How rides work

Who does what between TrainCarts and Ultimate Theme Park, the signs, the cycle, and what happens when something gets stuck.

Updated 16 October 2026

Who does what#

TrainCarts moves your trains: tracks, speed, lift hills, brakes, launches on the circuit. You build your coaster with TrainCarts (or TC-Coasters) as you always have.

Ultimate Theme Park runs the ride around the trains: the station, the countdown, the gates, the restraints, the dispatch, the spacing between trains, the photo, the music. It's the ride operator — automatic, or in the hands of your staff.

A ride is made of three things:

The ride itself, created in the administration (Rides tab). That's where you name it and set its gates, effects and options. Each ride gets a number — its identifier.
Signs on the track, which tell the plugin where the station is, where each block section starts, where to take the photo. Each sign carries the ride's number.
A WorldGuard region around the station, so that the operator panel appears on the page of whoever stands there.

The signs#

They are TrainCarts signs: you place them under the track like any other TrainCarts sign (or add them to a TC-Coasters node with /tcc sign add). Each sign has four lines:

[train]
utp-station
7

Line 1: always [train].
Line 2: what the sign does.
Line 3: the ride's number, from the administration.
Line 4: a number, for the signs that need one.

Sign	What it does	Line 4
`utp-station`	The station, where guests board	—
`utp-block`	The start of a block section	the section's number: 1, 2, 3…
`utp-picture`	The on-ride photo	—
`utp-flatride`	The station of a flat ride	—
`utp-transfer`	A transfer table	its block section's number
`utp-storage`	A storage track, next to a transfer table	the storage track's number
`utp-unload`	An unload platform, where riders get off before the station	its block section's number

When a sign is accepted, the chat says "Sign utp-station linked to The Plunge."

The cycle#

With the default ten-second countdown, a coaster runs like this — with nobody operating it:

When	What happens	What riders see
A guest sits down	The countdown starts	Dispatching in 10 seconds…
10 s	The gates close	Closing gates
13 s	The restraints come down	Closing restraints
16 s	The train leaves the station	Enjoy your ride!

When the train comes back and stops in the station, the restraints open, riders are let out three seconds later, and the gates reopen a second after that. The ride is ready for the next group. On a coaster with an unload platform, riders get off there instead, and the gates open about a second after the empty train stops.

If everybody gets off before the train leaves, the countdown stops and the gates reopen.

With several trains on the track, a train can be ready before the one ahead has left the first section. It then waits in the station, gates shut and restraints down — riders see Waiting for the next block to clear — and leaves the moment the way is clear.

With a staff member operating the ride, nothing happens on its own: they close the gates and dispatch from their page — on a second screen or on their phone — and let the riders off when the train comes back. See Operating a ride.

To stop a ride taking guests — for the night, for maintenance, or when it breaks down — close it: see Opening and closing a ride.

When something gets stuck#

The plugin looks after itself:

A train with guests stuck on the track. If a train with riders on board waits on a block section while the station has an empty train and nobody to send it, the plugin sends the empty train out to free the way.
A ride blocked for too long. If a station or a block section stays blocked longer than the delay set in Settings → Releasing a stuck train (10 minutes by default), with nobody operating, the plugin reopens the station and frees the train. It notes it in the console.
By hand. /utp ride reset 7 frees every block section of ride 7 and reopens its station. /utp ride status 7 tells you what the ride is doing right now.

Next: Your first coaster.