Top Thrill Dragster stuck on the top for the third time

Jeff's posts are quite humorous. I like where he changed his stance to saying it will never happen with a loaded train.

Aww man! We were at the Red Garter watching the show when this happened.

'Got Country' was a good show, if you're into that kind of music... I'm not.

~Rob

Still photos can't do it justice. That's why as soon as I heard somebody mention it, I got out the video camera. Unfortunately, 420 feet in the air there isn't a lot of other stuff moving either. It looked to me, though, like the train was moving a little, just not enough to make a big enough difference to get it going again.

I haven't looked at the footage yet, but I did see them knock the train loose. My angle was a little odd as I was standing on the Maverick platform at the time.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Too bad there isn't a 'delete account' button anymore, or I'd suggest that some of you trolls use it.

The working odds of this happening are now about 1 in 2,000,000. I'll bet CP maintenance and Intamin would both have said it was virtually impossible before the ride opened.

Andrew said:
Times like this it is fun to read threads from before the ride opened when everyone thought it couldn't/wouldn't happen.

http://www.pointbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/11463.aspx

The fact that you haven't posted anything in over a year and return only to post that says a lot more about you than me.

Chuck Wagon said:
The working odds of this happening are now about 1 in 2,000,000.

What is that, fuzzy math? ;)

Considering that TTD, through 2008, has given 5,746,772 rides, and each train holds 18 people, and that its happened 3 times now... the odds are around 1 in 106,000. Of course, this is assuming sending trains out full all the time, but even if you assume an average of 16 people per train, you're still only looking at odds of around 1 in 120,000.

^Either way it is going to be slightly skewed because sometimes they have to send trains with 4,6,8 or so people on them to get the ride warmed up early in the season.

I like that the odds are a lot lower than everyone thought originally. I just think that it would be hard to come up with a solid number to say for sure that is it.

Ryan

Well, I'd imagine that CP has a count of exactly how many trains have been launched, so they likely know, or could easily calculate, the exact odds.

Yeah I rounded total rides up to 6 million, but then I misinterpreted it as total trains instead of total riders. Oopsies. Guess the trolls should start attacking me now.

What's interesting is that this is the 2nd time in the last 6 months it has happened.

...and actually, while looking up the last time this happened, I found this:

So, based on calculations from our analysts in the Rides Department, there's a 1 in 80,000 chance that you'll experience the ride that Aaron & Alysia Grimm (Lexington, KY), Jason Skidmore and Josh Volz (Fort Wayne, IN) did.

Posted here

Interesting - good find.

From CP website I counted up to 5,696,772 riders as from '03 till '08

I think we can put to rest the issue of having a kicker wheel or some other device up there to prevent a roll back and/or any other issue.

I was going to wait until I had a trip report page up, but here is a blind link to my video of the incident.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

So, if a roll-back on TTD is the "golden ring" of roller coasters, would this be the "platinum ring" or "diamond ring"?

What about a double roll-back?

It is for me. It's on my "things to do before I die" list. Sometimes I wish I could just go up on the catwalk for just 10 minutes, that would be enough.:D

If so, does that make cable shredding the "ear ring" of coasters?

^^^The lucky ducks who got that triple rollback opening day

Anyone know if this has happened before on any of the other Intamin AG Accelerator Coasters?

It happened on Stealth I know that for sure. I saw a video much like the one posted on here where it was stuck. I don't know about any others however.

Ryan

Personally, I'm curious if it could happen on Xcellerator at Knott's and what they would do if it did. There's no elevator or stair access to the top of their tower. Although the curve at the top of Xcellerator seems to be much flatter than Dragster's, so maybe that prevents the problem.