Cedar Point announces TT2 will be operational!

14-17 drinks daily at CP? You might have me beat by a smidge, but it is close. I have yet to find a suitable shrubbery to hide anything in from outside of the park so I simply give up money for the in-park suds. My family doesn't think it was worth it but where else can you have a few drinks then ride TT2?

Let me give you a big tip bomb on some suitable shrubbery. Just a gentleman's agreement that if you see any tall boys peeking out of these bushes, you're welcome to one, but leave the rest for me ;)

https://maps.app.goo.gl/pAg...epRAr9njS8

Looks like TT2 is flying over the tophat today like it was last year. I believe the weather attributed to the slower crawls over the tophat since testing and opening week, contrary to some enthusiasts on social media thinking it’s been “slowed down”.

No matter the temperature, wind, fog etc. it still feels the exact same speed over the top hat every time I’ve rode it this year. That included the beautiful weather we had yesterday and today vs the craziness of opening weekend.

It has taken 15 park visits and I lost count of how many TT2 rides to say this but as of today I am a believer. TT2 is my #1 coaster in the world, of course that is only my opinion and it can also change but there’s no doubt it’s a top 5 ride. This version is so much better than the original it’s hard for me to compare them. Things can change of course but so far TT2 reliability is way better than the dumpster fire of the original. Zamperla and CP hit a grand slam with this one, last seasons troubles are only past memories. Ride it if you can, it’s worth the wait. At least to me.

Sounds promising. Fast Lane Plus appears to not be limited to one TT2 ride (believe last season, for the one week it ran, FP+ limited it to one TT2 ride per day).

Webcams today showing a close up view near the top of the back spike on one and a birds eye view of the TT2 station on another from Power Tower.

https://www.cedarpoint.com/live-video

The fast lane restrictions from last season have been removed.

Side note: For whatever reason blue train was not running today but they were still dispatching trains at a very good pace. All in all, I think ride ops efficiency is far above where they were at this point last season. Knocks on wood…

Webcams are positioned in a TT2-friendly view today. Sadly no views of Sky Ride, sorry CoasterHawk.

When it's running, it's running great. And I've been on it enough to say it's my new favorite at the park.

One thing to report is that, as of recently, there has been sightings of Zamperla reps in the station (something I saw myself on Sunday) and their mobile shipping container workshop thingy has returned to the infield by the maintenance building. Blue train has been reported to be parked on the storage track with one row of the seat backs removed. Not suggesting it's anything serious, as the ride is still operating. But blue train seems to be having some kind of issue.

Probably too late for me to delete or edit my comment about reliability right? Anecdotally blue train has been on the sidelines quite a bit. Never noticed anything out of the ordinary when riding it though. I’ll look for a better piece of wood to knock on.

It's possible that there were multiple issues they were trying to sort out with the train redesign. And if that's the case, it would make sense that they might use multiple trains as a way of testing multiple potential solutions to a given problem using a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach. Or the blue train could just be broken in some way.

Regarding Zamperla's presence, I would expect that they would be on site in some capacity for some contracted period of time even before the ride was delayed a year. With complex machines it can take tens or even hundreds of thousands of cycles to discover all the different and unexpected ways they can fail, how best to troubleshoot those failures, and how best to recover from those failures.

And for what it's worth, blue train is back in service.

Yep. I was at my desk most of this morning so put Camera 2 on one of my screens. There were about 4 people working on the second car of the blue train for probably an hour or so, after which it was moved into the station. After its first lap, the train spent quite a while in the station before being sent out again, then spending a shorter time in the station before they started cycling pretty much non stop. So it seems whatever issue they had with it is fixed.

Operations do seem to be pretty good for the ride, although my informal webcame timing has them dispatching on average about 1:30 per train (look like 1:20 is the VERY best). Unfortunately, that puts the average PPH capacity at about 800-900 PPH, which is still pretty low for a ride of this caliber (but beats the old TTD).

If they had built dual loading station and added a fourth train, they could have achieved 1 minute dispatches and hit 1,200 PPH (but that's a signficant cost issue, not just for the extra train, extra station build, but, importantly, labor costs, so I get it).

When the ride is running at full capacity as one train starts descending the top hat the next train is dispatched from the station. Overall they have been pretty solid at hitting that interval so far this season. Since the transfer track must remain in position until the train clears the top hat I don’t think there’s much room for optimization.

There are/were two places for some optimization (but I agree, not much).

1. Watching the cool downward camera view from Power Tower on the station, there is a slightly odd programming/ block brake issue in terms of where they hold the train after it completes the top hat but where the train ahead hasn't advanced fully from the unload into the load station (i.e., cleared the unload station). They seem to have programmed it to hold the post-top hat train on the tires directly across from the station (the very first brake block zone after the tophat) rather than advance into the turnaround curve (which I THINK could be another hold area).

The effect of this is there were several times where there was a train in launch position, with the transfer track properly re-set, but the ride did not trigger the launch because the prior train was still in the first brake zone after the top hat. Basically, this allows a train that is slow to unload to hold up everything. If they would advance the post-top hat train into the curve section (again, assuming this could hold the train, but I think it can with the drive tires), then you would have that first brake zone after the top hat always clear and launches would never be delayed for that reason. (Technically, you could also do the initial launch with the first zone not clear because it doesn't clear the tophat first launch, but I get why you don't want to rely on it estopping if the zone doesn't clear in time for the second /third launch). This isn't a huge deal, but 10 seconds here and there add up.

2. I know the ship has sailed on this, but I THINK there is technically a hold section past the station just before the transfer track to the launch section (on the tires as a hold). If there was a fourth train (and another loading station) there could always be a train exactly at the point where the transfer track meet the launch section. But yeah, it looks like from station dispatch until the cross over to the transfer track is only about 8-10 seconds of time.

Although I agree the optimization options are limited, technically the time between launch and the transfer track reset is a little less than a minute. With needing to clear the zone, the best you could probably get to is about 1:10 dispatches, which gets you to ~1028 pph (manufacturer says 1000pph is max and that sounds about right.). 1,200 pph is probably not realistic under any configuration because you need to have time to clear the first brake block zone.

How the fences, queue and station are set up it is difficult to see any of what you described. Over the course of the day 10 seconds per train can certainly add up. I rode twice today and both times we were moved from the station to launch as soon as the train cleared the top hat. There is a delay at launch but i never noticed what it was for. The crew on TT2 has been doing great loading and unloading the trains this season. Wish they could help out the folks over at Millenium.

Take a look at the overhead Power Tower cameras today (if you can or have any interest -- it's pathetic to be interested in this, I know.)

Yeah, the TT2 crew does seem to be cranking them out with great consistency. It probably helps that Zamperla did a nice job designing easy to check, no seatbelt trains (ahem... RMC...)

As a former Cedar Point Ride host, I appreciate y’all giving props to the crew. There is so much that goes into loading/unloading a train that goes unnoticed. A TON of mental stress as well, knowing peoples lives are in your hands. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns!

Fair point.

Cedar Point has always been the gold standard for me in terms of crew efficiency in the non-Disney, non-Universal world. The old Six Flags parks were mostly horrific (in my experience) in terms of running full train capacity and having motivated, efficient (and sufficient) staff. Although I am not a CP regular, every time I have gone it has always had the rides staff running operations well.