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Amusement Ride Breakdown!


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I don't know if it's the Weirdest breakdown in my life, but once I was on Twister (Huss TopSpin) at Darien Lake when it slowed down during the middle of an inversion, stalled upside down for a second, and flipped right-side up again. There, for 30min, we sat there, in the air. Apparently a transformer caught on fire and cut power to the park. They manually let us down somehow, and spent another 5-7 min manually pumping the pneumatic cylinders (or something of the like, I wasn't sure) that raised and lowered the harnesses. They wouldn't let us move until they were fully up, even if we could duck out. After 40min in a TopSpin restraint I'm not sure if I'll be able to have children.

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Probably the weirdest breakdown I've ever experienced was on the Matterhorn.

 

Everything started out normal, regular course la di da... Then all of a sudden, I saw an object in the tracks below, thinking the cars would roll over it, I paid no attention to it.

 

BUT when our car got the object it was very different from what I though would occur. A hat, lost by some idiot who took it on the ride, caught under the wheels of our bobsled and sent us screeching to a halt, in the middle of the layout! Luckily, Disney's block brake system worked, and another car didn't collide with ours.

 

We then were evacuated down through the innards and out the trails of the faux mountain. Definitely an interesting breakdown.

 

It took them about an hour or so to fix the ride, and get it testing again.

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^Yeah, I saw that before. They obviously didn't secure the train properly and I guess when the evacuated the back of the train first, the weight at the front propelled the train forward. Even evacuating the front first probably would have prevented this. Any weight on the back wouldn't matter. The train ain't rolling back unless the anti-rollback breaks.

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not really wierd, but annoying. i was on bubbleworks at chessington, and it stopped for about 15 min in the fountain room. we kept bumping into the cars behind and infront of us, and there was this kid that thought it would be funny to stick his hands in the fountain to get us wet. and the strobes gave me a headache

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On Kalahari River Rapids in Animal Kingdom, we got stuck at the fire scene right before the drop. Our car/boat/raft thinks kept painfully bumping into each other, and the fire made the entire thing very hot (Florida Sun+Fire), the ride op told us that the water levels at the bottom pool had dropped too low for some reason.

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  • 7 months later...

This wasn't so much a breakdown but whatever. As the train was about the leave the Millennium Force station, two ride ops were doing something to the front row rider's seatbelt and when the train started to move they were like yelling to the operating booth to stop the train but we kept going. About two-thirds the way up the hill, the train stopped and we waited there for about 10 minutes and nothing was happening. Finally, at the bottom of the hill we could see a mechanic and a woman (a manager) getting ready to go up the elevator. It took them a while to get to us, but as they were passing us to get to the front row they were saying that a seatbelt in the front row had been undone. So it took them a little and then headed back down. After they were out of site, we waited on the hill for an additional 5-10 mintues then the ride finally started back up again. Once we got to the brake run, we (or at least I) thought that since it was only a seatbelt that had been undone and that no mechanical failure had taken place that they would let us ride again since we were stuck for about a half hour. For some reason, they had to manually undo the lapbars and let us out on the brake run. We got to ride Dragster going through the exit which wasn't bad but it was still odd as to why they had to let us out like that when it was only a seatbelt.

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Several weeks ago at SFGAm I was on Spacely Sprocket Rockets and one of my daughters got a sudden nosebleed while going up the lift. Wouldn't you know it, we then broke down with the train halfway into the station after completing the circuit, so she's sitting there, stuck, with a bloody nose for several minutes. I had her pinch her nose and tilt her head back. We all got exit passes, thankfully!

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I was old enough to drive, but just barely. Me and three friends got stopped on the lift-hill for "Demon" at Six Flags Great America. It was raining and then it switched to hail. After they unloaded (this was when they were running 3 trains almost continually) the guests who had just boarded, they sent us over the lift (in the hail still) and even when we got back to the station brakes after the corkscrew, they were still unboarding the train in front of us. A couple min. later we got to disembark, but by then we were all soaking wet and had all gotten 'dinged' with hail. At the time, we thought it was a hoot.

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My kids and I were riding Great Bear in the first row. We pulled back around to the station to find the next train had not dispatched. While we were sitting there my son (not being the most tactful of children at 11) loudly announced to me (on the opposite end of the row) that the lady in the last row of the next train was stuck. Sure enough, 1 ride op was trying in vain to clip the buckle while 3 of his fellow ops were literally hanging off the restraint in an attempt to get it to lock down far enough. After a few minutes of this they stand back and look at her, at which time my son shouts "maybe she should be in row 5 for larger guests". I guess they heard that and tried to release the restraint and have her move. She said no she has every right to ride whichever row she sees fit. It was a moot argument anyway because at that point none of the restraints would open. Long story short, we sat on the brake run outside the station with front row seats to what ended up being a carnival sideshow of ride ops fighting with this lady who was far too large for even row 5.

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Last week, I was on Storm Runner with a few friends, and when the train stopped on the pre-launch track, it just stayed there. We realised something was wrong after about a minute of just sitting, but then the GP started to freak out, yelling "it's a ticking time bomb!" and "Is it gonna launch?!?". I wasn't worried, and I tried to tell people that the train wouldn't launch until the magnetic brake fins went down, and in this case they were still up. About 5 minutes later a ride op and a maintainence worker came onto the launch track and told everyone to keep their heads back and centered in case of a launch. Five more minutes passed, then the train awkwardly shuffled backwards into the station and we got off.

