Blue Streak?

I have been to the park a few times this season. My son is obsessed with The Blue Streak. I have heard that their trains have been refurbished. Is this true?

Yes, it is. It's more or less the same ride though.

One of the trains is fully refurbished, the other train is not fully refurbished.

Oh ok. Awesome, my son and I love that ride. I noticed that trains have no form of manual release anymore. Everytime the crew needed to unlock one seat, they had to give the hand signal to unlock them all. I wonder why they are no longer able to just release lapbars individually anymore. It really slows the crew down, but they seem to be working the best with what they have to work with.

The completely refurbished train provided an awesome ride this season, incredibly fast and smooth. The other train also seemed noticeably faster (at least through the turnaround) over last year, so maybe there was some track work or something as well?

Early in the season it was obvious to me there had been track work done on the turnaround -- definitely the smoothest I've experienced that section since I started being obsessed with the 'magic seat' (2nd to last row) these past few years. On Labor Day the turnaround wasn't quite as good as earlier in the season, but still not bad. I couldn't really tell a difference between the two trains, other than one is clean and shiny. :)

Ralph Wiggum said:
The completely refurbished train provided an awesome ride this season

From what I was told, the trains weren't as much refurbed, as they were replaced. Completely new chasis from what I was told.

made the ride a hell of a lot better.

rywebb said:
Oh ok. Awesome, my son and I love that ride. I noticed that trains have no form of manual release anymore. Everytime the crew needed to unlock one seat, they had to give the hand signal to unlock them all. I wonder why they are no longer able to just release lapbars individually anymore. It really slows the crew down, but they seem to be working the best with what they have to work with.

The Blue Streak trains have not been retrofitted with the foot pedals that are now standard equipment on PTC trains (ref. ASTM F 2291-11:6.3.8) but they do have a manual release. It's just that the system is generally reliable enough that it is simpler to unlock the whole train than it is to have the attendant run off to grab the little meat hook to unlock it by hand. If the system were less reliable, the attendant would have the meat hook stuffed into his belt already, but since it isn't needed a large percentage of the time, it isn't handy...

Rest assured, the manual release is there, they just weren't using it.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jason Hammond said:

Ralph Wiggum said:
The completely refurbished train provided an awesome ride this season

From what I was told, the trains weren't as much refurbed, as they were replaced. Completely new chasis from what I was told.

The team lead said refurbished when I asked on opening day, but yah, a good amount of that train looked brand new. If you looked closely you could tell the bodies had just been given a new coat of paint, but everything else looked new to me.

RideMan said:

rywebb said:
Oh ok. Awesome, my son and I love that ride. I noticed that trains have no form of manual release anymore. Everytime the crew needed to unlock one seat, they had to give the hand signal to unlock them all. I wonder why they are no longer able to just release lapbars individually anymore. It really slows the crew down, but they seem to be working the best with what they have to work with.

The Blue Streak trains have not been retrofitted with the foot pedals that are now standard equipment on PTC trains (ref. ASTM F 2291-11:6.3.8) but they do have a manual release. It's just that the system is generally reliable enough that it is simpler to unlock the whole train than it is to have the attendant run off to grab the little meat hook to unlock it by hand. If the system were less reliable, the attendant would have the meat hook stuffed into his belt already, but since it isn't needed a large percentage of the time, it isn't handy...

Rest assured, the manual release is there, they just weren't using it.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The whole of 2007 both load and unload carried the manual release "key" in their belt/pocket at all times. I had to venture underneath that station a few times to retrieve a dropped key that summer (you don't want to go under there, especially if you don't like spiders, they get rather large down there. I.E. I hated getting under there!). As of the first month or two this season, the manual release "triggers" were still there sticking out of the cars, now they are not.* In fact, from what I could tell, the connection under the body panel for the manual release wasn't there. If they did not go to the pedals on BS's trains, do they really still have a manual release?

*A friend was in the park the beginning of the season and told me the mechanism was so loose that he was able to unlock it with almost no resistance by just pulling up using his hand.

What do the trains look like now? Same colors?

Would general public people know that they are "new"?

No. I'm not general public, and I still can't tell that they are new.

One of the trains looks brand spanking new. Everything down to the nuts and bolts had a new shine to it. The other train, while the body panels looked new, didn't have the same look as the other.

Not that it mattered, the ride is running phenomenally!!!

~Rob

The whole of 2007 both load and unload carried the manual release "key" in their belt/pocket at all times. I had to venture underneath that station a few times to retrieve a dropped key that summer (you don't want to go under there, especially if you don't like spiders, they get rather large down there. I.E. I hated getting under there!). As of the first month or two this season, the manual release "triggers" were still there sticking out of the cars, now they are not.* In fact, from what I could tell, the connection under the body panel for the manual release wasn't there. If they did not go to the pedals on BS's trains, do they really still have a manual release?

*A friend was in the park the beginning of the season and told me the mechanism was so loose that he was able to unlock it with almost no resistance by just pulling up using his hand.

I was in the park again this past weekend. When we were in planet snoopy, I overheard the team lead of planet telling a guest that they took away the manual release on The Blue Streak and Mean Streak because guests were opening their own lapbars. Kind of scary. I'm not sure why people would be dumb enough to even think about trying that, but at least Cedar Point fixed the problem.

rywebb said:

The whole of 2007 both load and unload carried the manual release "key" in their belt/pocket at all times. I had to venture underneath that station a few times to retrieve a dropped key that summer (you don't want to go under there, especially if you don't like spiders, they get rather large down there. I.E. I hated getting under there!). As of the first month or two this season, the manual release "triggers" were still there sticking out of the cars, now they are not.* In fact, from what I could tell, the connection under the body panel for the manual release wasn't there. If they did not go to the pedals on BS's trains, do they really still have a manual release?

*A friend was in the park the beginning of the season and told me the mechanism was so loose that he was able to unlock it with almost no resistance by just pulling up using his hand.

I was in the park again this past weekend. When we were in planet snoopy, I overheard the team lead of planet telling a guest that they took away the manual release on The Blue Streak and Mean Streak because guests were opening their own lapbars. Kind of scary. I'm not sure why people would be dumb enough to even think about trying that, but at least Cedar Point fixed the problem.

Actually, the manual release is still on the Mean Streak, or at least it was still there at the end of August. I know the Mean Streak crew was having a lot of problems with the lap bars not releasing properly on I believe the red train. My sister and I were sitting in the very last seat (which I will never do again) and her lap bar got stuck at the end of the ride as did about five or six other people's. The crew had to manually release them with the meat hook thing.

The mechanism is there, but the eye is missing...it's possible to operate it with a 1/4x20 threaded rod.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.