An X2 train, which I believe just completed a scheduled maintenance cycle, has become stuck on the track. During a test run, the train “valley’d” just before the final raven turn. In laymen’s terms, that means that the train didn’t have enough momentum to carry it up and over the next hill and it rolled backwards, settling in the valley between two hills. As you can see by the following pictures, there are a lot of people working hard to dismantle the train and get it back to where it’s supposed to be. Not an easy task with a train that weighs in around 5,000 pounds, or 2 1/2 tons.
There are two cranes deployed to get the train off the track:
The train is obviously not supposed to be stopped here:
The block from the primary crane is waiting to attach to something:
I’m not quite sure why the train is stopped here, as there shouldn’t be any anti-rollback devices deployed on this stretch. I’m thinking they may have pulled the train up to this point so they could lift it out easier, with no obstructions overhead:
This is the lead car. How would you like to be stuck in this position for a few hours:
Here’s a good shot of the turn and where the train currently sits:
I’m not sure how long it takes them to remove a train from the track, but there appear to be a lot of resources assigned to it. If they run into any snags, I guess it’s possible that the ride won’t be open tomorrow, or maybe the entire weekend.
It is actually a really interesting shot of the train, because you can actually see how the seats rotate through that Raven loop. Nice catch.
Wow…I just rode this last Monday.
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What I’m wondering is, how did the train valley there?
I can’t help but wonder how a train that is that heavy valleys anywhere.
The weather plays a huge part with this ride. Also as previously mentioned, the train was recently out of rehab so most likely the new wheels were pretty stiff.
Man, i was gunna go tomorrow and wanted to ride this, and now they say it might rain too. My day is ruined. Wahhha
Coaster Guy, I was wondering if it was really windy up there or if the car just decided not to complete the course. Either way, I find hard to believe that the train just stopped in that spot.
I wasn’t there when it happened, so I’m not sure what the cause was. Someone sent me a private message and said they sometimes use the cranes to pull the train the rest of the way through the course instead of removing it. It’s possible that’s what they are attempting to do and that’s all the further they got before breaking for lunch.
Maybe you caught them in the middle of them winching it back to the station. And they had the train tied off to the track to reposition the pulleys/ winches in order to winch it further up the raven turn. Just a thought … Ive seen Cedar Point do this with Raptor, Maverick, Mantis, and Gemini. Maybe they do it the same way ?
So why did it slow down
Amazing pics!!! I wonder if they will dismantle the train and lift it off the track or if they will pull it the rest of the way through?
I went today and they had it running all day so I guess it was fixed!
Excellent…thanks for the update, Caleb.
The attach a pulley to the train and ever so slowly wrench the whole train up and to the point where gravity takes over and takes the train over the hill and hopefully allow it have enough kenetic energy for it to land on the brake run. Same thing they did with Bizarro at SFNE when it valleyed.
This makes perfect sense. However, what’s with the second crane? And how do they detach the crane cable once the train reaches the apex of the hill and gravity wants to take over?
They would tie it off to the track or that second crane is there to help stabilize the train once it does get to that point.
If you watch the construction documentary of Tatsu. It was mentioned that Revolution didn’t make a complete circuit because the wheels were mounted too tight on the track. So they had to use winches to get it back to the station. Before they tested Tatsu the crew placed grease on the track to avoid a rollback or valleying during testing. Then they had to swap out wheels on Tatsu to slow the train down during testing since the ride arrived at the station 8 seconds sooner than the estimated ride time. So its the wheels or the lack of grease on X2 that caused the rollback or valley’d.
Where can I find a copy of the Tatsu documentary that you are referring to?
The documentary of Tatsu is on youtube as Mega Builders: Tatsu Six Flags Magic Mountain. It was on the discovery or science channel at one time.
No way that train weighs 5,000lbs.
The old trains weighed in at 50,000lbs (25 tons), and the new ones were designed to reduce some of the weight — which was originally causing the ride to literally tear itself apart, resulting in tons of downtime. Not quite sure how much the new trains weigh, but I couldn’t imagine it being less than half it’s original weight. Great shots though!
I am not sure if they even pulled it through. I think they might have dismantled the whole train because when I saw it in the maintenance area, all the seats were in the same position that they were in while the train was valleyed. All flipped over and everything.
found out on screamscape that it was just a senario that six flags tests their rides. the park was closed when this happened
Screamscape and I were sent the same email. Please refer to my latest post.
This was NOT an accidental valley incident. It was part of a train pull-through, they do it during every off-season.
There are no standard operating procedures nor maint. procedures that this is a part of – AT ALL. There are never cranes standing by, a pull through only happens on new coasters – if needed and only if needed.
PS. the comments from the park spokesperson were not at all truthfull and misleading. The only time a coaster “saddles” or as you all say “valleys” is if weather, issues with the track, or issues with the coaster happen. Or most of the time, if they send a coaster around with out weight in the car during cold or windy conditions.