JAPAN AT WORK: Roller coaster operator

Pretty intresting story on how ride operator's inspect the thunder dolphin roller coaster not the mechanics.

http://www.asahi.com/english/lifestyle/TKY200411130112.html

Interesting article indeed, though it doesn't mention checking any of the ride except the lift hill area. Given the forces involved, I would have thought it far more important to check the runaway section of the track, which isn't mentioned at all.

The article did mention that the jobs were broken up between mechanics and operators, so the mechanics probably get that job.

Operators on Millenium Force also have to travel to the top of the lift hill each morning, inspect, and push the button.

I don't think it's the MF operators. The Discovery Channel "Largest Amusement Park" video clearly showed a CP maintenance person inspecting MF's lift and lift track.

I'm definately glad ride ops in the US don't full inspection, I would not trust that. Then again, most ride ops in the US aren't 31 years old like the guy in the article.

As I understand it from a former operator, an operator as well as a maintenance man had to go to the top of MF. An operator also does a front row ride watching for any problems before the ride starts in the morning.

I think what Kevin is trying to get at is that at Cedar Point, the ride operators aren't the ones crawling up the lift hill on their hands and knees looking for every little thing that could be wrong with the track. They might very well ascend the lift with the mechanic, but I'd be very surprised to hear that the ride ops are doing detailed track inspection...

You're correct that the ride ops aren't torqueing bolts, but as I understand it, they are required to do a visual inspeciton and push the button.

As a member of the 2004 MF crew I can tell you that no ride operater ever rode to the top of the lift this season. All lift inspecting and button pushing is done by the Ride Maintenance department. We simply look for clearance on a certain form each morning before starting the ride up.

The only inspection performed by ride operators is a test ride in the front row of each train to listen to how the ride is running and visually inspect the track.