mba2012

And the day someone falls in front of a moving ride vehicle, everyone will suddenly find themselves appalled that there wasn't something as simple as an exit gate. Disney must also either be self-insured or be paying huge amounts for insurance, to allow them to skip on pretty inexpensive preventative measures. I believe it was pretty firmly established in another thread a while back that the requirement for attendants to check the harness before doing up seatbelts on DCR was stipulated by Mack themselves, due to a close-call overseas. Making this a universal policy across the park will actually be saving time in my opinion, because there's one clear rule for guests to follow everywhere. More time is wasted when guests get confused and do the wrong thing and harnesses need to be raised. Like I said just above, I'm pretty certain the push-pull is stipulated by the manufacturer. But regardless, on all occasions that I've ridden Blue Fire, it's seemed to me (who spent several years operating a ride with almost the same harness design) that the one handed wiggle of the harness would be wholly ineffective at either checking it's down far enough, or detecting a failed cylinder. I fully agree with you here. @Levithian made this point earlier in the thread, but having previously operated many of the attractions at Movie World, I think the biggest factor in long dispatch times isn't the procedure but the motivation of the staff. Procedure certainly contributes to it, particularly at the WoO rides. The attendants have to do a lot of passing through gates and moving around the station to safe zones during each cycle, which definitely chews up time. I think this is more down to the design of the stations (and possibly a lack of input/forethought from operations staff), because these are still critical safety functions.

Europa Park must be self insured or something. While it's amazing how quick their operations are, they also clearly accept a huge amount more risk than any Australian park can. Just to highlight a few things: No exit gate on Silver Star (and I think some others) means that a guest could just wander into the station at any time. Of course there's station stop buttons and E-stops, but they still rely on operator intervention. In risk management/safety engineering, relying on humans to do anything is basically your last resort. With the pace that operators work at EP, I can't image they're capable of paying much attention to guests entering the station either. I think Movie World goes too far by requiring operators to physically check entry/exit gates that are interlocked with the ride control system, which in some cases can add quite a lot of time to a dispatch. But I think a physical barrier between people and a moving ride is a pretty critical safety feature. In several clips you can see operators walking around ride platforms with moving ride vehicles within arms reach. The most competent and well trained operator is still not infallible, and inevitably someone is going to slip, trip, or fall into the path of a ride vehicle and there won't be enough time for another operator to react. Having safe zones (particularly safe zones monitored with pressure mats or similar) for operators means there will be some time spent just moving into the right place to begin loaded the next set of guests, but risk reduction is massive. The single handed, quite weak, harness checks on Blue Fire massively speeds up the process, but I'd be almost 100% sure Mack's own ride manuals (which parks are required to follow) specify that restraints must be physically checked more rigorously than that. At DC Rivals it's a two handed push until you're confident that it's firmly pressed against the guests thighs, and then a two handed pull until you're confident it's not going anywhere. My experience on Blue Fire is that the operator grabs the bar on the side of the harness and basically just wiggles it briefly and moves on. I really struggle to see how those checks an operator any confidence that the harness is working as intended. This is purely a liability thing. At MW, critical safety information needs to be conveyed to the guests twice before the ride starts, which is why operators reiterate instructions that are already written down. From my experience working there, it doesn't really matter how much something is common sense, a large number of guests won't do/understand it. For most rides, the only procedural requirement for opening up the gates is that the operators are in the correct positions (typically at the front of the train). On several rides, especially DCR and GL, the unload side operator has to wade through the unloading guests before they can get to their position

I heard a while back that they were having difficulty getting KT to duel during commissioning, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of those issues still persist. If that's the case then I imagine Vekoma may return at some point to do some reprogramming and recommissioning.

It appears that the requirement for a tertiary locking system isn't restricted just to Australia. Notably both Mack extreme spinners as well as Voltron both have a mechanical locking system, as well as the hydraulic system (which I imagine is still dual-redundant). This gets activated after the push pull (which is done automatically on the extreme spinner trains), and also prevents the harness from further closing during the ride. I'm not sure how these work exactly, but I've wondered if it's a system that could be adopted to satisfy the requirements in Australia.

Mack roller coasters are usually pretty configurable for that kind of thing right in the touch screen on the panel. Changing the number of operators required is definitely just a toggle switch on the panel, so I imagine locking off an air gate is too.

It doesn't usually make that noise, but I imagine it's probably new wheels or adjustments to the wheel bogies, causing some wheels to rub some more. It'll likely go away after a few dozen cycles.

There are always two hydraulic cylinders or ratchets, so one failed cylinder doesn't mean that the seatbelt is the only restraint, but yes, still impossible to detect with the belt tightened. Another interesting fact here is that DC Rivals is setup such that only one cylinder is locked in the station, and the cylinder that gets locked alternates between each dispatch, this way they both get checked every two cycles. When the train actually goes to dispatch, the other cylinder gets locked.

The key thing to note here is the second point that states that the push pull "check shall be carried out with the safety belt unfastened". If the belt has been fastened and has no slack, then the pull check won't detect a failed cylinder. Back when guests could insert their own seatbelt, that would very often tighten the belt themselves, so the procedure was changed to what it is now.

Honestly I'm surprised to hear that. It was probably happening every other week when I worked on it; I never stopped the ride myself but was there when it happened more the once.

It's definitely still the same announcements used. Justice League and West automatically play the female announcement when the e-stop is pressed, Green Lantern doesn't do any automatic announcements, and I'm not sure about the others.

All the ride technicians are mechanical trades people, and electricians. The parks employ engineers but they typically aren't hands on with the rides, except when doing commissioning or more complex issues arise.

The two bottom letters were lit up earlier tonight. They look pretty bright and legible from a distance; the full word will definitely look good once it's all lit up.

Perhaps more likely to be underground services. I can't imagine they'll want the queue to go through the smokers area

Yep, as far as I'm aware

All the ride uniforms have disappeared at movie world now too, all the ride ops are just wearing this new uniform. I think it looks very bland and having the blue on the old shirts made them much more recognisable.

I'm betting that we've all had our final rides on Doomsday.

You'll have to note that there being two staff members in the booth is due to training, which always inevitably leads to longer cycle times.

Was also my first visit to try and ride Leviathan but it was still closed when I left at 2. As I was leaving there was a big film crew setting up around the entrance to the ride. I'm certainly hoping that wasn't why it was shut, because I checked the maintenance schedule the night before and it had no indication the ride would be closed. Would be very disappointing if they closed a ride at short notice for a film crew, who presumably would have given them extensive notice.

My understanding is that when the seatbelt is in the operator can't properly pull up and see if the harness is functioning correctly.

I know these kinds of applications often have delays before they appear online, would that likely be the case here? Superman is going down for maintenance at the end of the week, this would be the perfect time for it to be moved into a new spot at movie world just in time for the easter holidays.

While I agree that MW operations could do with a fair bit of improvement, I've also heard the ECC group described as not very understanding when it comes to loose items policies and the like.

I think that's the point Joz is trying to make. Also I'd hardly say Silver Star has a well themed station or queue line, it's just a flashy corporate showcase. But I do agree it's an incredible coaster (although rougher than I expected), it doesn't really need anymore themeing.

I'm pretty sure the trains only had a drivers cab at one end, the other end provided a larger space for prams and wheelchairs.

Scooby typically operates with around 14 cars, I'm not sure if that changes much for busier periods or not.

Rivals backwards seating did have surge pricing for a period this year, I'm not sure when exactly. They didn't advertise the price anywhere and the staff at the ride wouldn't tell you what it is. It seems to be stuck at $30 now though.