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One day, at DLR. I went to the Haunted Mansion. I just got out of the stretching room when the lights came on. I was waiting for my fastpass time on BTMR, so i went over there. BTMR broke down on the 3rd lift hill. Keep in mind that this was back to back. Anyway, in the afternoon. I went over to the Matterhorn. That broke down, and i didn't feel like getting out of line. So, i waited for an extra 45 minutes for them to fix it. I still have both my readmission passes from HM and BTMR.

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As a ride op at Seabreeze for a summer, I saw some breakdowns- nothing too serious, but the scariest one was, of course, when I was operating a ride. I was set to run the Spring when the park opened, and when I reported to the ride there were mechanics fixing it because it had apparently broken the day before (when I wasn't working). After waiting an hour for them to fix it, they had me run it 5 times with nobody on it (all without incident) and then let me start loading people in. I run the ride for about a half hour, everything's working fine, and then all of a sudden it gets stuck at the top with no warning at all. Because the Spring isn't that big of a drop tower, there were lots of little kids on the ride who were crying, etc. I called the mechanics to fix it, and thankfully they were able to get the ride lowered down to let everybody out, but the ride was closed the rest of the day. Never asked what the cause was.

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  • 1 month later...

I was on Dudley Do Right's Ripsaw Falls back in the year 2000. We were going through the ride and down the various drops when we finally got to the highest one. We were just at the edge when suddenly the water stopped and I was staring at a metal slide instead of a torrent of gushing water!

 

Luckily whatever safety systems there were kicked in, our boat stopped before the edge, and some maintenance personal came to evacuate us. It was pretty cool to walk down through the back of the ride that the general public never see. However the ride was too busy for the rest of the day so I never got to finish it.

 

Could have been a lot worse if the water stopped after we were gone over the edge!

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This may not have been the weirdest series of breakdowns, but it may have been the funniest!

 

At SFGAdv, I went to get my last two rides on El Toro with my Platinum FP. When the train reached the final block, I noticed the train in front of us was still in the station. (Quite strange, considering they had a prettty good crew running it that day) A matinence worker told us that there would be a temporary delay, and we would be advancing in a while.

 

After arriving in the station, I remained in my seat to ride a second time. On the second ride, I stopped on the same block brake, and the SAME matinence worker told me there would be another delay. This time, it was because they had a very sick rider in the station, who was unable to leave. Park policy is that the trains can't move until the station is empty of the GP.

 

Two delays, on the same block brake, twice in a row!

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A couple weeks ago the restraints wouldn't release on Revolution at SFGAm after the ride cycle. First they said they would have to cycle the ride again but too many people complained so we were stuck until the mechanics got there.

 

I heard one of them say the ride op hadn't "parked" the ride properly. I thought that was automatic?

To answer your question 6 years later, no it's not you have to hold the dispatch button until the ride comes all the way in.

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Back in 2005, on our first ride of the day on Journey to Atlantis at Sea World San Diego, the ride stopped right before the first drop for a couple of minutes, then it went down the drop and right before we go into the building where the ride lift is the ride stops again. After about 10 minutes, they evacuate every one off the ride and give us passes to skip the line (once) later in the day.

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was going to post this in the breakdown thread, but that was closed so it goes here.. back in 1978 while riding the Screamin Eagle at Six Flags St. Louis, the train was climbing the lift, it reached a little more than halfway and then the train started slowing down, and then sped up and slowed again, then it jerked about 3 times then stopped. we sat there wondering what was going on. apparently something had happened to the chain and the wheel that turned the chain, and the coaster as we were told wasn't going anywhere. we sat there for about 15 to 20 minutes, and then finally they came up to us and informed us we would have to walk back down to the station. we had to wait for more employees to walk the lift up to us, and it took some time climbing back down to the station. however, it was actually pretty cool being on the tracks.

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A couple weeks ago the restraints wouldn't release on Revolution at SFGAm after the ride cycle. First they said they would have to cycle the ride again but too many people complained so we were stuck until the mechanics got there.

 

I heard one of them say the ride op hadn't "parked" the ride properly. I thought that was automatic?

To answer your question 6 years later, no it's not you have to hold the dispatch button until the ride comes all the way in.

 

Revolution at SFGAm is a HUSS Frisbee. Once the ride cycle is started, it runs and parks itself. Also, for the original post, restraints not opening is a maintenance downtime. The ride should never be cycled again.

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One of my more epic days of going to theme parks, we started the day at Kings Island and were there until about One PM. After finishing up the day there, we drove four and a half hours to cedar point. After getting a hotel we went to the park, got a couple rides in and like twenty minutes before the park closed we got in line for Millennium Force. The line was going crazy fast and right when we got to the fly by on the line, the ride gets stuck on the lift hill. We wait like fifteen minutes because someone tried to take off their restraint on the lift hill. When the ride came back everyone knew what happened and there was like 15 people shouting "Point him out" and when the security guard came we joked that it was entirely for his protection

 

-We rode the ride like 20 minutes after close and it was the most satisfying ride on a coaster ever

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