Alpenguy

I found those quite easy... but then, I'm currently signed off on 11 Disney attractions. Observations: BTMR, assuming it's the same for Paris, should be able to run 5 trains. It'd also be a lot harder if it cascade stopped like in real life. Basically, you can't back up more than the spot right behind the station... for Paris it might be 2 spots, the lift and holding spot, but yeah. Adding track switch controls like the real deal would be cool too, and maybe a block reset function. Unfortunately this one kept bugging out on me, and people wouldn't go to both stations. The Space one is kinda lame, I'm pretty sure Paris has at least 4 trains and it felt kinda slow. I think the Tower of Terror one is an awesome little simulation, though I don't think it's accurate to the number of vehicles either. It also bugged out on me when I tried going from 2 to 3 elevators. It was pretty easy on Busy once I got the TV rooms decently offset in their timing, and it's totally limited by the track open light on the elevators. The Phantom Manor one was nice and pretty fun, though if the show in the elevator was much longer it'd make it a bit harder and more realistic. It's definitely accurate in spirit to the real thing, where the capacity is limited by the buggies in 2-elevator operation. I'm assuming PM is like the WDW Mansion, where the elevators are just ceilings and not actual elevators like Disneyland? Also, "Show All" in the flash right-click menu fixed the window size issue for me, maybe that'll help the folks missing elevator controls? I really wish I knew Flash and stuff like this, cause a serious, 100% realistic simulation would be really, really fun to make...

I miss Greezed Lightning / Tidal Wave at PGA, it was such a great re-ride coaster on quiet days, and so fun. I'm also sad I won't get to ride Black Hole at AT again, that ride was definitely very cool. Of course, going back to the UK anytime in the future doesn't look likely anyways, but that's not the point.

Looks like fun, and a good day to go specifically to ride lots of coasters lots of times. Were there a lot of other Paramount logos besides the one you took a picture of?

People tend to leave out that the ride, and especially the motion of the seats, is really bumpy/jerky. I find it fairly flowing and not too disorienting in the spinning until the last couple elements, which are just beyond bizarre and much more intense.

Even with 12, it's not like the guests at unload, load, or at ready positions in the station couldn't just get out normally right away. 170 sounds like uniformed media exaggerating. I'd personally cycle out the ride instead of e-stopping as long as the bolt didn't look important or from something other than the train, much easier and safer, but I'm sure USF has certain procedures for such things. It's just funny how media picks up on random stories like this every once in a while, like it doesn't happen daily in some way at every major park.

If you look in californiascreamer's avatar, or any picture of the launch, the weird //// shape edge to the water side of the launch area is fold-up railings. Indy and Buzz Lightyear have similar things that are 100% automatic if the ride goes down, or stops for a while (Buzz). Surprised me the first time I saw them silently fold up and down while I burned the crap out of the nearest triangle target. Oh, and glad to hear you rode Matterhorn, I fail at reading comprehension when pretty pictures are around.

You didn't ride Matterhorn? The mist (not the waves) on the Screamin launch is the world's first liquid cooled LIM system. Back when DCA opened the ride didn't get enough cooling, so for a while until the mist system got installed there were maintenance guys constantly standing out there with a hose soaking the launch after each train. The waves are just for awesome show.

Space only has to use the unload when they're running close to the maximum trains. Since it's load on one side and unload on the other, stepping through is pretty quick and doable in the interval. Matterhorn there's no way for people to get out of the way of people getting in, along with more time needed for getting in and out. We also need the time to pull out seatbelts, otherwise people tend to sit on them and go OMG WHAT SEATBELTZ?!?! I guess it just comes down to staffing. . Heck, most of the dark rides can do tandem unload and crazy things if you really want to, but in the end it almost never matters as far as counts go. If anyone is curious, at Matterhorn the load and unload spots are both controlled by the one person at the panel right by the gates, and generally get moved together. If the interval is too fast to keep the station full with that number of bobsleds I'll do them when each is ready, otherwise almost all operators keep the trains together normally. Space I'm quite sure the unload spot is controlled by the person at the extra console when it's active. Hoping someone found this interesting?

