Ask RideMan #5 - Restraints

The states I don't think have that much influence. They don't have the expertise, so they defer to other organizations. ASTM has a lot more influence as far as what safety practices are followed.

And even then a park can add more to what is required as far as stuff like that goes. And knowing Cedar Fair, I am pretty sure that is exactly what they would do in a situation like that.

I re-read this excellent article again and a few new questions came to mind. Anyone know the answers to these?

On Millennium Force, there is no individual restraint feedback system connected to the operator booth(?). So are the restraints and seatbelts only verified by visual inspection by the crew? Or is there some sort of system in place similar Arrow coasters which somehow "examines" the restraints as the train leaves the station?

I think back to the Perilous Plunge accident in 2001 which seemingly resulted in the shortening of the Millennium Force seat belts. Was that related to not having a specific go vs. no-go position for each individual restraint?

Also, in this video from the Winter Chill Out, Eric Lapp talks about the dual cylinders used as part of the Millennium Force restraints (it's around the 5:25 mark in the video). He mentions that both cylinders are checked every night since there is no way to detect if one or the other fails during the day. He goes on to state that the dual cylinder system on GateKeeper is checked after every cycle. I assume that must be done by the computer somehow as part of the restraint feedback system?

There is no electronic or mechanical restraint feedback system on Millennium Force. They rely purely on visual checks by the operators. It is possible to dispatch the train with the lap bars up. When the ride first opened, it was commonplace to send test trains with the lap bars up. You can see this briefly in the World's Largest Amusement Park special that aired on the Discovery Channel back in 2001.

Bump. The links to these forum threads related to Ask RideMan pages are currently broken, and link to blank pages.

https://pointbuzz.com/content/ask-rideman-restraints

I watched a video this week which talked about B&M flying trains. I had no idea that the B&M flying trains use a wireless system to lock and unlock restraints. According to this video, they originally used a wireless device for this, and then later were switched to a wireless photo eye system instead.

Fixed the links, thanks. (New version of the code deployed last night.)

And I really need to do another one of those, even though the park keeps taking out the rides we talk about...

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

If that holds true, would you like a list of suggestions?