Arrow still has highest ridership/ capicity @ CP as of 2007

Yeah, you sit in the train way longer than you used to after your ride. When things are working right you hit the brakes, sit for a few seconds then roll into the unload station.

I've observed trains stop in standby and see them roll right in to unload. That implies that the limitation is not the system, but the crew.

Says the person who has never worked Millennium, some days trains move faster but the catch car doesn't. It's the machine, not the crew. Most of the time, its guests that don't listen that slow us down. If every train had perfect guests we would be hitting interval every train, but you get the loose articles and the guests that cant buckle the seat belt. We can't force them to try the test seat, or tell them they cant enter the line if they fail at the test seat.

That's funny. I've had entrance hosts stand in my way telling me "you need to try the test seat" before allowing me in line.

For the record, I've never been denied a ride on anything due to being too large except for Jr. Gemini because I'm not a munchkin.

BGRooDoG said:
Says the person who has never worked Millennium, some days trains move faster but the catch car doesn't.

Come off it. You're being an ass. You think I can't see people checking restraints? Which part of that is not clear? Some crews suck, some don't. I don't care which one you were on. Don't take it personally.

BGRooDoG said:
It's the machine, not the crew.

BGRooDoG said:
Most of the time, its guests that don't listen that slow us down.

Which is it? :)

My point was in the early years of MF you guys didn't have all those belt rules to follow therefore intervals were hit more often. This is just my observation though.

I can't remember the last time I sat down on MF and we weren't waiting for the catch car to park. I tend to ride toward the front and always watch it come back down the hill while the ops are standing with their thumbs up.

Just my personal experience.

When Millennium Force was running two trains a few weeks ago capacity was awful. A train would get sent up the lift as one came into the holding brake. That train would have to move into Unload, while no train was loading, then would move into the load area. By that point the train that was sent out had just come back. So capacity was actually at 2/3rds because of the added time of the missing train at the load area.

-------|-|DDDDDDDDD|-|-----Empty----|-----Lift-----|--DDDDDDDDD-

If the train came back when the next one was into load, why didn't it move into unload and wait?

I don't know, but I love the picture! As a visual person, I vote that we all illustrate our posts from now on as much as possible. :) <---- there's mine

OK, so I have to apologize for the ass comment, but it annoys me when people are smart asses to me and suggest I see something other than what I see. We don't need degrees in rideopology to witness poor operations.

So let me try to break this MF stuff down...

1:40 is the time it takes the catch car to go from dispatching a train to ready to launch another train. This is therefore the optimal dispatch interval.

So let's say train A leaves at that optimum interval. That means train C is still out on the course somewhere.

As soon as train A leaves, train B pulls up into load.

Train C finishes the course and pulls into wait. Because train A left so early, train C is able to pull up into unload.

Meanwhile, train A can't leave the lift until train C clears the wait block. I would assume this is possible (i.e. the lift is long enough that it doesn't stop). Although I would imagine train A would be pretty close to the top before it finally gets the 'all clear' and switches into high gear.

Conclusions:
It's harder to hit interval on hot days when train C runs faster and gets to the wait block earlier.

It's easier to hit interval on cold days, but more likely that a stop on the lift might occur while waiting for train C to clear the wait block.

If a 6th block was added (midcourse!) it would be easier to hit interval although you'd still have the catch car dependency.

I give up. I don't understand why it's so hard to understand that a train sitting around because the crew is slow has nothing to do with blocking or the mechanics of the ride.

As I said before, I think that's because we need more illustrations, Jeff. ;)

I agree about the crew. I was just making sure I understood the condensed description of the ride mechanics from earlier. I thought others might not have understood it so well either.

In the end, it all comes down to the crew. It doesn't help that the ride has only 5 blocks, but it is certainly still possible to not stack. I hope my analysis points out that possibility.

I'm missing something here.

1) Loading station
2) Lift
3) Safety brake
4) Unloading station

I only count four blocks, which is the minimum for running three trains...

Remember that a block is defined by a point where a train can reliably be stopped. So Block #3 (as listed above) extends all the way back to the top of the lift hill.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Most of the Disney coasters except Rock n Roller Coaster and California Screamin' will set-up if the trains are not dispatched on time.

In the case of Space Mountain at Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland (which are the same ride, except built by 3 different companies at this point!), there is very little margin given to the ride ops. They run 12-13 cars at once and they got room for 4 or 5 behind the station. Once another train tries to enter the last block at this point, the ride set-up and does an automatic e-stop! But, Disney has added ways to speed up things. The blocks in the station/final brakes each include 4 sensors, allowing multiple trains to move at once. Also, to give the cars a push, they use pneumatic cylinders to push the cars into the next block. Add to that that they don't physically check restraints and you got a ride that will hit interval, all the time.

Maverick has the multi-train movement system as well. Basically the brake run is set up into seventy very small blocks so two trains can move at the same time rather than wait for the train to clear the whole brake run.

I'm not arguing with anyone, just recapping this whole conversation and adding a few things.

Millennium Force does not have that luxury, nor does it need it with only three trains. Everyone's reasoning on here for why a train might stack or miss interval is in an aspect correct. One of the problems with only running two trains is that an extra process is added with the Load/Unload respective stations. Extra time is needed to unload a train and then move it into position in the load station. The few days that Millennium Force was running two trains could have been made more reasonable from a dispatch standpoint if the time between unload and load was shortened. There still would be a delay in the load station from time of dispatch to the time of arrival due to the forty extra seconds of ride travel time compared to the dispatch interval.

So, either the ride is shortened by forty seconds and only run two trains, or add the third train an let it wait it's EMPTY turn in the unload station. Three trains does not slow anything down, and actually speeds up the process by about forty seconds. I was counting dispatch intervals at 2:24. With only two train operation. I know the operators could have moved a little faster, but if you just enter the train in the back, you barely have any time to buckle your seat belt before the operator is doing it for you, so I really don't think it would be feasible for them to move any faster at sending trains. The problem that day was sending a train every 144 seconds because they had to wait for a train to come in before they could load and send it.

As stated previously, the ride is limited by the catch car (the thing that pulls the train to the top of the lift). It takes an average of 100 seconds to leave the station pulling a train, sending it on it's way, and come back down the hill to grab another train. Millennium Force with a quick crew can get the ride ready in under sixty seconds. The time the train takes to move from the unload to the load station is around twenty second ~ a little bit more to get it lined up. So far we are at eighty seconds (the train in unload can't move to load until the train in front of it is clear). Give the catch car another twenty seconds to get itself situated and the train is gone.

It seems that the major hold up is the mechanical device dragging the train to the top. If the catch car could move on par with the crew and the new train coming it, it would only increase capacity 108pph. That is really hardly noticeable unless the line is over two hours. In which case you have to ask yourself "Is it really worth it?" And if it is, then I think you have better things to worry about then an extra twenty seconds an interval.