Impulse Infrared Beams

Have you ever noticed the big infrared sensors right past the station waiting lines? If you walk through one while the coaster is running, does it set off an alarm or does it try to stop at the next opportunity possible?

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I prefer the pears in the heavy syrup. They're just good.

Didn't a situation happen with a child @ SFWoA?
Well anyways, yea, if anything interupts that beam it will stop that train in a jiffy.

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SFNE Central- Online Six Flags New England Resource
http://sfne.com
Devoted Intamin Lover for Life!

If the train is close enough to the station, or on the spike closest to the station the train will blow past the station like normal. The only why it would stop the train is if it is going away from the station, in the spike, or not very far o the way back on the side with the magnetic brakes. I Give the train just over a 50/50 chance of slowing down significatly, or stoping before the station., but if someone is stupid enough to jump over the airgates, and in the way of the train, they have it comeing to them.

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Last 2002 public ride on MF's front row

I'm pretty sure an interruption in the light curtain of the impulse coasters causes an e-stop regardless of where on the course the train is. It's just a safety precaution. Sometimes airgates are set up like this too.

-Nate

Yeah..

An e-Stop would happen. However, I once saw Superman at SFWOA get E-stopped on the back spike. The train did not fully stop until it was almost all the way out of the station heading forward again.

Basically, I think if anyone had been in the way of the train at that point... they would have gotten creamed. Along with the people in the front row.

It was kind of sickingly funny to see the look of shock on the people's faces as they went from almost max speed to a stop in that short of a distance. Going forward.

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Do the Moo Shoo!

Sounds like it's an E-stop no matter where the train is (as mentioned above). Even though the controller may not be capable of stopping a train before the station, the theory is that at least it'll have slowed down some rather than flying through at a much higher speed.

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Jes is here to clear up all misinformation: At, SFWoA, those infared beams will not e-stop or quick-stop the ride... however... you can't launch the train if something is blocking the window. I had heard that it was set-up during the first season to E-Stop the ride mid-ride if something went through the curtain. But that is no longer the case.

The difference between an E-stop and a Quick stop is that while both will stop the ride and both have a button on the main control pannel, you cannot recover from an E-Stop without maintainence coming to do their thing. Quick stops can be recovered from... the main op just restarts the ride and "Jogs" the train back to the "Home" possition. The advantage is obvious if you just need to stop the ride... but you'd be a fool not to E-stop the ride if you saw flames or something along those lines.

A speeding train can blow up quite a storm when it flies through the station and papers, park maps, napkins, etc., have been known to go through the curtain. So for those reasons, the ride doesn't e-stop/quick stop. It does not sound a buzzer. It is the responsibility of the Ride operators to stop the train if something/someone is in the path of the ride.

E-stops and Quick-stops will always stop the train past the station, over the go-carts. This means essentially, if the ride is e-/quick stopped when the train is on an "Even numbered Swing", aka, it is traveling backwards, and has passed the go carts, then the train cannot be stopped until the train stalls on the back tower and goes back through the station forward.

A Swing is what the computer counts as a direction change. Swing 1 is the launch, Swing 2 is the first backwards pass, Swing 3 is the full power launch forward, Swing 4 is the 2nd full powered backwards pass, Swing 5 is the "Lim-off" pass through the station, and Swing 6 is the final stop, and jog back to the station.

If you step onto the platform during Swing 2 or 4, and the train has already passed the station... you're dead meat, unless you get out of the way quick.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew (Have Fun Trying To Find Me!)

Well I was totally wrong then. But the idea of it not being able to at least slow down in the station (depending on the swing) kind of alarms me. If I have to E-stop the ride, I want the units to stop asap.

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Well the reason those LIMs don't stop the tain is because if you see smoke or fire coming from the station LIMs, you need to be able to smack the **** out of that E-Stop to cut the power to the ride. In which case, the LIMs cannot be given the responsibility of stopping the train. The drop down brakes past the station are passive, meaning they contain magnets that do not need any power. If you kill the power with the E-stop, those brakes are going to drop down because the motor "Holding" them in the up position looses power, and they fall down to stop the train. If their is a fire, those drop down magnet brakes are the only thing going to be able to stop the train when you E-stop.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew (Have Fun Trying To Find Me!)

