Disney Announces Chief Safety Officer - Part Two,

Disney Announces Chief Safety Officer - Part Two
Page 6 of 6

(Next the tour went underneath California Screamin')

Video: Underneath California Screamin'
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Langhorst: I think this is a real treat. I hope you feel the same way that I do. Not all cast members get to see this. We talked about a behind-the-scenes tour, well how about an underground tour? It's amazing what it takes to run a sophisticated coaster. You saw the maintenance bay, you can envision I believe the maintainers working on the attraction. But this is something special and unusual. I didn’t expect to see this when I first saw it. It really is our power center. It's how we power the cars through the electromagnetic fields we talked about, the linear induction motors. These processors - (loud, buzzing sound) there goes the launch right now - we’re underneath at the end of turn number one where you go into the launch area for those of you who will ride. Before you make that turn to the launch area this where you will have been underground. We charge about 5,000 watts (later corrected to kilowatts) of power to launch a train. I talked about those fins inside the maintenance bay that looked like teeth, those are proximity sensors that tell exactly where the train is, so the electromagnetic linear induction motors can power at the right time and push that train along in sequence. And these are all those processors that enable this to happen.


Underneath California Screamin'

Hale: This row, as you can see, just keeps going and going of all of these switchgear controls that electric current and voltage that creates that magnetic field to pull that train along. When you hear it what you’re hearing is this ramping up. You’ll see the meter here goes to almost 5,000 amps of current that flow to launch that train and about a 1,000 volts as well. So its about 5,000 kilowatts that are used to launch that train every time we send one out.

Langhorst: It’s a phenomenal attraction.

(Move upstairs to ride unload area)

Video: California Screamin' Unload Area
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Langhorst: We’ve taken the load unload in holistic way, its where there’s a lot of activity, its where our guests embark on the attractions. We’ve taken that holistic look. We began by looking at the signage. The blue post uses international symbols. It reinforces the message to keep your arms, hands, legs, feet inside the attraction vehicle at all times. In conjunction with that we’ve added specific lines and stripes, yellow lines here that you can’t cross over. It’s a clear delineation of where the guest can go and cannot go. It's good for the cast member and the guest. On the edge striping we’ve clearly marked the edge line, yellow and black hashes. We’ve added something we call station gates. These gates in front of you open to allow guests to enter the attraction and then close. The vehicle cannot be dispatched for the operation unless those gates are closed. Again it is a more positive means to control guest flow and a very positive safety feature that we’ve added.

Hale: We also added the signs on board each vehicle so in case you miss in the facility there are also signs in every vehicle - every row. And we’ve done this on all of rides domestically at all six parks in the US.

Langhorst: One other thing we’ve added to try to eliminate hand signals as much as possible to minimize confusion. Like I say, in order for this dispatch the gates have to close. This person at the front along with person at the rear must both push a button to dispatch. If they both don’t have the button pushed the train won’t go. It's positive contact. Everyone's checking the vehicle to see that everyone is seated properly and they’re ready to be dispatched.

Hale: We also reinforce the signage with the audio spiel that the cast member gives. Again repeating the right guest behavior to have a safe experience, remain seated, keep their hands, arms, legs and feet inside the vehicle at all times. We’re also in the process of replacing the verbal spiel that the operators give with prerecorded spiel in two languages, both English and Spanish. Again, so the guest can understand their partnership in this to have a safe experience.

(The tour next moved to Pirates of the Caribbean to demonstrate the gates there as well. We don't have footage of that location or a transcript)

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-- June 4, 2002
-- Story, pictures and video by Rebekah Moseley and Benji Breitbart