What Space will do in a backup, is if they're really close to a cascade, the rocket at unload will just shoot straight through load with the lapbars locked, advancing everything forward by two spots instantly. If the slow loaders are obviously not going to be ready, they might pull them to the left at the switch, have them get out, and use the wheelchair rocket. Otherwise it's fairly unforgiving- I think it can back up one zone behind the 2 visible behind unload in the station for just a couple seconds and then bam, cascade. Space is really tight on the block timing when going all out, so stopping a sled at zone 13 or something (out of 14) and taking the time to pick up enough speed to not have the train behind it intrude is pretty much impossible. At Matterhorn, we can easily avoid a cascade with 9 bobsleds just by pulling one off at the transfer table. If the cast member sees it coming and feels like working, they can sometimes unload people before pulling it, otherwise the people in it will get a reride usually. With 10 bobsleds, if you plan ahead and pull an empty sled off and leave it next to the table spot before unload, or pull one at each table before loading, the ride will not cascade no matter how long it takes. Unless the situation is really unusual like someone not being able to get out, and not being able to get back in so a sled can move forward one spot, Matterhorn shouldn't cascade. Usually it's because of stopping the station cause some idiot decides to jump out in the hold zones before unload, which can be really unforgiving (like 15 seconds) if you're unlucky on timing and running full 10 trains on that side.

Nice pics, where else are you headed while down here?

PGA Race Games 2001-2003, Top Gun / Delta Flyer ops 2004 Disneyland 2006-Present, Fantasyland Classics (all the small rides except Storybook), Matterhorn, and Small World. I prefer Matterhorn cause the day goes by so fast and downtimes are outrageous events of pushing sleds out of brake zones to hopefully make it over brake zones that are HIGHER. Gotta love the issues in adding 11 brake zones to a ride originally designed to not have any. If you ever see a full cycle-out of that ride, it's an incredible chorus of beeping, narrating a great ballet of transfer tables and people shoving 2000 pound trains uphill, very very quickly. Super stressful, super rewarding as an operations experience. Big change from Top Gun which had like 3 buttons and was impossible to break down. I do loathe seatbelts though...

I think in most cases, working on an older ride would be a lot better than a totally automated, super user-friendly B&M or whatnot. I just started on the Matterhorn and it's damn awesome- pushing trains around in the station, running the transfer tables, and resetting blocked trains in MCB's with a team of 4 pushing to make it over a hill is a lot more interesting than my PGA days of just saying "clear" and pushing one button to dispatch or waiting for maintainance to show up for the most minor downtime that Disney actually trains the operators to fully handle. It's also a lot more interesting to have a ride that can cascade, but that's kind of obvious.

What really gets to me after experience working at a fairly crappy seasonal park and now just starting on a handpicked world-recognized-attraction crew, is that it really doesn't take any more actual effort from any ride ops to have things run quickly and smoothly. It also makes the day pass MUCH faster. I think most parks just miserably fail at offering incentive to get good counts and be SAFE, (hard not to do on a modern coaster anyways) cause once some competitive spirit is there it stays and makes things fun. It probably just comes down to the general decline of work ethic and HR departments though. And of course the "I make minimum wage so I should have no pride in my job and do it crappily" attitude which will probably make that wage follow them for a while...

Looking at pictures of most parks from their opening and several years down the road, nothing opens with shade. It takes a few years for trees to fill out and grow around stuff- if you've ever seen that 70's Rollercoaster mad bomber movie, SFMM is a freakin desert. Nowadays, Revolution is surrounded by huge trees and tons of shade. I think it's cool to see a real park opening in that part of the country, but the name sounds so RCTish that I'd be looking out for patrolling handymen in red overalls to clean things up.

Santa Cruz Giant Dipper: 1924. And it's still far, far smoother and better than Grizzly over the hill at PGA, 62 years younger.

Howdy. Long time TR reader, mid-time lurker, almost first time poster. I'm 20, have 80-something coasters (no trips for a long time sadly!) and work at Disneyland, attractions of course! I used to post on a few boards, mainly ACN and the long defunct Danimation. Again, howdy.