The thing you have to remember is that the only brakes on an Impulse are on the track forward of the station.
Something else to remember about the difference between an E-stop and a ride stop: a ride stop is a controlled stop initiated by the ride controller; the ride is stopped in a known state at a known location by the ride controller, and most of the time, this is how you want to stop the ride. On a ride with a multi-stage cycle, for instance, a RIDE STOP will generally bring the ride down so that it can be unloaded.
By comparison, an E-Stop is an electrical code requirement. When you hit the E-Stop, it is supposed to be roughly equivalent to pulling the plug on the ride.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Ah, I see now. The problem I see is that as an operator, most of my e-stops (not that I had to much anyway) were related to stupid guests who were in restricted areas around the ride (that's an E-stop under our policy). Although I haven't been around any impulse coaster to tell, if you had a situation in the station where a guest, an object, or anything else fell in the ride path... essentially an E-stop would do nothing depending on which swing it would be. Personally if I was left to design a similar ride, I would make sure there would be a retarding mechanism on each side of the station.

The reason why we don't use ride stop is that it functions about the same as an E-stop, but doesn't cut the power to the ride or reset the ride controller. It will stop the trains where they are or at the next available stopping position (brakes). The only times we use ride-stop are to park the trains at night and in the event of a ride breakdown/error, we secure the units (make sure they can't move) by depressing ride stop.

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Okay, Jes, thanks for clearing that up. I was confused because I was on a ride when we *were* e-stopped because of an interruption in the light curtain. Of course, this happened in 2000 and I was unaware they've changed the way that works since. It makes much more sense the way it is now anyway, as (like you said) things blowing through the station are common and a ride-op should be able to notice anyone/thing in the path of the train.

-Nate

They have these on B:DK at SFWOA also dont they?

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The cleveland browns suck, if its brown flush it down, Go Bengals!

I don't know about a light curtain (it's possible), but B:KF does have mats that ride-ops have to be standing on to dispatch the train. If an op steps off the mat, the ride stops (while dispatching/advancing). This was put in due to an accident when a ride-op fell through the floor during the first season.

-Nate

Batman Knight Flight at SFWoA does have light curtains, however, they are placed on the platform, on the side(s?) of the train , where the floor is painted yellow. This is why you may see ride ops pushing loose articles out of the way of the curtain before dispatching, otherwise, you cannot dispatch. As for the mats, I don't think that all of the possitions have active mats. For example, I was up at Batman on ride night (riding, of course) and there was one Op checking bars (The only row occupied was the front) and the main Op up in the booth.

No one was in the other possitions, so I assumed that not all the mats are have sensors in them, and that if they do, they don't need a "Presence" to dispatch the train. (Those mats are technically refered to as "Presence Pads" at the park)

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew (Have Fun Trying To Find Me!)

Wouldn't it be terrifying to lay under an impulse? note:I'm not condoning or seriously suggesting such actions.

Yea, it's pretty scary... ;)

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew (Have Fun Trying To Find Me!)

It's likely, the mats can be turned off (altered) depending on how many ops are scheduled for the ride that particular day. The ride ops probably wouldn't have access to this feature, but maintenance would.

For instance, it takes at least two people to operate B:KF (from what I know). There can be more people staffed to the ride, however, and each of those people has a mat. When there are two people staffed to the ride, those extra mats are turned off (meaning the ride can be dispatched without anybody standing on them). When the ride is fully staffed, on the other hand, those mats are activated (the ride cannot be dispatched unless each is occupied).

Medusa (East) works the same way, but with dispatch buttons instead. Take a look around that station and there are *several* dispatch buttons, but if the ride isn't fully staffed the extra buttons can basically be "turned off."

-Nate

I have been on S:UE MANY of times when it has been stopped one way or another buy some strange force/object. They actually have a very good planned layed down for getting the mechanics key up to them and get it back running. They now have it down to about 5min or less (use to be a lot longer).

I have been up in the station 3 times this year when Wicked Twister stopped for one reason or another. At the beginning of the year it took as long as SUE orinally did. But CP also has it down now.

During Oct. when I was on WT I was waiting for front seat and the person who was on the train right in front of me. Threw/lost his hat right at launch, and it went through the light curtain. The ride made it out of the station but not up the spike. They had to reset the ride and roll the train back into the station for a re-launch.

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
Haunted Ohio Parks...you've been warned!!

I know that B:DK does not have "Presence Pads" because its just concrete with a yellow circle painted on it. They do, however, have "combs." And they are pretty sensitive to rain because on a rainy day it would start and stop at least 2 times with each advance and nothing was in the way of the combs.

[edited for your reading convenience ;)]

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SFNE Central- Online Six Flags New England Resource
http://sfne.com
Devoted Intamin Lover for Life!

*** This post was edited by SFNE Freak on 11/10/2002. ***