How are Mid-Course Launches Blocks?

[CrashCoaster]

I don't understand how mid course launches work (on multi-launch coasters) as blocks. If the train hasn't cleared the block section after the mid-course launch, then does the launch just slow the train down, reverse the train to the start of the launch, then when the following block section is cleared, does the coaster launch the train? It just seems overly complicated, so can I please have some answers?

 

[balrog]

I think that's it. I think I remember Mack kind of answering this question when asked why Helix's launch sections were so long. They said it was precisely to allow this kind of procedure to happen safely/smoothly. But I might be wrong, I read that quite some time ago now.

Actually, this doesn't look overly complicated to me, especially for an "emergency" procedure which should probably never be used anyway. (It would mean that the 1st train does clear the 2nd block but not quickly enough and the 2nd train had the tilme to reach the mid-course launch, which should be made impossible either by the respective length of the two blocks or by some minimum delay between dispatches).

Not that the highest point of the second part of a multi-launch coaster always follow the 2nd launch. A train is considered having cleared the 1st block after clearing the hill following the 2nd launch, not the launch itself. This way, once the 1st block cleared, it is impossible for the train to roll-back to the 2nd launch and collide with an incoming train.

 

[Mack]

On Maverick at Cedar Point, the second launch goes to the fastest speed on the ride, but the launched lift is the highest point on the track. Both are LSMs that unless told otherwise act as magnetic brakes, so if say the computer system were to crash, you would enter the tunnel for the 2nd launch and immediately stop (because it's getting no active "yes" signals) and the train on the lift would be halted and proceed to slowly retreat down the "lift" back to the staging area. They are brakes until told otherwise in which case they charge and become launches. In this case, the ones on the lift being told the second train has cleared the 2nd launch and is therefore going 70mph with no heights above that of the lift in front of it. (The train on the hill is about to drop and reach 57mph). If it somehow reaches the 2nd launch before the preceding train exits that block, it will stop at that point until told to be a launch again.

 

[Hixee]

Moved to Q&A.

@balrog and @Mack are correct.

To further answer your question, the dispatching time and block length will also have been designed in such a way so as to mean the scenario of needing to hold a train on a block in a "non-emergency" situation is very unlikely.

If you imagine Helix as an example, there will be a sensor at the end of the second launch that confirms the train has reached the correct launch speed (due to the way LSMs work, this information can be determined by the launch system itself). Only after this has been confirmed*, will the first launch be 'ready'. If this doesn't happen, then the first launch will go into E-stop mode, behaving exactly as Mack has described above.

*Sometimes there is also a sensor placed just after the high point of the coaster (so in Helix's case, just after the Top Hat after the second launch). This sensor, again as Mack and Balrog have described above, is designed to tell the controls that the train has cleared the high point. Logic then dictates that the train can't get back past this point, and so it's safe for another train to enter the first launch.

By using both of these systems (the proving sensors and the layout design), regardless of a rollback or stall, no two trains are ever in the same block.

 

[Mack]

I just realized my name is confusing now. I am in no way affiliated with Mack Gmbh, Mack is my first name. :emoji_joy: