rideop2013

When I worked at Holiday World we could cross (during 1 train operation) behind and through a train in the station. We could never cross in front of or inbetween the cars. When the train was outside the station we could cross from the point the station brakes closed until the time the ride reached the "cut-off" point for each coaster. On Raven it was the last curve, Legend was the turn by the station window (2nd corner of death), Voyage was the basement viewing window. Once it hit that point you had to wait until it was parked in the station again. No signal was required to cross, you just did it. For one train it was absolutely essential we could cross because we would typically be running 2 ops, with one at console who had to stay there when a train was on the track (not the station). Not crossing the track would mean dispatch times would have skyrocketed. Two train ops (or more, in the earlier Voyage years) the only way we were permitted to cross the track was when a train was parked in the station. We could cross through the seat of a car, but not behind like we could during one train. Not a big deal since the only reasons we had to cross during two train were related to rotation, breaks, etc. rather than normal operations. There were exceptions to track crossing when an estop was pressed, but that all boiled down to common sense and good judgement more than written procedure to be honest. Could be different now - I don't know. I do think it's interesting to see what procedure some parks find as perfectly acceptable and normal, other parks might see as an OMG-SAFETY-HAZARD-GONNA-DIE. For example, Holiday World has pretty loose rules regarding track crossing compared to other parks. On the other hand, loose articles were drilled into us as such a safety violation that we couldn't allow a park map in a zippered pocket while other parks allow (and even encourage) you to take everything with you. In my opinion it all boils down to: strict procedures don't necessarily mean less strict procedures are unsafe.

Looks like it's probably going to be Voyage for me.