water into the pipe every so often to make it drip water.

Another view of the upper pipe with clearly visible show lights.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

If one looked down the draining pipe toward the lower queue, one got another amusing view.  Guests apparently liked to toss coins from the upper queue into the basin below.  While waiting in the upper queue, one could watch the water drip down into a sometimes rather substantial pile of coins.

Looking down into the basin from the upper queue.  In this photo, there are only a couple of coins.  May 2016.

However, the dripping pipe was far from the most interesting part of this section of the queue.  Indeed, directly across from the pipe, in the wall forming the other portion of the turn towards the load area, was one of the creepiest Easter eggs in all of the Tower: the Spooky Wall.

The first thing noticeable about the wall was that part of it was differently textured than the rest of the boiler room walls.  A large rectangular section was smoothed over, as if it had been patched, and there were chalk marks written over it.

May 2016

Chalk mark detail by Mrbellcaptain

If guests kept their distance this wall was just another wall.  But if they got close, and/or leaned against the wall, they could hear these sounds echoing through the concrete:

That YouTube video is the source audio for the Spooky Wall.  Based on the French title, I assume this was taken from the Paris version of the Tower.  However, in this case the Paris Tower used the English dub, and therefore the source audios for Paris and DCA were identical.

The sounds included vague creepy wind-like noises, alongside a melancholy ghost girl searching for her parents.  The chalk-marked wall and the little girl's voice were a reference to the Twilight Zone episode "Little Girl Lost."

This Easter egg was one of the creepiest not only because of its content (that source audio is super spooky, even removed from the ominous boiler room setting), but also because of how unexpected it could be.  I saw many guests walk past it unaware, until one decided to rest against the wall and suddenly heard the creepy soundtrack.

Next to the spooky wall was a warning sign and a light fixture.

Photo by Mrbellcaptain

Detail of the sign.  Photo by Mrbellcaptain

As guests walked past the sign and towards the loading area, they got a view of the face-shaped boiler.

Face boiler from the upper queue.  May 2016.

I already analyzed (and explained why I disliked) the face-shaped boiler in my post about the lower queue.

From here, cast members asked guests the number of people in their party, and sent them to the appropriate part of the loading area.