Why do rollercoasters valley and how do they get recovered
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.พ. 2024
- Today we are going to talk all about the bad times when rollercoasters don't come back home and they end up valleyed.
I'll also talk about some of the methods parks use to recover these rides when they don't come back.
See what valley rollercoasters and high heels have in common! HAHA!
Some of my videos are not mine but they were so widely used I was not sure where the credit went especially stuff from the news.
Some video came from Airtime thrills raw footage.
I never intend of any video used to be claimed as my own, i'm not that person. I use extra videos mainly for examples. - บันเทิง
![เจอประจำ ตอน พักเที่ยง [EP.32]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jvqk6uJoVks/mqdefault.jpg)
The phone call at the beginning 😂
fr
Yes! 😂
I'm dying laughing not even a minute in.
Art
I was dying 😂
I feel your pain. I have done many pull throughs on prototype coasters, so we have developed rigging systems to do it, with a crane, 20 ton tirfors/comealongs, pulley blocks, slings and shackles. We basically have a 30 metre long 1" cable, capable of pulling 20+ tons vertically, and we set pulley blocks at angles. Depending on the twists in each element, we may have 3 or 4 pulleys to allow a straight(ish) pull. The crane always pulls vertically on the hoist, using one of the pulley blocks to allow it to pull at the correct angle. If we are pulling uphill, the crane is attached to the front, if we are just going over a crown where gravity is taking over, the crane is switched to the rear. most inversions take us a couple of hours to rig and pull through, but straight sections, whether they are uphill or downhill, we can do 120 metres per hour. We can typically complete a pull through on a 20 element, 1.2km coaster in around 3 to 5 days. (Whole coaster pull through) I usually try and get the ride vendor to allow us to pull through the front and rear car on prototype pull throughs, but sometimes they want either half or the whole train, to check there is no binding.
We have one coaster that was poorly design and can valley if the guys over grease the road wheels. Fortunately it is usually empty when it stops, but we are so good at pull throughs, we can rescue the train from anywhere on the track in around 4 hours.
Blocked toilet bowl element. LMAO. Never seen that on RCDB.
Wow! You have some skill then my hats off to you. Yea I made that name up and it stuck, well clogged I guess haha!!
I used to work at knoebels amusement resort... At the beginning of the season I don't know if you wanna call it valley but it would get stuck up on the antique rollback, Sin 1 of the turnarounds and then you'd have to get the winch and get it up and around the curve and then hopefully it made it through the. Double up and double down and onto the final turnaround. And then usually it would get stuck on the break. Run even with it all the way lowered.
Twister valley in the double helix. When it couldn't make it up. The floater airtime hill, which is why they installed anti. Rollbacks on that and it took us 23 hours. I think it was to get it back to the station because of twisters layout
@@Whatchamawhozit I’d call that valleyed.
If you ever break a B&M Floorless seat please let me know. I will GLADLY buy it and turn it into a computer chair. 😂😂😂
Love the "and then" cuts
I went past twice when I was editing and that movie popped in my head.
@@ryantheridemechanic glad it did
Watching this now to see what will happen with Hyperia!
Love the intros!
The Vekoma mine train "Colorado Adventure" at Phantasialand actually had a problem of stalling pretty much close to the end of the ride. Not long after opening, they added some small chain lift style drive mechanism so that they could recover the train quickly and without evacuating guests.
Pulling a train through with cranes is possible though. About 20 years ago, there was a documentary on German TV about a team from a German construction company installing an Intamin launch coaster at Tusenfryd in Norway. (In Germany, it is iconic because of the choleric character of the foreman who threw some nice fits during the show. Any German viewer will probably laugh when I say "Kranplätze müssen verdichtet sein".) Long story short, after completing the track and having the trains on there, they do a full pull--through, just using their cranes, winches and cables. It is pretty impressive to see.
oh yeah, i still wonder how the f it valleyes there because mostly its still speedy lol
@@Chaoshero5567Combination of cold bearings and lighter train when empty I guess. I have personally seen one train stall there during test cycles - but that was long after they installed the drive unit there. So It was a quick recovery and the ride opened normally later that day.
