So let's talk about Derren Brown's Ghost Train [SPOILERS]

I rode this thing today.

Holy moly, he wasn't kidding, that sure was an incredible experience. I managed to ride it twice, and boy howdy did I find myself getting majorly obsessed with the technical detail and illusion of that ride; so with that, LET'S SPECULATE.

we can skip past room one with Derren explaining what's going to happen on the ride, this is a simple Pepper's ghost illusion that can be seen in many theatres and theme parks, angled glass and optics- moving on

What really fascinated me immediately was the illusion of the train simply "hanging by chains" which had me scratching my head until I noticed a slight warping in light illuminating the rocks on the "other side of the train" leading me to notice black lines across the rail beds below, and a small pillar designed to give the illusion that the train is, indeed, suspended merely by chains.

"mirrors, you crafty bastards, what are you hiding? It's a motion simulator! neato!"

Stephen you poor magnificent naive bastard who hasn't posted in 8 months.

I was a little bit correct. It was a motion simulator punctuated by VR hidden by mirrors
(and disappointingly yet amusingly ride hosts grabbing legs for those #realfeelzTM) That also 100% takes you to a second modern underground station. Which means that both the first train carriage and the second carriage, from the outside, are merely fac??des, which also means that the "real" outside of the carriages that you sit in must be kinda ugly. More importantly, it raises some extremely important questions about what the hell is actually going on behind the scenes. hold on, let me draw something crude.



So for those that are wondering what that hellscape of penmanship is, let me briefly explain due to my possible (yet unlikely) wrongness.

You walk in the bottom, that little square is where derren is a spooky ghost and tells you you're gonna be more scared than if Jason Vorheez was, like, totally real. you move round the ride to enter the "main" area on the right, and see the spooky train sitting in:

POSITION 1
this is where the initial train begins, secreted behind the facade of a train carriage from idk the year 1800 like it matters it's old you guys you get it, you board here and the doors close. You're got your VR headset on, and during the kickass video thing, you simply take a little trip (along a simple straight rail, or for the sake of space for position 3, slightly horizontally and then straightforward) to:

POSITION 2
You arrive here, and are rushed off and down into the area where there are the live actors telling you about the terrible gas leak (during which time we didn't have our hands over our mouths and the ride hosts had clearly had a very long day got sarcastic about not playing along with our hands over our mouths because of the SCARY GAS) and you run back around to the same train, still waiting for you in position 2.

Now this is where things get really weird.

The animations take a long-ass time, and either the cycle simply moves you back and forth between position 1 and 2; simple, yet effective, but something tells me it's not that simple, the ride cycle is long but poop it ain't THAT long, I'm fairly certain we're looking at 2 cars, which means some jostling has to occur.

I THEORISE THUSLY: After we board in position 2, the car then moves along a rail into:
POSITION 3
A holding position, secreted behind the first facade, and out of the way of the other cars that allows not only another load of passengers to board and move onto position 2, but allows for the length of the second VR section to be extremely long. during which time, the car simply moves horizontally back into position 1, riders unload to the scary false ending and the cycle resets.

Now, for those of you who will, rather rightly, point out that the car could simply move along the track between 1st and 2nd position, I would be inclined to agree. that makes perfect sense if you want poop ridership on this ride that takes an easy 12 minutes.

But it doesn't take 12 minutes to move a load of passengers through. it takes 6. we timed it. we're sneaky bastards like that.
and more importantly, the first time I rode this ride, I couldn't help but notice that we were in a car with the label "1"
but the second time we rode it, we rode in a car labelled "2".

coincidence? I think NOT!

DISCUSS.

You are fairly close. The ride system was explained at a southparks event, and I had one of my friends make a basic animation showing how the ride system works. Its a very basic animation and I might make my own more refined version later with better timings and all 3 trains at some point in the future

Spoilers (Obviously):



Depending on dispatch time, the 2nd VR section's length can sometimes be cut short, or you will be held there for too long and a fake emergency message will pop up from sub core energy until the train is able to approach the motion platform

I approve of this message, I feel a little silly that I missed the idea that the train might simply move laterally to the second bay, and then move onto a seperate rocking platform, but I'm proud of how close I got with so little information.