Bone Yard

NO WAY! ;););)

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I am the king of the diamond! Let there a grand clubhouse feast, bring me the finest meats and cheeses in all the land!

Soggy brings up a good point...

(ENDORSE TYPE="Unsolicited")
If you are not watching it already, Junkyard Wars should be a must-watch for any coaster enthusiast. A bit of the inspired dialogue from Monday night's episode:

-- "Uh, some water please..."
-- "How much?"
-- "Um.. enough to put out a fire..."
-- "Where do you want it?
-- "How about on the flames...."

Monday nights at 8:00pm ET and 11:00pm ET on TLC.
(/ENDORSE)

Of course, Cedar Point relocated their boneyard to the middle of the park, so there probably isn't enough stuff in there to build much anymore...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yea, I have watched Junk Yard Wars. It was better in the summer. Soggy, I really dont think there is that much junk, in the bone yard.

I built a snow roller coaster, a few weeks back. It sucked, until we had a few funny crashes! *** This post was edited by B-Town on 2/7/2001. ***

How... never mined.

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"Does anyone know what type of dog spot is?
A Cedar Pointer!"

I am intrigued by this Demon Drop car? I thought the ride had 7, and one was removed after the Edge accident.

what is the "edge accident"?

Are there a total of six parking spaces on Gemini? That's what I seem to remember from picturing it in my mind. What theory do you have, ShiveringTim, and what does it have to do with Gemini? I'm very curious about that. Please enlighten me!

The edge was when a car on a intamin freefall Rolled back down the lift, hurting some kids. It is now, guess where? Thats right! It's at SFWOA as Mr. Hydes nasty fall.

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Joe

The Edge was located at Six Flags Great America, the ride fell down the shaft before the freefalls had anti-rollbacks, this incident however made them mandatory, the Edge then moved to Rocky Point and now is located at SFWoA as Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall.

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Whats life if you don't get to the point?
http://people.mw.mediaone.net/mckinnie

Muckmack is really close on the Gemini parking space question, but not quite correct. Remember the ride has six trains and two tracks. Think about your surroundings when you coast through the first two turns to the lift hill.

ShiveringTim, I never said you couldn't answer :) But I'm intrigued by your Andy Quinn comment. Stihl Fanum only has two trains, which means only two lead axles, four sets of dogs, fourteen cars, and fourteen normal axles. Something tells me they're not going to use 4-car trains, and I certainly hope they're not planning to run that ride with only one train most days...........!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Is it four then?

I'll have to double check the No Coaster video, but I could have sworn that he said three trains : two on circuit, one spare, all in a rotation.

That's also a big hint for Dave's question.

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

Muckmack you're still close... :)

The biggest hint I can give is that it defies logic.

--Dave Althoff, Jr

Five?

If it defies logic and there are 6 trains, then I'd say 7. :)

Nope, CP_bound, Muckmack got it that time. There are four track sections on the transfer table (two for the running tracks, two for the switch). To the left of the running tracks, there are two extensions to serve as storage tracks. That's four (two on the storage tracks, two on the switch). There is also a single extension to the right downtrack of the switch. That's what doesn't make much sense. I can't think of any reason for taking five trains off of the running track on a six-train two-track coaster, since if they just want to run one train, they can just shut down one side and leave the train on the running track. Another interesting feature is that while there is only one storage track section to the right of the running track, the footers and structure are wide enough to accommodate a second track section.

Southeast Michigan coaster nut Mike Schulte had an interesting theory about this. He pointed out to me that Gemini was constructed at about the same time that Cedar Point was contemplating building a new park up in Michigan. His theory is that Gemini was originally intended to be the signature ride at that park...the park that didn't get built because they bought Valleyfair! instead. Gemini's capacity is close to 4,000 PPH which is ridiculous even for Cedar Point. But it isn't so ridiculous if it is the only major coaster in the park and the park is drawing a large crowd. So Mike's guess is that the ride was supposed to operate six trains, but have eight trains installed so that if something broke down, they could run the spare train(s) instead of dropping back to four-train operation. Two additional trains would necessitate the installation of six parking spaces.

It's an interesting theory. But I have to wonder...Cedar Point never had seven trains for that ride...why did they install five storage tracks?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Leaving open the possibility of converting Gemini to a mobius set-up?

Wow! When I revived this thread I didn't expect an intelligent conversation to develop!

I'm very intrigued by the deep discussions of Gemini's train setup. It's a good question... why so many storage areas? I do like the comment that Bill just made. Make the ride a giant mobius strip, there's a coaster in south america that used to be the world's tallest (it's name escapes me currently) that looks like a dueler, but it's a mobius....

Anyway, I'm still interested in the numbering of the Demon Drop cars, why do they skip, why didn't they re-number them?

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-The Pants Has Spoken
"Yellow line? What Yellow Line..."

There's a coaster in Japan that used to be a racer, but switched to a mobius set-up, thus having the longest continuous track of any coaster (>8000ft), but I don't think it gets the record, as it has two stations. =)

If a coaster was built with a mobius set-up as the original design, would it count both tracks?

I always thought it would be cool to have one station above the other station, and having the tops train end with the bottom station and vice a versa.