It’s funny that many rides suffer the same issues that can be so big and time consuming. Thunder mountain railroad at Disneyland has a brake segment that is pointed up hill. Dry time the ride stops a train there it has to be winched out of the brake.
The intro .... staged perfectly, right down the epithet at the end, which is 100% founded in real world experience.
Because that is EXACTLY what gets shouted in that instance. It doesn't matter what industry.
(btw, as far as "I screwed up", the question of "how bad" ... the answer generally boils down to "is the government investigating" and does said agency start with "The United States Government Department of ....")
When NTSB, NIST, or OHSA decide they want a piece of the action, that means it's been a very, very bad day.
That would be a bad day for sure.
All of those agencies boil down to one thing, (except the NTSB) well, maybe not all. Maybe just OSHA
"I have no idea how to do your job, but my clipboard says you're doing it wrong."
I know that situation was shitty, but i would give anything to have been a part of that evolution. Ive always wanted to work with roller coasters. When i was younger, it was my dream to design roller coasters. Now that im older, i would just be content maintaining them
Great stories and explanations. Came here a while after new Voltron at Europa Park valleyed a day or so before the official opening... It sounds so stressful... They also used the crane method, guess they were glad it was only 4 coaches.
Smaller train but bigger coach kind of 50/50
I remember operating a boomerang, it got stuck on the cobra roll, it took a solid 2 hours to get everyone off
I thought we were going to valley when we rode Outlaw Run one day this last summer. We were seated in the back row and went through the last barrel roll slower than I ever had before. It would have been crazy if it had rolled back through those double barrel rolls though!
YOU should develop a machine about the size of a single row of seats to act as an electric tug. It can be attached behind the train and push the train through the course as far as necessary. Once the train goes free it’s not attached so nothing gets hung up. It would have to have some solid grip on the track but you got this!
not sure it's possible to get enough grip to push a coaster train up a steep hill
I was a ride op/sup at a park with an SLC and had the valley between the booster wheel and the lift many times. It was also easy to trigger if the ride op let off the dispatch button at just the right moment too. We would get every available employee in the park to come and push the train just enough to get the chain dog to catch and then we'd send it lol
@@stonewallperformance how long did that take? Evac from that spot takes a long time.
Floorless Coaster 1 has broken down…
Haha!
Not again!
Floorless Coaster 1 still hasn’t returned to the station yet! Check to see if it is stuck or stalled.
That look at the start, I know that too well I’m afraid. That feeling of defeat and then some swear words. It happened to me twice on the same ride (GCI wooden coaster) when it was very cold, but just above the minimum. Once in the morning, we were already on alert but couldn’t get it fast enough with weight. The other was more of a surprise, the ride had been running all day and needed to be send out empty to put the trains away for the night. We send the train around one by one, the first one made it no problem. We send the second one and gotten THE errors “Maximum lap time exceeded, train may not return” and “Block too long occupied”. That was not fun, luckily both where near the final brake run so we could pull it through relatively easy using chain pulleys.
The park I work at now also has some interesting stories about valleying coasters, but I hope it takes a while before I see one haha.
I was reading when I saw “maximum lap time” all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up! Ugh! We had the same with our GCI as well. Rolled back trying to make the final brake run. So we only had to pull it about 60 feet.
Very entertaining and fun to watch. Thanks for posting this.
Your welcome
When Batman Gotham city escape stalls on its tophat they just use a stick to push it back down
Also that thing with the boost motors is like a thing that could only happen to an b&m...
THANK YOU about the top thrill thing NOT being a rollback! I mean... in the renders it showed the train not even being all the way vertical. Im not exactly thrilled yo ride it, but i have all season fast lane, and day fast lanes can only ride it once, and season pass fast lane you can ride it as many times as you want. I may just have to ride it a couple times just to spite the day fast lane people😂.
Yea. Not a rollback!
@@ryantheridemechanic not even close. With CP as my home park, I've ridden dragster a lot. Got a couple rollback, but never got stalled at the top. That would have been 10 times better than a rollback.
Considering the new reliable launch on top thrill 2, I figure proper rollbacks are gonna be even rarer, which is probably gonna be awesome to see.
