Train status monitor on Fury

[dare-to-fly]

There's a very delicate peak when it comes to capacity. Yes, capacity and throughput are among the priorities, but are just one piece of the puzzle.

 

Safety first. Then guest relations (AKA, not being rude, assisting those who need assisted, etc). THEN capacity.

 

I'm not saying throughput isn't important; it is. Ride operators should not dilly-dally about for no good reason. That said, I've never seen ride operators dilly-dallying for no reason except at Mt. Olympus, which is a park that no other park should ever, ever, ever try to emulate in any way, ever. Every delay I've seen holding up a dispatch at other parks has been within reason.

 

There are right ways and wrong ways to improve capacity. Right ways are eliminating loose articles a la Banshee, as that eliminates delays caused by people walking over to the bins and gets people out of the station faster when they unload. Wrong ways would be to rush for the sake of rushing in an attempt to hit a completely arbitrary interval.

 

Arbitrary management-imposed deadlines cause things to be missed and cause the work being done to be done in a substandard way. Ask ANYONE who's worked an office job. We've all had to rush to finish something because management had set a tight time limit and we couldn't get everything in time. If you rush and forget to put a cover sheet on your TPS report, someone might be a little inconvenienced, but life goes on. If you rush and forget to double-check the restraint on seat 1-4, someone could be seriously injured or killed. This is not the time or place for arbitrary deadlines and shame on Cedar Fair for pushing it in the way that they are.

 

A computer can only tell you that a restraint is down past the minimum acceptable level. Basically, all it can tell you is, does this rider fit on the ride. I am a very thin fellow. I could very easily get the restraint down to a point where the computer says it's OK but still be in very real danger. The readout of the status of the restraints is useful ONLY to quickly identify SOME seats that are DEFINITELY not buckled to an acceptable level. It is NOT a substitute for properly checking every restraint and I can only hope that it is NEVER treated as such. I would much rather wait in line a little longer than have that be the last line I ever wait in.

Working rides is very different than office work.  It is something that you actually can work to speed up and still be just as safe.  You just have to work at it.  It's really nothing to have a fit over.  You just have to make sure that no one is shirking safety to do it.

 

...That said...you get MAJOR bonus points for the Office Space reference.  I actually told my old boss at one of my former teaching jobs that my cover sheet on the TPS reports was fine and to quit sending me the same memo over and over.  (He didn't get it either.)

[Creed Bratton]

Valravn has a train status monitor. Took this picture Saturday evening.

[Kenban]

Personally I have always preferred lights on the side of the seats.  When someone is checking seats they instantly know without having to look at a monitor.

 

The best thing a park can do to speed up dispatch is not let riders walk through to put items in the bins.  Have people hand loose items off to employees who take care of them.  The no loose articles policy on Banshee is in my opinion the reason it dispatches so much faster then Diamondback.  When I was at the park on Sunday the employees were grabbing loose items on Diamondback and I think I only saw them stack once.  One train I was on was just getting to the top of the hill as the train in front was hitting the brakes.

[Creed Bratton]

I like the monitor from the guest standpoint. I can't see the lights on the side or back of the seat. So I like to look at the monitor to see if my seat is locked or if I need to pull the restraint down more to save myself the embarrassment of my seat being called out.

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