What's with Space Mountain?

[grimghost999]

At the moment, I am at tomorrowland about to fast pass Space Mountain. Right now, they aren't letting any people in and the sign showing the queue time is shut off. Over the last two days, SM has shut down three times when I was at the park.
Is this just crowd control or is there really something wrong with the ride?

 

[invader]

Things like that tend to happen for Space Mountain A LOT. It's just an older ride, expect it to happen, sadly.

 

[wdwmagic]

At the moment, I am at tomorrowland about to fast pass Space Mountain. Right now, they aren't letting any people in and the sign showing the queue time is shut off. Over the last two days, SM has shut down three times when I was at the park.
Is this just crowd control or is there really something wrong with the ride?

Guests often drop things onto the track which triggers sensors and sometimes results in a shut down.

 

[grimghost999]

I just got off the TTA, which goes through SM. It was working and people were riding through it. Now I'm just thinking it's crowd control

 

[BrerFrog]

Just another normal day for SM CMs.

 

[EvilQueen-T]

i don't think it's crowd control. they don't have any problem with long wait times. i've been there over july 4th week and over christmas week and saw 100+ minute wait times for standby. it's a shame with them having done what was supposedly big maintenance about 1 1/2 years ago that it breaks down so much but it's probably like owning an older model car...stuff just breaks down and needs constant attention.

 

[rct247]

Disney doesn't just shut off attraction wait times and prevent guests from entering just for crowd control. There is most likely an underlying reason that can only easily be explained as "technical difficulties". It's very temporary and it happens to all attractions, not just Space Mountain.

 

[Rob562]

Space Mountain, more than pretty much any other attraction in WDW, is more succeptible to "cascade" E-stops.

The way that the ride's blocking system is designed, each rocket only has a short period of time that it can sit at the unload station. More rockets are constantly coming in behind it, as quickly as every 21 seconds if running at full capacity. There are brake zones before the unload station that rockets can be held at, but if a rocket sits at unload too long the system eventually runs out of parking places and the ride has to stop cars that are still out on the course. At that point, the stoppages cascade backward through the ride until the ride comes to a stop.

It doesn't even have to be a single rocket sitting at unload the entire time. A number of slow-to-unload rockets in a short period of time can cause an accumulated delay, leading to the inevitable.

After an E-stop, the other side has to be cycled out, and then both ride systems reset. And while the attraction is shut down, they stop allowing Guests to enter the queue, and the wait time will either go blank or will increase to a large number.

The big refurb a couple years ago replaced the control system, making this reset period a LOT faster (from what I've heard it's a 5-10 minute reset, where it used to be 20-30)

-Rob

 

[Rowdy]

Space Mountain, more than pretty much any other attraction in WDW, is more succeptible to "cascade" E-stops.

The way that the ride's blocking system is designed, each rocket only has a short period of time that it can sit at the unload station. More rockets are constantly coming in behind it, as quickly as every 21 seconds if running at full capacity. There are brake zones before the unload station that rockets can be held at, but if a rocket sits at unload too long the system eventually runs out of parking places and the ride has to stop cars that are still out on the course. At that point, the stoppages cascade backward through the ride until the ride comes to a stop.

It doesn't even have to be a single rocket sitting at unload the entire time. A number of slow-to-unload rockets in a short period of time can cause an accumulated delay, leading to the inevitable.

After an E-stop, the other side has to be cycled out, and then both ride systems reset. And while the attraction is shut down, they stop allowing Guests to enter the queue, and the wait time will either go blank or will increase to a large number.

The big refurb a couple years ago replaced the control system, making this reset period a LOT faster (from what I've heard it's a 5-10 minute reset, where it used to be 20-30)

-Rob

Thanks for the info. :wave:

 

[Random Vids Inc]

Space Mountain, more than pretty much any other attraction in WDW, is more succeptible to "cascade" E-stops.

The way that the ride's blocking system is designed, each rocket only has a short period of time that it can sit at the unload station. More rockets are constantly coming in behind it, as quickly as every 21 seconds if running at full capacity. There are brake zones before the unload station that rockets can be held at, but if a rocket sits at unload too long the system eventually runs out of parking places and the ride has to stop cars that are still out on the course. At that point, the stoppages cascade backward through the ride until the ride comes to a stop.

It doesn't even have to be a single rocket sitting at unload the entire time. A number of slow-to-unload rockets in a short period of time can cause an accumulated delay, leading to the inevitable.

After an E-stop, the other side has to be cycled out, and then both ride systems reset. And while the attraction is shut down, they stop allowing Guests to enter the queue, and the wait time will either go blank or will increase to a large number.

The big refurb a couple years ago replaced the control system, making this reset period a LOT faster (from what I've heard it's a 5-10 minute reset, where it used to be 20-30)

-Rob

I always imagined the ride got pretty backed up when loading/unloading a handicapped guest.