@@jaycillisfacial7391 let's wait and see if it's ACTUALLY gonna be "reliable", before we say that. This IS Zamperla we're talking about. I mean... They're using the same LSMs as Mack uses on their launches. No wonder why they couldn't have just converted it over. The INDRIVETEC LSMs that Intamin uses probably could have done it in one shot. Probably would have gotten a bunny hill if they still decided to do the swing launch if they went with Intamin too.
@@Spike-sk7ql at this point I just hope the ride will be enjoyable, I’m still bummed I never got to experience dragsters original launch.
In my opinion, the rides with the biggest valleying risk are older launch coasters.
On single-launch coasters, the best practice is to place the tallest element immediately after the launch, and design all the other elements so that if the train clears the tallest one, that it will clear all the others. On Premier Rides spaghetti bowl coasters, the tallest element is not immediately after the launch, so if the train doesn't launch fast enough, it won't necessarily roll back to the station, but it will stop somewhere in the layout.
Newer multi-launch coasters have all the launch segments in low points, and some can even self-rescue if they valley. If a particular segment is normally a single pass launch, it can act as a swing launch to get a valleyed train moving again. On the Mr Freeze clones, the second launch segment is very high on the spike. If a train doesn't make it up there, or gets up there but fails to boost, then it will valley somewhere on the return trip, and not be able to self-rescue.
Big problems for sure.
Thanks for the great video it's interesting how there isn't really a set process for what to do considering that valleys aren't super uncommon
Yea, it All depends on the park and what they want to do.
Great video Ryan! Would you consider making any content on what lift judders are ? we used to have them happen a lot on our mauer shone spinning coaster
Honestly not familiar with the term. Probably know what it is but could you explain your knowledge so I can make sure I’m on the same page. You could answer here or email me at ryantheridemechanic@yahoo.com
Yoooooo! Thank you so much for bringing back the Taco Bell chime with the Subscribe button. That made my day!!!
the delayed reaction was priceless
I didn't know about the pilot coach thing on floorless coasters. I have somehow never noticed that the front 2 rows don't pitch relative to each other. Looked at some offride videos and lo-and-behold the indeed don't.
Next time I ride a floorless (do other B&M models do this?) I'm going to have to pay closer attention.
Yes, any B&M ride that doesn't feature a zero car.
Like Walterandclaud below said, yes. All models that do not feature a zero car could also be called a tail car. They all do this. Different manufacturers have diffent things. Vekoma most always uses a tap car for their trains
Sea Serpent Roll... That answers my previous question as a Sea Serpent Roll is only found on ONE B&M Coaster The difference is a Cobra Roll enters and exits on the same side changing direction of travel....sea serpent roll enters on one side and exits the opposite side maintaining direction of travel
Nerd haha!!! Thanks though. I’m no good with names of elements.
@@ryantheridemechanic Nerd yes! Rollercoasters are fascinating from a physics standpoint.
@@IAmAnonymyz such a cool thing when science is involved
@@ryantheridemechanic yup then you get people like yourself who get to take them apart and put them back together and explain what goes on behind the scenes and how it works in an easy to follow delivery. It bridges the how it works and why it works..... Case in point...I had no idea those bars on the back of the bogeys on Medusa were used for wheel alignment. I always wondered what it was there for...I thought it might be tied into the restraint release for that car
@@IAmAnonymyz alignment and tracking yep. Took a while for me to figure those out while working on them as well.
I took that picture of the valleyed boomerang at 2:10 a number of years ago! Certainly was a nice unexpected surprise to see it!
Thank you! Those types of photos are so hard to come by. People ask me why I don’t use more video or pictures I’m my content. And it’s just not out there. Having left the industry not wanting to do this at the time, I truly kick myself for not saving thousands of pictures and video I could have used. I can add you to the video description if you want credit for the picture? Honestly don’t remember where I got that picture from in the first place.
@@ryantheridemechanic honestly it’s no worries, I uploaded it to Reddit on r/rollercoasters and I think it’s been shared around since. Funnily enough a few months ago I went to Liseberg where their family boomerang Luna had valleyed in the morning, as it was a custom layout that goes over pathways they couldn’t rescue it that day, but the next day it was back in operation!
@@TheParkLifeKid yea anytime things cross over a walkway it’s hard to work on or text with the park open. One time I was having a crew load test an SLC with the park open. It lost a sand bag on one of the inversions and I put a stop to further testing while the park was open.
