BTMRR breaking down

[Katiebird]

We’ve been on BTMRR two days in s row now when it’s broken down (full evacuation), and we’ve seen it break before.

What makes this ride so sensitive, does anyone know? It seems to be down quite some time each time too.

 

[Gretchen1973]

I don't have an answer for you, but I wanted to respond about this topic. We were there last week for six days and I have never experiences so many ride closures. BTMRR was actually one of the few we didn't have an issue with. We had closures for Midway Mania and Indiana Jones multiple times, RSR, Guardians, Snow White, the Disneyland Railroad, Goofy's Sky School and Space Mountain. For the first time during our many, many trips it felt really strange to have so many closures throughout the day. Maxpass saved us for many of those rides because we were able to get multi-experience passes for some, but not all of the rides we missed out on.

 

[Congo Queen]

From what I have read over the years on various blogs and fan sites, BTMRR is a very tricky ride to operate for CMs at the station. Unloading and loading must be done efficiently and in a narrow window of time, especially on busy days when they are running more trains. If for any reason they exceed their loading time window (due to slow guests or CM inattention) then a cascade emergency brake system takes over for the whole ride. This is the only way to keep trains from starting to rear end one another. Once emergency brake cascade has happened, they have to clear out the whole ride of guests, reboot the system and run it for awhile without any passengers before they can open it up to guests again.

 

[sherilaine]

That is too bad you experienced that - we did not experience that ride break down once during our 5 days in the park last month. We also found there to be very few rides down during the day - we were expecting it to happen far more often but were pleasantly surprised!

 

[agamble]

Maxpass saved us for many of those rides because we were able to get multi-experience passes for some, but not all of the rides we missed out on.

Just so you know you can get multi-experience passes even if you don't pay for Maxpass so long as you use the App for your tickets. We get them for all of us if there is an issue and I'm the only one with MP. It is possible that it would even work with just a ticket, but I don't know as we use the app to redeem and check FP.

 

[ADLFAN]

I suppose someone didn't heed the warning to "Hold onto your hats! This here is the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!"

 

[Cubbiecakes]

1. 66% of Americans are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese.
2. BTMRR is a gravity-driven coaster.
3. The system is set up to cause a brake cascade if the trains approach a state where they can enter the same brake zone.
4. See 2.
5. See 1.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Many ride closures at DLR are guest related. The loading systems on rides are strictly timed (and the timing is short!), so loading is not the time to start an argument about switching seats or sides or whatever. This can shut down the entire ride for everyone. Same if a guest cannot exit the ride within the allotted time. Also, there are sensors in many places on the rides. When guests cannot/refuse to keep their hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the ride vehicles at all times, this can set off the sensors and shut down the ride for everyone until the ride can be evacuated and the computer system cleared and rebooted. With BTMRR, sometimes a bird or other critter can set off a sensor and shut down the ride. When selfie sticks were still allowed, guests would set off the sensors with the sticks (or break the sensors or lights with the sticks). CMs have stories upon stories to tell about ride closures!

 

[kyrkea333]

Many ride closures at DLR are guest related. The loading systems on rides are strictly timed (and the timing is short!), so loading is not the time to start an argument about switching seats or sides or whatever. This can shut down the entire ride for everyone. Same if a guest cannot exit the ride within the allotted time. Also, there are sensors in many places on the rides. When guests cannot/refuse to keep their hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the ride vehicles at all times, this can set off the sensors and shut down the ride for everyone until the ride can be evacuated and the computer system cleared and rebooted. With BTMRR, sometimes a bird or other critter can set off a sensor and shut down the ride. When selfie sticks were still allowed, guests would set off the sensors with the sticks (or break the sensors or lights with the sticks). CMs have stories upon stories to tell about ride closures!

I stood in line at Casey Junior for quite some time once and watched while the cast members had to walk the whole track to retrieve a cane! that had been dropped. I also spotted an empty Starbucks cup on the track of Indiana Jones and wondered how long before it shut that down. People don’t seem to think that it’s possible that they’ll ever be the ones to drop something during any ride and it happens all the time. And it shuts things down. All the time.

