Ever been on a coaster when it broke down (got stuck, etc.)?

[Oblivion100]

Stuck on Nemesis break run for 20 minutes.

About 5 minutes on Crush`s coaster. Nothing really special.

[Manic Monte]

A few weeks ago, stuck on Twisted Colossus blue lift for 10 minutes. They reset the lift and off we went...only to then get stuck on the green lift. Funny, people thought it was part of the ride, until we had to evac down the lift hill.

[TheCoasterKid211]

I actually once got stuck on Griffon at BGW, brake run before second drop. We were there for 10 minutes before the ride got moving again. Other than that nothing special.

[DrachenfireOP]

Well, I've been stopped on every coaster at BGW (minus tempesto) at one time or another, either as a guest or intentionally for part of training while working there. As a guest, before I worked there, I was stopped at the top of lift 2 of wolf for about 20 minutes, and also on the block brakes before lift 2 for about 10 minutes. I was stuck about halfway up Drachen Fire's lift as a guest once too, once at the very bottom of the lift, and evac'd off the block brakes 1 time. I was evac'd off Loch Ness as a guest 3 times (twice while I was working for the park, but on my day off as a guest, once when I was a kid), two times from Lift 1, and once from Lift 2. LNM does more evac's in a season than the rest of the coasters combined, so this isn't really shocking. Fortunately I was never stopped on the block brakes of LNM/wolf or on the safety brakes of wolf, which are notoriously long evac times. I also got evac'd off Alpengeist from the feeder wheels just before the lift once as a guest, which was frustrating because that usually is operator error when that happens, and while it was my day off, I was the lead at Alpengeist at the time ><

 

My only time stopped on AC was early on the lift because some doofus had a camera with them, so that was a short, op initiated stop. Also I was on the holding brake outside the station for Verbolten once during a first-season shutdown, but that was only about 10 minutes before it reset. Opening season of Griffon I was stopped briefly on the mid course block brakes, but that was maybe 3 minutes before we were moving again.

 

That may sound like a lot, but I grew up in the BGW area, then continued to live there through college/work at the park, and had season passes every year up until my cast member ID would get me in for free. When the park is 20 minutes from your house, and you're a coaster enthusiast kid, you tend to go a lot! I'd say the ratio of rides I have under my belt to times of an issue is like 0.01% of rides having issues.

 

Now, as for times I was on the ride and evac'd off for training, that list is long, so rather than list them all, I'll give a few memorable ones. I got evac'd off the block brakes of wolf as part of training onces, which was a very interesting experience. They had these big rolling staircases that you had to climb down, but there's no swing-lock on that section, so the car would move a tiny bit while you step out and a supervisor had to hold the car steady. Because of how high up the trains are above the platform, a person has to stand below the car with a long rod to push up on the harness release mechanism, and hold it steady with the car moving a little bit. My harness was halway up and they slipped slightly causing the harness to re-lock

 

Also, one season Alpengeist blew it's transformer. They brought in a diesel powered backup generator that was housed in a tractor trailor truck to try and get the ride back up while we waited on a new transformer. The ride was testing fine, but there was concern about how the generator would handle powering the lift under load. I was a sweaper that season, so I was one of the 25 or so odd sweapers/merchandise people they had get on the ride in the morning to test the load. We got about half way up the lift when there became a noticeable slow in the lift chain. Just shy of 3/4 of the way up the generator tripped and they had to come evac us off The ride stayed down until a new transformer came a few days later. Interestingly, Wolf blew a transformer a few seasons later, and they did the same tractor trailor truck generator, but the generator had no problem running wolf. Somewhere I have pictures of the massive generator cables running from the Drachen Fire site where the truck was parked, under the wolf village, and all the way to the transformer house near the lift 1 motor. They ran it like that for over a week, and the ride had no downtime the whole week! Pretty amazing!

 

Outside of BGW, I have been stuck on the lift of Anaconda 1 time (maybe 15 minutes), and earlier this summer I was stopped on Magnum for a few minutes near the bottom of the lift (again for some dumbass with a cell phone out). Nothing too exciting. I have a feeling that if I didn't spend so many days at BGW over a 20+ year span, I likely would have those two as my only incidents. It's kind of amazing to realize that I've been evac'd off a BGW coaster as a guest 5 times, because usually there's only 4-6 evac's per coaster in an entire season. The season I worked Alpengeist, there were only 3 evac's the whole season and I was on one of them as a guest Though to be fair, 3 of those were LNM, and I've worked that ride where they've had 2 evac's in a day. Still, even with a higher level of them, it's not like LNM is an Intamin, for a 40 year old ride, it's is insanely reliable, and even when it does go down, it's VERY rare that it's more than a half hour/hour before they have it up and running again. The maintenance staff at BGW is PHENOMENAL, and if you don't believe me, go take the coaster tour!

[Coaster Hero]

I've been stuck on Kingda Ka broken down a couple of times, 3 to be exact but never anything major

 

The first time, I let my friends who had never been on it go on before me in the front row, and I went on the next train. Turns out it broke down while waiting at the launch track, and we were stuck there for 20 minutes until they got it up and running again and they launched it.

 

The second time the blue train was causing problems that day so when we got on we were stuck on the launch track unsurprisingly for about 5 minutes, before they brought the train back into the station. It was my first time stepping foot in the left station ever since they stopped using it in 2011 or 2012. Anyway, that train wasn't used the rest of the day and we immediately boarded the next available train.