Sea-Serpent-Roll on Medusa, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom?
That's why I love Intamin Impulse hahaha! Such kind of U-shaped layout could never valley^^
Honey, come quick! Ryan the ride mechanic just uploaded. The block reset rule kind of goes a bit too far. Wouldnt requiring a visual confirmation that the block is clear before resetting? I mean, it would be faster than evacuating the whole ride. Especially with the train possibly being about 100' in the air.
I think the ride was called The smiler in Europe and that was a terrible accident because of a valleyed coaster and maintenance sending the next train by overriding the safety mechanisms
Yes. I made a video on that one as well.
th-cam.com/video/zTVPswdgA6k/w-d-xo.htmlsi=iJP3fAl9UDIfodXT
I've worked on some old Arrow coasters that have separate Safety and Trim brakes, and I've had one that has valleyed in the tiny section of flat track between safeties and the rest of the brake run. Safeties are sloped, there's like 2 cars worth of straight track, then the rest of the run is sloped. I've seen it just not move when safeties are released with the trains too cold.
No fun. It’s the little spots that get ya
@@ryantheridemechanic my favorite goofy ride quirk is our arrow that has been upgraded to a brand new consign control panel so it has a touchscreen and basically act just like a B&M (as B&Ms are usually done by Consign for controls) but it has a completely flat transfer area with no tire drives so you have to put it in transfer mode and operate the transfer panel like you would’ve B&M, but then have somebody else ready to shove trains forward and then get it out of transfer mode as fast as possible so it won’t stop the lify
@@alexphillips4325 that’s interesting.
The sooner that anywhere that could be a valley is equipped with a propulsion system such as Drive Tires (more likely than LSMs, as they can accommodate twists as Wiener Looping AKA Bullet does), the better. Then, a train could be recovered by a multi-pass launch. You will probably know of Fury at Bobbenjaanland doing this multi-pass launch as its normal operation! Such practices also raise the prospect of building roller coasters on which each (very short) train is driven by the riders who are on it, controlling the Drive Tires remotely by aircraft-like Side Sticks from the train.
Just adds cost to the ride. Some places like to do this but most do not. There is a park in Utah USA, they put LSM all over the ride for that case. That’s what mechanics want to see. Easy recovery.
Can you do a video on how maintenance add and remove the trains off the track when you start seasonal maintenance
Yes I can work with that.
The Demon at Six Flags Great America stopped upside down in the loop.
The closest I ever got to a valley was with Raik, our family boomerang, where it valleyed and I was the first operator there the next morning. Thankfully, the train was back in the station by then, they got a mechanic to come in the morning. Train was filled was snow tho, since it was outside over night.
Fun. Just a cold weather thing or was there a problem?
probable cause of the valley: A scarf got stuck on the track and got itself wrapped around the wheel assembly in row 1. Train didn't even reach the second lift.
@@TripleTSingt oofff yea that will do it.
My 2 worst fears on a Rollercoaster is Valley-ing in an inversion or at the top of Top Thrill or King Da Ka. If that ever happens to me, that might be the end of Roller Coaster enthusiasm.......The upside down one is th most scary. I know people can get hurt for bwing upside down for extended periods of time
Uber rare either way. Although more likely on launch rides vs loops.
At the tops of those rides one person can easily push the train over. There are elevators built into the coasters to get people to the top. EDIT: Just got to the part where this was covered.
@@toddjones1480 sounds easy but remember rollercoasters don’t want to roll. They are a lot harder to push than most think.
@@ryantheridemechanic I'm not saying that coaster trains are easy to push. I'm just saying that the sweet spot for stalls on those top hats is tiny.
I’m kinda curious as to why a company hasn’t come a long a made some kind of motorized vehicle that’s sole purpose is to recover a roller coaster train I get that not all coaster track is the same but was thinking about the trucks that can drive on the train tracks
It’s a lot harder than you think it might be. To apply that much force to the track rails and ties to pull or push a train vertically will damage some things. It’s just one of those things, if the ride does it a lot you have what you need on hand to make it easy. My experience, we did not have anything to make it easy. But like you, I was thinking about somthing like that for a long time.
