I think the biggest difference between the turning station and all other stations is that the turning station generally does not have to deal with stopped gondolas. I mean yes, the gondolas can stop in the turn station, though the entire line has to stop for this to happen. So a moving gondola never approaches a stopped gondola in that station. All of these "crashes" that have happened have happened inside load/unload stations where an approaching gondola is confronted with a stopped gondola. I believe some of them have also been where the ecv/wheelchair load section merges with the rest of the load station. This is why a crash could not happen inside the turning station.
One out of the three was directly related to the HA area (DHS). The most recent at Epcot was at the entry point for the station, not near the HA area. The way that station is designed the cars should never have to stop at that portion for the HA area. As I’m sure we have all seen, the HA gondolas maintain speed while they move off track to the HA area, then stop. Then for re-entry, the exiting HA gondola picks up speed and takes the place of the arriving HA gondola. None of this should affect the primary lines speed at all.
And of course the first incident was at Riviera, from the pictures it appears a gondola was stuck in the portion that ramps it up to the main line. This station does not have a separate HA load area as has been mentioned, but when we stayed at CBR in 2019 with an ECV we would typically use the Riviera station for the skyliner. The operators’ preference at the time was to use creep mode for loading unloading ECVs there, though they would quickly go to full stop if needed. Which is of course what you were saying. Any speed adjustments or stops they did within the station would also affect the rest of the line. At no point would a moving gondola be approaching a stopped gondola. If the line stopped in a station, the whole line had to stop as well. And if the line in the station went to creep mode because the five year old boarding didn’t get her ballon in just right, the rest of the same line would too.
So 2/3 of these (admittedly not many) incidents have been related to the portion that takes gondolas on and off the main line, and the third was the portion that handles connecting between the HA area and the main loading area. Since we are not privvy to internal Disney reports, we do not know if these are in any way related to guest loading, since the exact area the incidents occurred are technically off limits to guests. And we do not know if it was related to any stops Disney had to make to ease guest loading or unloading, again, in the areas the incidents happened that should not be a direct concern. Maybe you could say this occurred because the system jammed from having to handle stupid, fat American tourists who can’t load efficiently and it broke from having to do too many stops, but Disney knew who their passengers were when they bought it.
I think there is clearly at least a minor issue with the systems that are supposed to handle the line changes that the gondolas make when transitioning in stations. Again, maybe there is more strain on their systems than Disney anticipated when ordering. And I don’t think it will be A major issue for guests riding. But I also don’t think that having such a critical component fail at all is ideal. I would not be surprised if these components get reviewed in the upcoming refurb time.
