EpcotServo,
what do you mean by "HORRIBLE five train butchery"??
I mean: it makes me very mad, so I call it that, perhaps with lots of hyperbole.
:lol:
Basically Management went over the heads of the actual designers and commissioned money be spent about two years back too alter the ride system to cram FIVE trains on the line at one time. Now the ride's designed to run only four, and the fifth train is the spare to be switched out if another train needs to go back to the barn. Like I said, capacity-conscious Management don't so much care about safety or show, they just want higher numbers, so at great expense an engineering team created an alternate mode for the attraction to run.
Basically what it does is slow everything down. When they think it's crowded enough, they switch this mode on before the park opens and what happens is, Lift B, which is designed to work at a SET SPEED, had to be technically adjusted (Again, at great expense) to work slower. Then they have the Broken Trestle and Shadow of the Yeti Brake Zones wait a little longer too. What this means is that they can run FIVE trains instead of Four.
Now what they DON'T GET is that if there's ANY delay at Load or Unload, the ride cascades dramatically. Instead of it being a REMOTE chance you'll get stuck for longer at any of the Brake Zones, it's now a CERTAIN chance.
The show is compromised when, after seeing a fleeting shadow of the creature, there's a 30 second delay in the cold and windy show scene before you decide to make a fast paced descent.
:lol:
Even better, the OHRC isn't even increased by much with the profile anyways. And if one train needs to get cycled out, you're running four trains again WITH a slower profile, and the OHRC is SLOWER than NORMAL.
Another thing, the Show guidelines designed the attraction so you never see more than one train at a time after leaving Load. When it's running Five, nuts to that.
From a Safety AND show stand point, while normal people still enjoy it, people like me who've been there since before Day 1 just won't be comfortable with running more than the ride can handle, even if they adjusted it, you just can't adjust it enough to be certain for me.