I've had people ask me that or tell me they're shocked such a machine doesn't exist. Having worked at a railroad I can say what @ryantheridemechanic said is true, once you start moving past a flat run the amount of tractive effort you'll need will increase exponentially to the point you might have a multi-ton rig doing burnouts on your coaster track to try and move it.
is it just me, or at 29:35 does someone have their phone duct taped to their hand on kingda ka?
Yep! Haha!
It's a sea serpent roll
The intro was fun. As far as that floorless bet you never did anything like that again. Actually there has been a debate if TT2 is capable of a true rollback. We basically decided that it was possible in theory but extremely unlikely. Funny enough the only way it seems possible is a massive wind gust over 35mph as it attempted to ascend at a certain point. So we will never get a true rollback again.
It’s POSSIBLE. But the system would have to fault on swing 3 at over 90% power I’m guessing. It’s such a supper small window. But we will see what happens. Maybe like you said, windy days, “rolls back all the time”
Hi Ryan, random question, but maybe can you cover Millennium force’s elevator cable system (or any coaster that uses a cable for the lift system) and how it would work in the event of a cable snap? Aka cable driven lifts use ARB’s, what would a cable lift use to prevent a rollback down the hill? Thanks!
Sure I can do that.
Thank you so much! Loving all of the great content too. Very informative! @@ryantheridemechanic
One time I was riding a gas standup scooter at 20mph when I was hit with a sudden gust from the front so strong that it instantly slowed me enough to stall out the scooter.
Wow. Shows the power of a gust of wind!
Ok, I’ll admit my roller coaster stupidity!!
How do they work? I assume that on certain parts they are assisted and then gravity?
Great video for those of us who don’t know better!
like the just the theory of rollercoaster operate? basically yea, large drive motor lifts the train to the top. then its pushed over the edge. Gravity starts to accelerate the train, and then when it goes up over the next hill, inertia carries it through the element. So basically, when it valleys, the wind takes out all the inertia away (too much friction) from the train when it goes to slowest over the top. Is that what you're asking?
@@ryantheridemechanic yes thank you. And thanks for not thinking I’m a fool!
So my other question is what inspections are done to these rides? I’d imagine that there must have people walk the tracks daily?
My curiosity is peaked! And sadly I’m now disabled so riding these anymore is a thing of the past (my back is completely screwed up!)
I do remember riding space mountain a few times, but don’t remember any other coaster.
@@Mr6384 I’d say as you have time go through my channel and start watching videos. Most don’t have great video as the stuff I talk about can’t really be filmed. But they are good to listen to if not able to spend the time and watch. And if you have a question, I’m sure many other do as well. Don’t be shy to ask.
@@ryantheridemechanic thank you. I’ll subscribe and watch
I was recently at knotts berry farm and silver bullet (b&m invert) lift stopped. 2 operators ran up and checked all restraints before restarting the lift. No phones were out. Do you know why this was?
No, but Just by your comment alone, ops saw a phone out, stopped it, then couldn’t find who had it, and restarted it. Very common. People sneak it out then hide it quick when the lift stops.
Thanks
It’s called Sea Serpent.
Do you believe that the smiler incident is something that should never happen?
Yes. That event could have been avoided with a simple procedure change. “Don’t reset blocks with people on the ride” it’s a blood lesson though. As are most OSHA laws.
When I ran a small coaster I was required to walk all the way up the lift hill for SEP training every 6months. What's the highest height that right operators have to climb up the lift hill for SEP training? For example, do Magnum XL 200 employees have to climb all the way to the top of the lift hill?
Any stair access area OPS need to go. So magnum, I think maintenance and ops have to do one like millennium force. If there’s stairs there, ops has to train there.
Are you discluding b&m flyers? I got stuck on Tatsu's lift hill during a thunderstorm and they said maintenance needed to come to reset or it would take hours. Took 20 min ti send us around. Terrible position to be stuck.
Well I had to draw a line because it was easy to get stuck in places but that’s not valleyed. So I wanted to stick with valleyed things as best as I could. Because I ramble on all directions. Makes it hard.
