- The second oldest rollercoaster in the world is this:
the Great Scenic Railway at Luna Park in Melbourne, Australia.
It was built in 1912.
And it's one of very few roller coasters in the world
where the brakes are still operated manually,
where a brake operator, like Freya there,
rides along on every run, timing everything
and making sure that the riders go over the hills
at exactly the right speed every time.
So obviously, I had some questions
for Freya and the team here about how it all works.
But I thought I might want to wait
until Freya was a little bit less busy!
- I have been driving for about five or six years now,
which is a lot of fun.
Sending people around on a rollercoaster
is a pretty unusual job.
We usually try and keep people on only for an hour at a time,
'cause it can get very tiring, obviously.
It's all manual labor, slowing it down.
We do about 24 hours' worth of training,
which includes doing a walk up the track, theory,
as well as a lot and a lot and a lot of driving.
Same as driving a car, trying to expose them
to as many different conditions as possible.
- I did not expect to get actual air time from a 110-year-old rollercoaster.
Wow. That's not a bad view from up here either!
- It is so dependent on the conditions that you're driving on.
There's no, "this is exactly how you drive the train every time".
Everyone has their own little ways of doing it.
We obviously don't just throw someone behind the brake
and say, "go for it," because standing up on a rollercoaster
is a weird thing to do!
Once they're all comfortable standing up,
we'll move them behind the brake.
And as the trainer, you will tell them when to apply and not apply brake.
And from then on it's just doing a lot of laps
to get experience in different conditions.
Every cycle you run is different.
You've got to be able to make those judgment calls.
If it is too windy,
depending on the direction it's coming from,
it will stop the train.
So we keep an eye out on the wind radar
and things like that to keep a ballpark,
as well as, our drivers have a pretty good idea
of how that's impacting the train.
Rain, we also don't run in.
It makes the train go way too fast
and it becomes difficult to actually slow it down.
If it does come to a stop,
if it's too windy or something like that,
we get a team of people to come up.
They walk up the track, which they're all trained how to do.
And then give it a big push start to get it going,
which is always a bit of fun and entertainment
for all of the guests on board!
- Sure, this is more than 100 years old,
but it needs to perform to 21st-century safety standards
and get 21st-century inspections.
So how does it do that?
- Where we run into modern safety rules,
we have to negotiate with the Heritage Council and say,
"this is the most sensitive way we can possibly achieve the result".
It's a difficult balancing act.
And a very, very expensive one to maintain.
Continuous maintenance.
And by no means is it off the shelf!
It's all 1900s equipment.
We have to replace like-for-like wherever possible.
That means we have to have them manufactured specially.
It's a never ending job.
So we only run two trains on the track.
The first train that is dispatched
is required to get halfway round the track
before we dispatch the next one.
Now there are four blocks defined on the track by lights.
Two opportunities on every circuit to pull the train up.
That was done nigh-on 20 years ago.
Modern legislation, we had to conceive
of everything that could possibly go wrong.
The longer you leave risk,
the more chance it's got of occurring!
And there have been discussions to modernize that control system
so that brakes on the train could be invoked externally.
All of these things are on the list,
and will eventually have to happen.
No question.
- Freya, Thank you very much!
- That's all right.