Dragster downtime

I was at the park yesterday all day andI noticed how bad of a day dragster was having. it was down until 2 or 3 pm when it finally opened and ran about 3 trains full of people and then went down again, and the maintenance guys were on the track for 5 minutes, then it opened again and sent 5 or 6 trains then the same thing, maintenance guy went on the track and it opened again. this repeated all day until park close. My question is why arent' they testing the trains after it goes down? instead they just immediately open trains and send them over with people, and goes down again.

Pure speculation:

• Standard operating procedure was being followed; in this instance the ride was having repeated failures?

• Judgement call between giving as many rides as possible and shutting the ride down for longer periods?

• Never hurts to email the park and ask.

So long as the restraint system works and the return brakes aren't an issue I don't know that testing every time Dragster goes down is really necessary. Either the train doesn't launch, or it does launch but doesn't make it over the hill and everyone gets a roll back. Nobody is getting stuck on the lift hill.

Well there was that one time.

I was working Raptor when that particular incident occurred and had a great view. IIRC they were stuck up there for at least 20 minutes. Also, that's happened at least 3 or 4 times by now.

Regarding their procedures, as others have said, they follow SOP. If maintenance says it's OK to send people on the trains then they'll do so (usually after letting everyone know what's going on and allowing them to get off if it's appropriate and if they desire to do so.)

As far as safety goes, unless something calls for it, there's usually no need to run the trains without people on them after downtime. The trains are cycled every morning and considered "safe" after that until proven otherwise. If you do see an empty train go around the circuit during normal operations it's most likely due to a "protein spill." The train is washed and sent around empty (sometimes from the spill on back) to dry off.

Dragster has stalled 3 times. The dates are listed on the Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Thrill_Dragster

Here's another time...

https://vimeo.com/78602774

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I do not envy those guys at all. That is just something I could not do. Being up that high, and then having to use muscle? I'd be shaking way too bad.

The maintenance team is crazy like that though (but in a good way). I swear they're ruthless when it comes to their job at extreme heights. I would love to do things like that. I love it so much, I always enjoyed taking people on lift walks each time I would train a new employee.

Best part is the riders with their hands up on the way down. All that wait did not go to waste!

Why didn't they just load up the next train and launch it? It would have hit the train that was stuck and sent it over!

Then the second train would have rolled back and everyone on it would have gotten a relaunch!

Man... Such an obvious solution. Way better than sending up people to push! Someone needs to hire me to come up with these obvious, "outside the box" solutions! ;-)

(Yes... This is a joke...)

That actually was a potential answer in the controls test the year I was there apparently.

I was wondering who would be the first to make it about them, citing their vast insider experience. Honestly, I thought it would be the other guy.

Confused. Was it actually a potential answer, or apparently a potential answer? One's definite, the other's isn't.

Obviously, if you're confused, then you just don't get it.

(why does this still work?)

It has been down all day today and along with many other rides and now there apparently is a power outage affecting most of the park.

JUnderhill said:

Well there was that one time.

Well...that isn't technically a lift hill, right? Other than that you got me. :)

This did indeed happen again last Wednesday, 5-13, approx 4:00 pm. Maintenance replaced a sensor on the launch track and the train was sent and stalled at the top for approx 5-8 seconds before rolling back. Very windy that day so that could have pushed it back down.

@ me bruh :)

Out of curiosity, I would love to see Dragster's train log to see how much it has (or in this case, hasn't) run since opening day.

Dragster wasn't having a particular good day on Thursday 5/14 either. It was a little cool and somewhat breezy. I saw two runs where the train didn't clear the tower and rolled back. This was after significant downtime and long delays between launches. After that they were launching only half-full trains.