 

The most recent occurrence was back in August and we were the last train of the night. When we got back to the station, for whatever reason they couldn't let us out. I suspect it was a restraint unlocking issue or something, but I obviously don't know. It took about 20 minutes before they finally were able to let us off. Nobody was mad, surprisingly, rather they were too busy chanting for one more ride which they couldn't do unfortunately

[gisco]

Fujiyama at Fuji Q. Had to be evacuated off the lift hill.

[cfc]

I was evaced off of Ellen's Energy Adventure at Epcot years ago, just after the dinosaur portion; this spared from enduring the rest of the show.

[urzishra]

Been stuck on Roller Coaster at Lagoon a few times. It wasn't pleasant.

[Paradox]

I got stuck on Goliath at SFMM on the lift hill in the hot sun. It turns out someone's restraint gave the ride system an error and they had to come up to the train to recheck it and have the person sign something.

[grsupercity]

I got stuck on Gatekeeper. Which is the worst coaster to get stuck on. It was on the break run. Was only about 10 minutes, but worst 10 minutes of my life. I was being bear hugged to death

[Peaceroxi]

A few at Disneyland!

I've been stuck on Splash Mountain twice, once when the logs piled up in the final scene, and once at the very first lift hill. The one at the lift was about 20 minutes, while the other was more like 5.

Of course I've been stuck on Astro Blasters, how else would I get my high scores?

Every single time I've been on Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, it's broken down. The evacuation there is neat, since you get to see everything close-up.

Indiana Jones has broken down on me quite a bit too, but never long enough for an evacuation, more like 2 minutes tops.

[BeansproutMidget]

Do you count being stuck in the station?

 

Got stuck on Volcano for 20 mins in the station. Something with the breaking/ trying to get the train lined up. And because the train wasn't in the proper area, the OTSRs would not go up. Something similar happened as well on i305: they got the restraints off just as the park closed, and because they only ran one train, we were the last ride of the night.

 

Then there was my 3+ hour Maverick wait, but technical issues was only part of the problem.

[TheCoasterKid211]

I was evaced off of Ellen's Energy Adventure at Epcot years ago, just after the dinosaur portion; this spared from enduring the rest of the show.

Lucky!

[Terry Inferno]

There was one instance at the county fair where the operator couldn't get the restraints open on one of the kiddie coasters, so they kept running it until one of the maintenance workers showed up. I must have ridden it 5 or 6 times in a row.

 

I was at Sea World San Diego, and Journey to Atlantis had broken down, but I wanted to ride it one last time before leaving, so I was in the first boat after they reopened it. After the first lift hill, the boat is supposed to slow down right before the large drop. That didn't happen. The brakes didn't activate and the boat coasted straight through. It wasn't enough to affect the drop, but it added some air time.

 

Then there was the time on It's a Small World in Disneyland when there were too many fat guys on one side of the boat, and instead of going around each curve gracefully, the boat rammed into one of the walls and got stuck, which then caused the boat behind us to hit us, and the boat behind that one to hit them. My father and some of the larger gentlemen had to get out of the boat onto where the animatronic figures are and push the boat until it started moving regularly again. It's not a small world, after all.

[LuminousAphid]

Yes, the station brakes locked up on the old Arrow at my home park, and the train wouldn't roll all the way into the station. The restraints therefore would not open, so we had to wait for an engineer to manually release us. It only took about 5 minutes.

 

The only other time was a lift hill motor cutout at the fair, and that was restarted in about 10 seconds. So, I have been lucky so far but I'm sure I will get stuck someday, I'm still a total newbie.

[LaRondeQC]

I got stuck on Le Monstre at La Ronde for an hour or so on the top of the lift hill, we were evacuated from the train.. It's actually really freaking hard to walk down a wooden coaster's lift hill.. I swear I almost fell twice.

[mike541x]

Yes, the station brakes locked up on the old Arrow at my home park, and the train wouldn't roll all the way into the station. The restraints therefore would not open, so we had to wait for an engineer to manually release us. It only took about 5 minutes.

 

Something very similar happened to me earlier this year on Anaconda at Kings Dominion. When the train my buddy and I were on returned into the station the last car (the one we were in) stopped short, leaving our car halfway out of the station. The other six cars ahead were able to release their restraints except us and a lady in line for our seat joked "Looks like you guys get to go again". Granted we did as they just sent the train out, giving us a "free" ride. I was expecting maintenance to come and manually release our restraints.

[DrachenfireOP]

^ and ^^

 

Fortunately the restraint release is easy, and the ops could have just done it themselves. There's a kick pedal to open them manually on the back side of each car. In fact, up until the 1980s, that was the ONLY way to open Arrow restraints, and corkscrew at CP still operates thus way.

 

Lucky they just went the lazy route and let you ride again!

 

You can see the kick pedal pretty clearly on the lower left in this picture, with the pedal currently in down "unlocked" position.

 

[coasterkid124]

Other then at Darien Lake, nothing more major than a lift/brake stop.

 

When I used to work maintenance at DL, we would practice evac procedures once in a while. So we intentionally would stop employees in all different situations and release restraints. Ride of Steel was the toughest to evacl not because of the height, but the restraints could only be released via battery pack.

[Imagineer Josh]

Someone else has probably gotten stuck on Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. That ride breaks down so much

[CoasterMateo]

I got stuck on the lift on Corkscrew with a friend that was scared of heights... It was interesting how it turned out.

[DJeXeL]

Other then at Darien Lake, nothing more major than a lift/brake stop.

 

When I used to work maintenance at DL, we would practice evac procedures once in a while. So we intentionally would stop employees in all different situations and release restraints. Ride of Steel was the toughest to evacl not because of the height, but the restraints could only be released via battery pack.

 

Hauling a 30LB+ battery pack up a lift is not fun. I know from personal experience.