Do They Close When It Rains?

[quiswifey]

I am going to be visiting Saturday and the forecast says that there is a slight chance of a thunderstorm. Do they close up everything when it rains??

[WooferBearATL]

I am going to be visiting Saturday and the forecast says that there is a slight chance of a thunderstorm. Do they close up everything when it rains??

Really depends on the severity of the storms as to what would and what would not be open. Actually going to the park (in my opinion) on a slightly rainy day is great. It keeps the crowd down and as long as the sun does not come out and make it steamy after the rain, it's a good time.

[Shaggy]

Lightning shuts the rides down, not rain.

Shaggy

[WooferBearATL]

Lightning shuts the rides down, not rain.

Shaggy

Hate to disagree with ya Shaggy.

But......

Hard rain and attendance fluctuations will shut down rides, shows, stands and shops.

[pkister]

I went to PKI and it rained really really hard when I was in line for IJST! They kept the park open all day!

[WooferBearATL]

I went to PKI and it rained really really hard when I was in line for IJST! They kept the park open all day!

Oh, the park won't close unless attendance drops really low.

That is very unlikely to happen in July.

[pkister]

Oh! OK

[Shaggy]

Funny, in the time I worked there, we never closed a ride (let alone the park?!) for rain. I personally operated Beast in the midst of a hail storm once. And guests still rode... eeeouch! I would guess a HUGE downpour might have some effect, but I never witnessed it closing a coaster personally.

Actually, the last time I "drove" Beast it was the final day of the 1999 season and it was feeezing cold and snowing. Well, back then it still had the skid breaks and the hydraulics would freeze. Maintenance would warm the hydraulics with heat cables (used for frozen water pipes in homes) and heat lamps. Even so, the hydraulics would still stick, and the skids would sometimes not engage.

One of my last trains on Beast blew through the station and set up the block when the skids did not raise. The good news was that by then they were down to 2 train operation (they often cycle one train off prior to the close of the season for early off season maintenance) so there was no danger of trains colliding.

We did close for lightning and tornados ;-) And one of the things I found most odd was that, in case of a Tornado, ride ops were instructed to lock-out the ride and head to the nearest shelter (In Beast's case it was under the turntable of KCKC) we were instructed to warn guests to take shelter, but essentially they were on their own!

Shaggy

[WooferBearATL]

Yup, I road The Beast one dry run day in which it was sleeting.

The train was stuck on the first hill for what seemed to be about a half hour. They started it back up and ran it through. Those little pelets hurt like heck.

Anyway, I've seen Vortex, Cobra (I know gone), Scrambler, Monster, Shake, Rattle & Roll, Almost everything in HB, and a variety of things closed for various reasons.

We used to have what were called conditions calls. 33 Condition 1, Condition 2 and Condition 3.

That used to determine if certain Resale operations would be taken in and closed. I figure that the rides had much the same system.

[Erosarrow05]

Shaggy....

The good times driving The Beast... but you know that when you had the hard rain in the shed and the train was going over 33 you were 'supposed' to call it in. But lets not pretend doing The Beast twister with the rain really helped out those power hours

[s10ryan]

power hours own!!

[PKIVortex]

We had to shut down Vortex do to heavy rains lots of times. Heavy rain used to produce a ghost train. We didn't want to have anyone getting stuck in the C's (Blocks) during heavy rain.

I also remember in '99 when the rain affected the senors at Express, also producing a ghost train, and causing setups. We had to walk people off the ride from the first lift, cause they couldn't get the ride going again.