 

[Scuttle]

I always imagined the ride got pretty backed up when loading/unloading a handicapped guest.

Me to. It is weird that after a year long refurb the ride still isnt working properly. What does that mean for the Test Track refurb? I dont have my hopes up on that refurb. I don't want to be let down, especially since the rumblings are it might just be a little general maintenance and an interactive queue.

 

[Eastsider05]

Me to. It is weird that after a year long refurb the ride still isnt working properly.

Nowhere did anyone say it isn't working properly.

90% of all downtimes at almost all attractions are caused by the actions of guest.

They have nothing to do with problems with the ride.

They almost all are safety features which are triggered by guest. Who have issues bording or exiting attractions.

Next biggest cause are guest doing stupid things on the rides:
Standing up
Getting out of the cars
Dropping things out of the cars

The effects of some of those types of guest created problems can take a good amount of time to fix.

 

[Scuttle]

Think what you want. Why is Everest never broken down? Why is TOT never offline. Why is Test Track notoriously always broke down? 90%! ya right. I don't know where you got that number but there's no way it's correct.

 

[SAV]

I too am thinking it was a sensor that was triggered and the ride shut down. It happened when we were on the ride and had to be evacuated. I was told that the ride would be down for at least 30 minutes while they checked everything and verified it was good to go. Put that on top of the 10 minutes it took them to get up to us and that was a good chunk of time it was down.

 

[boufa]

Think what you want. Why is Everest never broken down? Why is TOT never offline. Why is Test Track notoriously always broke down? 90%! ya right. I don't know where you got that number but there's no way it's correct.

Apples and oranges. TOT and Everest are near off the shelf rides. Sure they are well themed, but everest is just a roller coaster.

There are safety devices and many times this trips automatic shut downs. These things then take time to re-start. Sometimes it is ride op error (ie CM) but every ride is different.

Test track is a mechanically complicated ride, that has a lot of break downs. This does not have anything to do with any other ride in the park.

 

[Scuttle]

Apples and oranges. TOT and Everest are near off the shelf rides. Sure they are well themed, but everest is just a roller coaster.

There are safety devices and many times this trips automatic shut downs. These things then take time to re-start. Sometimes it is ride op error (ie CM) but every ride is different.

Test track is a mechanically complicated ride, that has a lot of break downs. This does not have anything to do with any other ride in the park.

Everest is just a roller coaster? How many roller coasters have you been on or even seen that have two 100 ton trackswitches? Crazy statement right there. Anyway back to Space mountain. Space has issues with the chainlift all the time from what I hear. I mean come on it's almost 37 years old. Rides have mechanical failures and especially when it's a very old roller coaster.

 

[Kamikaze]

Apples and oranges. TOT and Everest are near off the shelf rides. Sure they are well themed, but everest is just a roller coaster.

There are safety devices and many times this trips automatic shut downs. These things then take time to re-start. Sometimes it is ride op error (ie CM) but every ride is different.

Test track is a mechanically complicated ride, that has a lot of break downs. This does not have anything to do with any other ride in the park.

Are you on drugs?

 

[rct247]

Nowhere did anyone say it isn't working properly.

90% of all downtimes at almost all attractions are caused by the actions of guest.

They have nothing to do with problems with the ride.

They almost all are safety features which are triggered by guest. Who have issues bording or exiting attractions.

Next biggest cause are guest doing stupid things on the rides:
Standing up
Getting out of the cars
Dropping things out of the cars

The effects of some of those types of guest created problems can take a good amount of time to fix.

^ EXACTLY! Next time you are on Haunted Mansion and it stops for a short while, its because slow loading guest. Next time you are on Splash Mountain and it stops, it is usually due to a guest trying to stand up or even exit. Next time the Peoplemover stops, it usually because someone takes too long to enter or exit their car. It's nearly always a guest cause.

 

[Scuttle]

^ EXACTLY! Next time you are on Haunted Mansion and it stops for a short while, its because slow loading guest. Next time you are on Splash Mountain and it stops, it is usually due to a guest trying to stand up or even exit. Next time the Peoplemover stops, it usually because someone takes too long to enter or exit their car. It's nearly always a guest cause.

Of course, but the space mountain breakdowns are not all due to that from what I hear. I mean seriously listen to the chain lift next time your about to board. It sounds like it's going to explode and when I looked into it I was told the chain lift has "serious issues".

 

[Spideyfreak110]

TOT and Everest are near off the shelf rides.

FAIL!

So, any park can go buy a "Tower of Terror" replica and open it in their park?

And while yes, Everest is a roller coaster, is there another one of the same type that does the same things that is made by Vekoma?

Now Dumbo is an off the shelf ride.