 

[gottalovepluto]

...Also, there are sensors in many places on the rides. When guests cannot/refuse to keep their hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the ride vehicles at all times, this can set off the sensors and shut down the ride for everyone until the ride can be evacuated and the computer system cleared and rebooted...

So true. Was on Snow White before Xmas, after entering at the handicap load area the ride broke down. (This left us stuck one car back from the entrance until they let us squeeze our way out when they evacuated.) The CMs were in shock. The lead one came over and was like “what happened? Snow White never goes down!” The other one said he thought a motion sensor had been tripped maybe because it all looked fine but concurred the ride never went down on him either. It was interesting hearing their talk about the motion sensors, don’t know why it never occurred to me those would obviously be everywhere on the rides!

 

[gottalovepluto]

On our mid-Mar trip BTMRR was having issues on a couple of our days. It went down when we had a FP at the end of the night and it didn’t change to multi-experience & I talked to a cm at Indy that said sometimes the CMs don’t declare it (but Indy does as soon as it goes down she made sure to add ) We walked on Indy (raining & almost midnight) & I didn’t think about it until I opened our app the next day and we had Multiple Experience passes waiting. Apparently they declared it in the last like 15 mins of the park being open & it carried over to the next day!

We made it to BTMRR a few times over our 5 days despite the periodic closures so best of luck op!

 

[DizneyMommy]

We’ve been on BTMRR two days in s row now when it’s broken down (full evacuation), and we’ve seen it break before.

What makes this ride so sensitive, does anyone know? It seems to be down quite some time each time too.

It’s not that common and it’s really not that sensitive. In hundreds of trips to the park and hundreds upon hundreds of rides on it, we’ve never been on it when it broke and I could probably count on one hand how many times it was down when we wanted to ride it.

But yeah... often the problem that shuts down rides is rider error. Someone didn’t hold on to their Mickey ears, or keep their hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times lol.

 

[tarheelalum]

Wind is also a big factor for out door rides going down. The wind trips sensors that cause the ride to go down. It's especially bad when the Santa Ana winds are blowing.

 

[Katiebird]

Wind is also a big factor for out door rides going down. The wind trips sensors that cause the ride to go down. It's especially bad when the Santa Ana winds are blowing.

That actually makes a lot of sense, and it was very windy Thursday and Friday.

 

[Katiebird]

It’s not that common and it’s really not that sensitive. In hundreds of trips to the park and hundreds upon hundreds of rides on it, we’ve never been on it when it broke and I could probably count on one hand how many times it was down when we wanted to ride it.

But yeah... often the problem that shuts down rides is rider error. Someone didn’t hold on to their Mickey ears, or keep their hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times lol.

I didn’t say it was common, but it certainly happens more than it does to say Teacups. It’s obviously also a very different ride, though. It’s also down for quite some time when it does happen, and I was curious about that.

I’m glad you’ve never had it happen in your hundreds of rides.

 

[cmwade77]

There are few reasons it can break down:
The most common is people taking to long to load or unload. This is usually caused by people who insist on waiting in the unloading area for the rest of their party that is on another train. Many of them dont realize that the rest of their party may very well come in on the other unload platform anyway. This can occasionally happen with those that are disabled taking too long; however, most of the time the CMs can account for that by simply asking if they can load and unload within a certain amount of time.

It can happen when a sensor malfunctions. Sometimes the sensors dont malfunction but get triggered because something fell or was thrown out of the train.

Also, if someone reports that a train didn't feel right or was making odd sounds they may choose to shut down to investigate. This is a result of a fatal accident many years ago where several passholders complained about one particular train and all of the complaints were ignored u til a wheel fell off. They learned to at least listen and investigate after that. I only know there were many complaints, as I was one of them that said something and the CM said I wasn't the first to say something about that particular train. I wrote down the train number at the time because I would have refused to ride it again, as it was painful. Then a couple weeks later the incident happened with that same train.

There are many, many other reasons that it can happen as well, these are just some of the more common.