Down in the valley, the valley so low

February 22, 2024 2:13 PM

This is not an exciting video. The presentation is not elegant, but it is informative. It probably won't interest many of you. But the title of it is Why do rollercoasters valley and how do they get recovered [55m] by Ryan The Ride Mechanic. And I know there's a subset of you who will be thrilled to watch this very fascinating video about a topic I'd never thought to learn about.
posted by hippybear (6 comments total)

Sorry for not watching the video but is valleying something that happens to operating rollercoasters or is this something that gets dealt with in the building/testing of the coaster? It wouldn't occur to me that a rollercoaster could get stuck anywhere except for when it is being pulled up one of the hills or in the waiting area if the brakes don't unlock.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:13 PM on February 22

Sounds like they get stuck a lot. Need that momentum to get up a little hill, a palm frond or an inspectors sweater laying on the track just slows it all down. LOL
posted by sammyo at 3:43 PM on February 22

Per the video it’s relatively common if you’ve worked rides long enough, and most often caused by cold weather and wind, both adding resistance and drag.
posted by simra at 4:06 PM on February 22 [1 favorite]

So that was great.

Before I went to grad school and made the arguably flawed decisions that ended me up where I am now (which is actually pretty good), I was a neophyte in a similar field as this guy - being one of the people running a big machine and suddenly having to know how to diagnose and fix complex bespoke assemblies of stuff when things went sideways with the time pressure that a great deal of money was being wasted while you are trying not to fail.

And the way I learned was sitting around (usually with a beer in hand) listening to people who knew what they were doing talk like this.

A post crafted for me!
posted by skyscraper at 7:55 PM on February 22 [2 favorites]

Although you are entirely correct - I was not excited or thrilled. Might have been a touch of fascination, though.
posted by skyscraper at 8:00 PM on February 22

Per the video it’s relatively common if you’ve worked rides long enough

"or even if you've worked with rides for short enough"
posted by chavenet at 4:39 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]