@@ryantheridemechanic Just making sure, great video buddy
@@ryantheridemechanic I was mostly referring to the statement about being stuck on a lift hill is as simple as going down the stairs. But I completely understand why you negated flyers. It's just an exception to the rule. I also don't know if or how much experience you have with b&m flyers. Maybe a video on how they treat flyer stoppages compared to a sitting coaster. I know evacs must be different, but if you don't have much experience with them I totally understand. Either way, you make the best roller coaster videos online man. You make me question my career choice of environmental science, because your job sounds awesome.Thank you for making these videos.
@@sumguy8 your welcome! im glad your enjoying them. the flyers are much harder but B&M did a wonderful job of making it easy for the crew. I don't have first hand experience with that process though. maybe one day I can get my friends to explain the process for the channel.
@@ryantheridemechanic Awesome, thanks!
Can you do a video about wooden coaster retracking
yea I can do one of those
@@ryantheridemechanic Can you include why some parks wait so long... for example, a lot of 6 flags coatsers especially ROAR should have been retracked years ago
「All Friction」
Nobody here is gonna get this 😭
a lot of rides have wind limits, when the smiler valleyed (and crashed) it should not have even been running that day.
It irritates me to this day how easily preventable it was
You cursed Iron Gwazi 😂 it vallied today 😂😂😂
No way! Cold? Windy?
@@ryantheridemechanic I think what I've seen people talking about, it was its first run after overhaul. Some mechanics speculating they over packed the bearings.
@@ryantheridemechanic I'm a dummy lol that was 2 months ago...the one you talked about. 🤦♂️
@@bprebula 😅okay. I was thinking . Again?!! Didn’t they just do that.
No ride mechanic loves valleys. Had a few...😂
Ugh no fun.
So is there no such thing as like a powered shunting train that can go around the track under its own engine/motor that can push a train after its been vallyed
Not that I know of. From the experience of myself and others it seems to be the best practice Is to pull it assuming you have the appropriate equipment, or remove it from the track.
This was the first thing I thought when I heard about valleying.
The big plus for pushing is that once the train is over the hump it can just roll away and get back on its own under gravity. I was just worried about pressure on the couplings between cars.
But you'd run into the same problem with pulling if you were using a powered vehicle riding on the track. Once the train was over the hump you'd have the weight of the coaster train trying to push the tow car downhill and get the same forces trying to compress the train.
I guess if it was a real problem you could have one on each end, dynamically adjusting power to their wheels.
@@toddjones1480 I had the idea of trying to pull it from the chain dog. But that’s only ment to pull the train at a 30-50° slope so even then once you got vertical I’d worry about breaking the dog or worse cracking the frame the dog is led by.
Did you work at discovery kingdom?
did the boomerang catch wagon damage the track at all?
I don’t think it did. I know Vekoma came out to the park to inspect damage when. It happened. I think it was all wagon and train though.
Too bad you can’t go into the lift drive controller and speed it up during cold or windy weather to give the train extra momentum.
most rides lift run at or near 100%. the RMC we had installed, had the option to speed the lift up on cold starts. that was cool but done my the company not RMC
At least if a train was at upper lift, you could say you were doing block check😂
Yea. My fault for trying to beat Mother Nature at her own game.
Sometimes though, you have to jump on that window of opportunity lol
How do you get a job as a ride mechanic ?
Check out this video.
th-cam.com/video/7r1dnE_1tsQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ykBaaGYenBRhoUiJ
Oh I get the joke hilled.
15:50
Do you work at SFDK? You suuuure use a bunch of photos of V2 and Medusa and Boomerang lol
Its’s What happens when it’s your home park right
@@ryantheridemechanic lol SFDK is infact my home Park lol... It's been my home Park for so long I remember when Vertical Velocity was actually Vertical 🤣🤣🤣
@@IAmAnonymyz now it’s just a check mark with a twist. What a shame.
@@ryantheridemechanic a screwed up Nike Emblem.... Screw the Twix Sponsorship.... Get Nike involved 🤣🤣🤣 hell I remember when the Holding breaks ACTUALLY worked and when it shot you out at 70mph because of 180ft towers....now the launch is meh...it feels slowed down....I could be mistaken though
@@IAmAnonymyz making a video on that soon
dam auto mechanics doing the usual and packing the bearing right full.
We have had to clean out so manny bearings from new mechanics doing that. Oh well. Sometimes it’s caught. Sometimes, not.