I DID notice that when they were letting employees on after they fired the last non-employee train (around 7:15, I was in the front seat ;) ) there WERE two employees in the back car, so it's not like it's "off-limits". Not sure why they weren't using it for the media, though.
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--Greg
My Home
MF count: 54
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The best thing about Six Flags "Worlds of Adventure" is that Cedar Point is nearby!
Not being a physics kind of person, why would the G's have a major difference in the back of the train?
Simple answer is that it's the tail of the whip. Complex answer is that backseat "negative g's" are very different than you experience in the front of a train.
The front is pushed up and over an apex and it is mainly the inertia of your body that "lifts" you away from you seat in a parabolic curve. This is due to the front of the train traveling fastest over the very crest of the hill. The back pushes the front over.
Backseat negative g's are usually caused by the inertia of your body being different than the inertia of the train. The train wants to drop because the track tells it so; however, your body wants to continue in a straight line. It's kind of like the train falls from under you, only this time it's with the extra momentum provided by the front of the train pulling the back over the top. Thus, good-bye seat... hello lapbar. (this is the whip effect). This is why backseat airtime can be more "explosive" in nature and less "floaty".
There are coasters that the backseat gets the best of both worlds... the parabolic "true" negative g like the front and the whip effect over the top. TTD is DEFINATELY one of these coasters. The whole train floats over the top due to the speed and the sharp radius.
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