Texas racetrack will build America's first tilt roller coaster

I would love for someone to show close up what the fail-safe mechanism for this is. I imagine there has to be some mechanical means that the train can't be unblocked until the tracks are lined up.

My wild butt guess is that the mechanism for releasing the brakes is on the tower section that connects to the front of the track once it's in the vertical position. Thus, it can't even accidentally release the brakes due to some control issue unless the track is completely aligned in the vertical position.

I assume that there's more than just a squeeze brake holding it there. I seem to remember seeing a photo or a video of a hook at the back of the train similar to what's on the cable lift on a boomerang. Like traditional squeeze brakes, it's fail safe in the sense that hydraulic or air pressure opens it and a lack of pressure closes it. Hopefully, RideMan will come along soon to tell me how wrong I am.

There's a fairly superficial and somewhat annoying explanation here.

If you really want to put your life into your own hands, Golden Horse has made four tilt coasters (five if you count that their first one duels).

Jeff said:

I would love for someone to show close up what the fail-safe mechanism for this is. I imagine there has to be some mechanical means that the train can't be unblocked until the tracks are lined up.

Gravity Max uses traditional pneumatic brakes. Then, a trailer hitch at the back of the car is hooked up like a Boomerang Coaster and a large block of steel on an hydraulic ram comes up before the front of the first car chassis.

When Intamin and Maurer did their tilting elements on a smaller scale, they went with similar safety systems.