Maverick Testing Mode?

Hey everyone, I am at Halloweekends and the Maverick has been operating off and on throughout the day. However, when it is running tests with empty trains, I noticed it takes significantly longer to complete the tunnel section of the ride. When a train enters the tunnel under this testing mode, it slows to almost a complete stop for about 15 seconds and then it proceeds to launch. The lighting effects seem to go off as they normally would and then stop a good 10 seconds before the train begins the launch. This is very different from the train almost immediately launching under normal operation. Has anyone noticed this? If so, what is the reasoning?

Not 100% sure, but it's probably that the previous train has not cleared the first block at the end of the ride due to being empty/cold, so the train will wait to launch. Either that or the train in the tunnel is empty/cold so it doesn't reach the point of launch right away like it does during normal operations.

Or an empty train is slowed down quicker than a fully loaded train, then crawls down the track to the launch section, which also takes longer.

I've had an early morning solo ride on Maverick. It took so long to roll into the launch zone I didn't think the train was going to make it.

This question is one that I started a thread about a couple years ago. Check it out.

https://pointbuzz.com/Forums/Topic/maverick-blocks-and-tunnel-slowdowns

There are a couple posts by former Maverick ride ops.

I realized I have another question too, but I’ll just add it to this topic since it sort of pertains to it. Has anyone heard a siren sound on Maverick right before it launches?

A train whisle... not heard a siren.

The sound you might be hearing is the train transitioning onto the LSMs. Not sure what exactly is making the noise - possibly the train being dragged off the drive tires by LSMs - but, particularly when the ride is slowing to a near-stop in the tunnel, the ride makes several seconds of a scraping/low-pitched squeaking noise before launching.

No, they have a train whistle as part of the theming, or at least did.

Ayup, whistle it is... Pete! We need to go have an adult beverage or twelve before you pull the boat!

Yes! I'll be at CP this coming weekend to close it out. Call me or I'll try to come up and pay you a visit.

Hmm I am positive this sound wasn’t from the railroad or even the LSM’s. This was definitely an artificial sound, sort of resembling a fire alarm siren. From what I remember of it, every half second it would make the sound. They did a train transfer about 5 or so minutes before the ride started making this sound, but I don’t know if this makes any different or not.

I think several of the rides blast a siren when they are first powered up in the morning as a warning to anyone who is still out in the ride area (and shouldn’t be) to GTFO.

Maybe the ride was reset after the train transfer... I don't know the procedure for train transfers but maybe that is something that happens.

It was a sound around maverick this weekend that sounded like an emergency use only door siren that went off briefly. Could’ve been something like a door that was normally alarmed being used for getting the under maverick haunt area setup for the night.

Could it possibly have been this sound? This video is from back when Maverick was still testing to open for the first time in 2007, and the video description says "the horn sound is a warning for the tunnel launch during testing." Also, it's quite fascinating to see Maverick rollback in this video; nowadays, they only dispatch trains once the tunnel block has fully cleared, so rollbacks are never going to happen, unless they have to manually cut the lift power for something like a cell phone. This decision to delay dispatch times hurts capacity slightly, but the delay from a rollback resulting from the tunnel not being clear would likely hurt capacity more in the long run.