Employee Test Rides

The CP job app says that many employees will be required at times to take "Test Rides" to ensure that each ride is functioning correctly.

I read that at Six Flags, policy says the TL must ride their ride at least once every hour to make sure it is running correctly from a rider's perspective.

Can any employees comment about this? What is the official policy? What do you "look for" when test riding? Has a test ride ever led to a shut down? Can you refuse to test ride if you don't like a particular ride? Etc.

Each train on a coaster (or vehicle on a ride like Demon, Snake, Thunder) and the flat rides are ridden one time in the morning. The ride host (and it can be any ride host, not just the TL) makes sure everything feels good and that there are not any strange sounds.

Test rides in the middle of the day don't really happen unless a guest reports a strange noise or something that needs to be checked out. And yes, sometimes it does lead to a shutdown.

If you don't really like the ride you can just ask not to ride. On the bigger rides there are plenty of others who want to do it but on the small rides you might have to do it anyway. Your TL might help you out and find someone else to do it, but it MUST be done by someone.

The short answer is that you are looking or feeling for anything odd.

MrScott

^Like your monthly attendance check in the nether regions?

Testing a ride in the morning checking for noises is one thing. Testing a ride after it has been reported to make noises is another.

Read up on (Disneyland) Big Thunder Mountain Railroad's accident in 2004 I believe to know what I'm talking about. There were reports of the train that soon crashed made odd noises as it was leaving the station for that run. *** Edited 2/26/2007 11:34:46 PM UTC by Gomez***

Actually, the test rides are just for fun. :)

At Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure leads are required to test ride every hour to check for anything out of the ordinary and also to inspect all effects to make sure they work properly. This includes all lights, sounds, fog and any other effect the specific attraction might have. Take ET for instance, there are over 200 effects to check so some get missed even with hourly test rides. And at the Hulk Coaster it's hard to know if every light and speaker is working on just one test ride.

I was riding Adventure Express at Kings Island. and there was a Deer about 5 feet away from the track, I told a worker and he hoped on and went to see if it was still there. It wasn't though.

^Did he bring his huntin' rifle?

"Shur wuld like to gets me a Buck offa movin coaster one of these days".

Well golly gee, Paw, Ida just jumped off dat train and rastled him to that there ground.

Two many innoscent childs around to be usin yer gun.

The really fun "test rides" are on the go-kart tracks using the heat from the engines to dry the track after it rains.

Very rarely do employees take test rides mid-day. I can only think of one-time it happened on Corkscrew and it was because of a guest saying "It sounds funny."

One thing I wanted to add was that there are rules regarding the test ride. You must keep your hands inside the car at all times (duh) and also you're suggested to sit in the front to see the track. One morning we came in to open and there was a giant branch sitting on the track from a bad thunderstorm we had been hit with overnight. Had the train been sent...well...anybody remember the first gold train on Dragster?

^ isn't that why maintenance inspects the entire track length before opening though? I would think they'd have spotted the branch and gotten it cleared before you guys would be given the ok to start test runs.

Contrary to popular belief, maintenance does not inspect "the entire track length" before opening.

Its apparently contrary to what they advertise then. Just check "Worlds Largest Amusement Park." Certainly makes it sound like they do check the entire length.

Think about the rides like TTD, Millennium, Magnum, Raptor, where there are points of the ride innaccessible by maintenance tracks. For instance, the top maintenance platform on dragster is more than 50 feet from the arch.

I'm not saying they go in with a magnifying glass every day, but I would imagine there is at least a complete visual inspection that SHOULD pick up branches laying across the track.

And if they top maintenance platform is 50 feet from the arch, how did they push the train over when it stalled?

The elevator goes all the way up, and there's a staircase at the top...
http://funnies.com/cedar/coastertall.jpg

Well look at where he worked...Challenge Park. He appears to have no clue on the correct procedures of Ride Operations. And after a bad storm I would assume that the ride ops did a track walk, Thats when you look for all the branches and things on the track or in the areas of the ride that a train could come in contact with. Its just standard procedure.

It's my understanding that some rides get their daily maintenance at night right after the park closes. If this was the case, I could see how a storm could come though between when maintenance does their inspection and the crew arrives in the morning.