This is a total guess/speculation post based on everything I’ve seen (pictures, other people’s posts, etc.). I don’t have any inside sources.
I believe they found defective and/or loose bolts along the track. Upon inspection, they found more instances of the issue and have opted to replace all of them out of caution.
I think there’s an ounce of truth to the official statement on increasing “throughput”, they may have identified ways to improve the maintenance bay track switch or sensors. Since there’s now an “indefinite” downtime, may as well make additional improvements.
Here’s a few facts that I’m basing this on:
- Photos & videos of maintenance on cherry pickers retorquing/working on bolts on track supports & between track pieces.
- Temporary work site has various bolts on tables/scattered as if comparing wear or bolt type.
- A few TMs mentioned waiting on MACK for parts (doesn’t mean it’s true).
- In terms of the throughput statement, stardust has, on multiple occasions, temporarily closed mid-day to add trains to the track. Maybe this work will improve the track switch or some bottleneck in the maintenance bay, allowing them to add the trains earlier in the day or before opening (similar to the work done on Hagrids last year).
Again, let me reiterate, this is speculation, I think it’s fun to try and figure out what’s going on from the outside. I’m not trying to spread misinformation, but this is very unlikely to be an expected “annual refurbishment”. A planned refurbishment of an attraction does not start in the middle of an operating day and then stay closed through the busy spring break season. If this was somehow planned, that would be terrible move by operations.