The cable and chain don't have to be linked together at all. As you come into the station you feel a gentle slowing, and exiting the station you feel a gentle speeding up. This is usually done by progressively swifter (or slower) rotating tires driving the gondola cabins along until they reach line or terminal speed.
I believe these are housed in the gray pods extending from the station buildings. but i am not 100% on this as this is not my area of expertise.
The system can be connected yet not run at the same speed as Bote said, Next time you ride the skyride look up, from the main cable winch there is a crank-shaft that connects to the system that operates the chain conveyor. This keeps the chain conveyor, speed up and speed down wheels and the cable always running in proportion to each other. If the cable could run and the conveyor stay stationary you would end up with a Gondola falling off the cable issue as they would have nowhere to go if the station didn't move.
The skyride also has a diesel motor system if the main drive packs up to evacuate the ride, there is a number of staff trained if the worst scenario occurred and they had to evac the gondolas on the cable but it has never happened
The Psychoaster wrote:
I've always wondered, how do you evac the Skyride? If it completely breaks down, how do you get people off it?
I remember watching a video a while back,but I can't seem to find it anymore.
They basically have to send out a team of abseiler, it was a very slow process if I remember right, and they lowered them in to the valley, really slowly. Not sure what was waiting at the bottom, as the video was shot from a distance. But I'd assume there's a rescue team below in case they're above an awkward area, such as the lake.
Also it went like this: Minor Rollback, Noise, E-Stop, Restart, E-Stop.
I asked someone what had happened and she said she didn't know. They're body language indicated that this hadn't happened before, and didn't know what had happened.
Last edited by LordOfDarkness on Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The fact that it rolled back slightly might be due to the motor slowing down and slackening the cable slightly. You'll notice when the cars stop, the drop down slightly, probably for the same reason
I was on the Skyride, around 4.45 and i got off and saw when i walking down near Nemises and saw that they had stoped, i thought it was just a quick stop for disabled then i realise it wasent, do anyone know when the people was excauated and if the skyride was open today?
And there wont have been a full evacuation because the alton towers Facebook page would have been full of people saying they nearly died innit. there would have just been a 15 minute delay while the system was sorted out, it cant have been anything too major. I suspect a belt may have come loose on the motor, not the hardest thing to fix but can still be a pain in the arse. Congrats to alton for getting it running for the next day.
The Skyride has been stupidly unrelaible for a good few years now.
I suppose having one station completely destroyed by fire and rebuilt, another badly damaged by fire, an entire new fleet of gondolas installed and many years of being patched up due to its age have taken its toll on the system as a whole.
It was open first thing today as I caught it to go from Towers Street to Forbidden Valley. It was shut when I was going to go on to it after lunch and I didn't see it reopen, but I left early.
We arrived at the gates at about 10:30 and we left early too so we didn't see it operate at all. It's a shame it wasn't working as those high-winds would have been fun when travelling over the gardens! :P
It was closed all day, but there were gondolas on the cable which, after ride close, they were starting to send around to presumably take them off the ride.
I might be wrong but I thought that when there were high winds, they would take all the gondolas off the cable completely for safety?
Also, the startup beeps could be heard from the FV station quite a lot today, as if they were attempting to start it.
Jordan, those weren't the start up beeps they were the wind alarm! it uses the same buzzer so sounds similar. The gondolas are left on the line as the wind can drop as suddenly as it starts so can reopen straight away, it can take 30 mins plus to put all the gondolas on the line otherwise.
The skyride was closed today because of wind, the twirling toadstool was nearly closed as well at a couple of points but managed to keep going.