Problems for Magnum, or regular preseason routine?

I'm not sure if this is a normal thing or if something happened, but here is a photo of Magnum from yesterday.
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp281/Robbie295/1_30.jpg

Is that a solitary car on the track? Can you give us more story? Were you there watching this?

A little info about what we're seeing might help.

It just looks like one section of the Magnum train sitting on the track near the end of the ride (right after the final tunnel). I wonder why it would be there?

It looks like it's stopped at or near the trim brake right before the turnaround.

Is it possible that the midcourse bit too hard, preventing it from finishing the course?

Maybe it just got put back on the track. They don't load the whole train together, it's one section at a time.

VFE - could be. If it vallied there, that would explain seeing a single car. As they would have to remove them one at a time.

Makes me wonder what idiot thought it was a good idea to run empty trains in mid-April. There's a reason they make water dummies.

Sorry for not giving more info, I saw the picture at another enthusiast site, and decided to repost here to see if anyone knew anything.

or could just be using the ride car to help adjust things, like sensors or drive wheels haha just a thought

Kyle, they wouldn't put the cars back on the track in the middle of the ride, they'd have to pull it through the remainder of the course.

Well, could the train have vallied and it's being taken off there?

JuggaLotus said:Makes me wonder what idiot thought it was a good idea to run empty trains in mid-April. There's a reason they make water dummies.

I think they typically use sandbags on Magnum.

Actually those bags contain steel shot, but the point still stands. :)

Thing is, the bags are small enough that when they stack them up on the floor of the car, the train can be fully loaded and still look empty. In recent years, you could see the bags stacked on the platforms for Mine Ride and Gemini sometimes during the operating day.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I knew about the steel shot, just didn't want to explain "Shot bag":) They have also been filling the bags with old washers too.

Revoman1 said:
Well, could the train have vallied and it's being taken off there?

That would be my guess.

While we're on the subject, is there anything that secures the sand bags to the train? I can't imagine they are allowed to just free float on the floor of the train.

The photo is old and from last fall. We set a car on the track to install a new trim brake. Nothing more, nothing less.

LOL. The foliage should have been an obvious give-away, didn't even think about that.

Thanks Tony.

Wait a second. Last fall as in 2009? So there is a new trim brake on Magnum in another location or is it replacing the current one? Kind of hard to tell on the pic exactly where the car is at.

Bummer.