Article on weather safety...

A nice little article, everyone should check it out (look in the headlines on the left of the page). This especially stood out to me:

Ride operators are authorized to shut the rides down if they see danger coming. They don't have to await an official order.

I didn't realize that the ride ops have that much responsibility...

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Break the scream barrier NOW!
Wicked twists: 4
Danger: Hgih Voltage!

Yes, and they can add and remove trains at their discretion as well. That's the way it should be.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Basically, at Cedar Point, from the time maintenance signs off on the ride in the morning until operations signs off in the evening, the ride is entirely the responsibility of park operations. Park operations delegates near-total responsibility for the operation of the ride to the ride crew. The crew decides when to open, when to close, when to call maintenance, when to transfer trains, and so on.

It's a lot of responsibility, but it seems to work. You get a sense of it when you talk with ride crew members and notice that they tend to speak of the rides they run in the possessive case.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I would trust a ride ops discretion, especially a CP ride op.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

The reporter that wrote the article is confused about the "lightning rods". These are actually sophisticated sensors that can predict lightning. I believe CP has the ThorGuard system, which is pretty amazing in what it can do. You can read about it at: http://www.thorguard.com/default1.asp
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It's very hard to drink all day...
Unless you start first thing in the morning.

We have a Thorguard system where I work. It is very effective. I believe Thorguard is also on every PGA Tournament course.