Ride Op Horror Stories

Out of the subject but...

How do you run power tower?

Like what kinds of "buttons" are there

Launch up, stop it, estop,?

It's been a couple of years, but as far as I can remember:

Drop Side:
Very boring to operate. There are really just two buttons you press. One button is to start the ride to have it weighed, and once that is ready you press the other button or maybe even the same button to make it start the cycle. That is literally all you do. The computers do the rest. You don't get to choose when they drop. When the carriage comes back down you press a button which allows the harnesses to be raised.

The Shot side:
This is the fun side to work. You press a button to weigh the cart, just like on drop. But then you press another button to begin the air compresses loading the air. And then once the two numbers on your computer module match for their air compression and I guess the desired air, you press the two buttons at once and it launches the cart. If you get a crappy shot, like less powerful then other ones, it could have been because the ride op was talking in the control booth and launched it too late. Or at times also the shots are just crappy in general and maitenence needs to come and "boost the air power".

There is an E stop but you never hit it for any reason.

And the module has a screen which color codes each individual seat. The ride can not begin until all 16 seats are lit up as being locked. Often when you have a guest of a larger side, there seat might be down and even buckled, but it is not good enough for the system and the operator may push down a little more (that's what we did back then, not sure if that is allowed anymore), or excuse them from the ride, then of course all the restraints would be rechecked because it is just one button that releases all the harnesses.

From what I was told, the ride wasn't always configured that way. I heard that when it first came out it was easier to like somehow be smarter then the system and maybe have an unsafe ride. But now a days I don't think it is possible as all. In fact, we always had these seat discrepancies which would close a tower. Like a seat would be totally down and the sensor would read it was open, maybe a bug got on the sensor or something and the mechanic would come and spray it with something and it would open again.

Hope all this info. was helpful/insightful in some way.

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PLayerPunk said:
WHAT! They said you don't need restraints on ANY of the rides? That's complete bull! I don't think I'll be going back to SFGA anytime soon...

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LeWiS

My guess is that it would be to take the ease off of the people. Say it happened to you, would you rather hear

"well ... none of our rides need restraints, we just have them to make you feel secure"

or

"WOW! thanks for putting your restraint down or else you would have flew out of the car, and died on contact with the ground, saving us from a millions of dillars lawsuit ! "

Sure the first one could be a lawsuit waiting to happen, but I would rather hear the first one, rather than the second one.

Personally I do not have a hooro story, except for one, even though it is not a horror story. Back in the day of
Magic Springs before it closed. The rode ops on the Arkansas Twister would ride on the side board of the train from the back of the station to the front. At the time i didn't find it shocking, infact I thought it was cool, but maybe a little dangerous.

Kevin "Still remembers when Magic Springs had the Sky Hook and a Sea Dragon covered in a tarp from when it caught on fire" Lundstrom

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Welcome one and all, y'all come have a ball!
Things a bear-y fine, ridin' on the old Knott's bear-y line!

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*** This post was edited by MilleniumForce6279 6/17/2003 5:54:12 AM ***

Ive got a good one that happend at Kennywood park.

One op didn't load the front or second seat and i was in the third in the first car. The op rode in the front seat then when we went on the double dip he unbuckled his seat belt and jumped back into the second seat. It scared me because it looked like he was going to fly back and hit me.

Anthor op and his friend were racing eachother on the Racer at KP. They were fighting when they went around the turns, really fist fighting. They did just about everything you shouldn't do on a racing rollercoaster.

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SP, why was he riding? Was it a normal operating day? Employees can't ride in their uniform.

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2002/2003
KWTM

At Boomers! the operator for DB Hurricane knew we were enthusiast (Becuase we were the only ones there and kept re-riding for hours) and rode once w/ ONE click and then got out on the break run and walked the rest of the way to the station... just to tick us off. It did becasue we kept trying to get 2-3 click rides all night, but were stapled on purpose.. stupid southern red-neck teenagers! haha

It was good fun though!

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"I'm starting to doubt your comitment to Sparkle Motion"

As an operater(sort of...lifeguard) last summer at Soak City at CP, I was running the large water slide where people ride down a large raft. To my horror a man, I am pretty sure he visited the swim up bar before riding this ride, insisted that I ride down in their raft with them. I was the only worker up top at the time and was telling absolutely no, with a smile of course! He then grapped my arm and was pulling me into the raft!! I managed to push the raft down and he lost grip on my arm. See! Even the employees at park have horror stories!

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Welcom back riders! How was your flight?!

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*** This post was edited by Coaster Princess 6/18/2003 9:08:40 PM ***

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JasonPSU20 said:

There is an E stop but you never hit it for any reason.

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Thats an odd policy. So your telling me that if while your getting ready to drop the ride, and a guest is in a restricted area of the ride your policy is not to hit the e-stop for any reason?

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Noone gets the best of Lara Croft, unless she lets them, and I didn't raise that kind of girl......Absolutly.

PTC lapbars have a tendancy to randomly pop open once in a great while. It's really not that big of a deal, since the rider usually grabs it *very quickly* and pulls it back down. Since enthusiasts ride a lot of coasters a lot of times, I've heard from more than a few it has happened to.

-Nate

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JasonPSU20 said:

There is an E stop but you never hit it for any reason.

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Except in an emergency, right?

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

On this ride I am in shallow water and I push the rafts down. I can only hit the E-stop in an emergeny. I would classify this situation as an emergeny, the only problem was the eE-stop is on a post that I could not reach while the man had my arm.

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Welcome back riders! How was your flight?!

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*** This post was edited by Coaster Princess 6/19/2003 11:25:12 AM ***

Wow....that made no sense.

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http://nedesigns.com

It does if you read her post earlier in the thread.

Here is my fondest one. It's more funny than a horror story.

Back in '97 while working the iron wolf, two ladies climbed on the back row. One of them asked me to put her slurpee with about 1/2 inch left of juice on the trash can near the back of the station. I happily obliged. During the next cycle, somehow the cup was thrown away, either by another guest or a ride op. When the ladies returned, the one that gave me her slurpee said "Where's my 'juice?!" The other one screamed "They on your feet m*thaf*cka!"

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NICK

I have seen God, and he lives 420 feet above Sandusky, OH