Weird SFGA Deja Vu Breakdown

Was anyone else at Six Flags Great America yesterday and saw where Deja Vu was stuck at around 6 P.M.? I've never seen this ride break down and get stuck at this part of the track before.

The ride went up the first tower correctly through the inversions and loop to the second tower. The train was caught buy the catch car taking it up the second tower. Then train went backwards through the loop and then just stopped in the inverted part upside down heading back into the station.

I've gotten stuck on this ride before in the loop when the catch car missed us on the second tower. It took an hour to get us down. I wonder how long it would take to get these people off that were stuck in the inversion? I left shortly after I saw this so I'm not to sure on what happened and how they got it fixed.

Man that must've been a pain in the a$$ to get the peeps off the ride from that position....I'm taking it based on your description that the train got stuck somewhere between the middle of the cobra roll & the half loop section leading to,or in this case away from the vertical loop?

Seriously they should just remove the ride from all three parks & just replace it with an invertigo instead.....there's a whole lot less that can & has gone wrong with these when compared with their giant cousins that just don't seem to want to work right,with the exception of the incident on Two face last season.

Not only are the invertigoes slightly more reliable they also have slightly better capacity & a much easier load process with A-no seperate checks for lap belts(unlike the red & blue monument at the other end of the park)& B- the boarding process is slightly easier to figure out with the back to back seating although SFA should put markers on the gates to indicate which is a forward facing queue & which is backwards towards the middle of the train because it can become confusing at times.

I've heard of this happening before, but nobody has ever been able to show any proof. The first time was reported to have happened during a private function. I disagree with the notion of removing these rides. Sure, they've had problems. Perhaps SF should've waited until a bit longer before installing them, as there certainly seems to be a learning curve on how to keep them up and running. However, with each passing season they are running better and better. They just seem to realize that things like that are going to happen from time to time. As long as it doesn't endanger the riders, I don't see it as a big deal. If you want prototype rides and new technology, you're going to have to deal with the mishaps that pop up. *** Edited 7/7/2004 4:29:04 PM UTC by Geno21K***

I agree w/ you BATWING FAN SFA but that would be a lot of hastle to do that. Also, Dejavu has been doing really well this season, w/ the exception of this break down. I do agree it has really slow loading times!

This incident happended before the park opened for the day. So no peeps were on the ride. It was during test runs. Anyone have any pictures? Truely crazy incident.

I saw it clear as day from the tollway as well when we were driving home last night. Hopefully someone can grab a pic of it. It would make great wallpaper on a computer.

The car would have to be severly balanced to get jammed upside down, because there is no flat track there. The train is in what's know as "unstable equilibrium" and any shift forward or backwards (like inches) would have gotten it moving.

Deja Vu does have a set of brakes going from tower 2 half way up the vertical loop, these are there in case the train does not catch the catch wagon and rolls back down. Im sure there are other reasons these would be used. I have seen this stop a train halfway up the loop, but not with rows upside down. Sounds like the train could have possibly slipped through most of the brakes and stopped with only a row or two actually being held by them. This would cause most fo the train to be upside down. If this is the case, the train can be reset pretty easily and re-hoisted to the top of tower 2 and let go. They may have been looking further into the problem if it was sitting there for a while. If this happened before park hours, maintence may have been doing some kind of tests on it.

I think he means it was stalled out in the low part of the cobra roll, which has happened before on other Giant Inverted Boomerangs and regular Boomerangs alike. Not exactly sure what causes it, but perhaps wind conditions and a premature drop on the second tower may have been the reason. I'm not exactly sure how the brakes near the loop trigger. I think they only go off if it doesn't reach/engage the catch car or if it doesn't have enough speed to clear the loop. They can easly use a winch to get the train out of that position though.

Happened on Boomerang at Six Flags Marine World last week...

Picture

I don't think that is the position he was talking about.

Parker, you DID get my PM/e-mail I hope?

When I was at SFGAm SO long ago now, the ride (DV) DID actually "break down and valley"....lucky for me, it happened IN the station, so once the ride rolled, (and rolled, and rolled) to a halt, the riders were taken off and the ride was back up and running *only* an hour later. I normally would've bailed given such a situation, but I needed to complete the US triumvirate of DVs.

P.S. SFGA is a *crappy* acronym...;)

DV did that same station valley for CBuzzCon this year. It only took them around 10 minutes to get it back up and running once the train finally stopped rolling.

http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery746.htm?Picture=8

^ That is where the ride vallied yesterday. I believe both the SFMM and SFOG versions of Deja Vu have vallied in this spot before, this is the first time SFGAm's vallied there.

It's better it vallied in the cobra roll rather then between the loop and cobra roll like it has done twice in the past.

I am by no means an expert, but, from what I know, there are 3 common occurrences on DV.

1) Mis-catch-the train misses the catch car and simply comes back down the tower and stalls or is e-stopped in a safe holding position.
2) Mis-park-the train does is not properly lowered back into the station off of the final tower, which causes the train to slowly rock back and forth until it is stopped and slowly rolled back in.
3) Valleying-the train doesn't have enough speed coming out of the second tower to climb through the boomerang and cobra roll.

The incident that happened on July 6th was a valley, but a rare sort of valley. As I said before, I was told that this has happened before. Nobody seems to know exactly what causes this type of stoppage,in which the train literally gets stuck in the middle of the cobra roll above the staircase platform. In the last update that I was given a visitor claimed that the train was still stuck in that location, locked in with red emergency clamping. It would be nice if someone could provide a pic of it.

OK, but none of the riders would be upside-down, as reported in the first post:

"Then train went backwards through the loop and then just stopped in the inverted part upside down heading back into the station."

http://www.sfgamworld.com/gallery/DejaVu/DejaVu006

This is an old picture I found on the web, but this is what it looked like in it's stuck position yesterday.

NO part of that train is upside down.

Well i think Deja Vu should be still there just the park and people need to give the ride a chance. Boomerangs, Invertigos,and Vertical Boomerangs have the most complex operating systme i have heard.

also can anyone confem if the Deja Vu at SFMM was down for one whole operating year?

I doubt anyone can confem anything!

mOOSH [me smells a troll]