CPLE RR Question

I noticed on the webcam that there is one train's worth of passenger cars parked at the main midway station for the winter. Where do they store the others? Back in the 70's when I worked at the Point, they had enough cars to run three trains (actually I think they had four trains worth of cars when you count the "baby train" - the smaller cars pulled by Maud L). Have they sold them all and are now only done to one train's worth? Last few visits I have been there, only one train has been running, which I think makes for very long waits at the stations.

We still have 2 trains. The red train sits on the main like it always has and the green train now occupies the siding along the shop that the baby train sat on. I guess depending on how you look at there were four trains. Red and Green with six cars a piece, the baby train with 7 cars, and the two inclosed cars plus the caboose that only saw service in the sixties. They baby train and the enclosed cars were sold to the Hesston Steam museum in the late 90's. The railroad never ran more than 3 trains at once and had been deemed no longer needed. The passing siding in the main station along with what was left of the old main line was removed in the late 90's to make room for the new coaster. Chances are if you come to the park during the week early in the season there will only be one train on the line. Go to http://www.cplerr.com/ for tones of info and photos!

I miss tripping over that old crossing on the Frontier 

Trail at Cedar Junction!

Two trains are typically used mid-day in July and August, plus some Saturdays. The trains are very expensive to operate and maintain, so it only makes sense to add the second train when crowd levels are such that waits would exceed the capacity of one train operations.

Cedar Point benefits from having a huge hourly capacity between all of its rides, much more so than the capacities of smaller parks, and thus rides like CP&LE, while still popular, don't see the same number of patrons that they would have say 15-20 years ago.

I know of people that have ridden every ride in the park that doesn't have a maximum height restriction (i.e. some of the kiddie rides) in a single 10am-8pm operation day. There aren't many parks where that would be possible as waits for smaller rides such as Corkscrew or Iron Dragon may be 30-45 minutes at other parks.

Ive never really had a problem with waiting for a train, its usually 5 min max for me. I also happen to use the train a decent amount of times throughout the year (with Maverick and MF being so near the two stations.) I only walk the Frontier Trail on two occasions: during ERT when the train isnt running yet or during Halloweekends when its the Fright Zone. So even with one train, I doubt park patrons notice a difference, so long as everyone who is in line to ride can ride on the first train that arrives the park is doing its job right.

I find usually when I ride the train it isn't for transportation, it's just because I want to ride it. I'd say 75% of the time I just do the complete circuit. I enjoy the walk of the Frontier Trail too much to pass it by.

^I do it once a visit during ERT, thats enough. When I can I use transportation as much as possible at any park I go to. I use the Sky Ride at CP when the line isnt too long (it cant snake, Ill wait so long as the line does not extend past the switchback at the bottom.) I think that is one of the reasons I love BGE so much, no matter where you are a train or Sky Ride Station is in the same themed area as you.

The trains are very expensive to operate and maintain,

On a daily basis the train is not that expensise to operate. Maintaining them has no say when two trains run just the demand of the crowd. We have a line schedule based on the previous years park attendence numbers that says when we run two trains. We have 3 operable locomotives so if one is down we can still run two trains.

The biggest daily expense is the paying the wages of the crew. Coal is ordered in bulk, we have many parts for daily repairs, major repairs are done as time and money allow for them. Granted over time it adds up, but over a million riders yearly I think its worth it. Remember the train used to be the only means of getting to Frontier Town. In a fuel cost comparison I did, for what it cost KI to run one train all day, we can run TWO trains all day and then some. Same goes for Disney but they are experimenting with Bio fuels.

I don't know that I buy that "too expensive to operate and maintain" argument. If you used the daily cost per rider (including some pro-rated maintenance cost) on an average day as the measuring stick, I would expect that there are rides that are more expensive to run. TTD, WT, Mav come to mind. The difference is that people don't come to the park because they want to ride the train.

FSAlex I agree with Rapids 77-78

I get the impression your are just trying to toot your horn as a Food Service supervisor. Honestly, that doesn't matter or make a difference here, even if you have friends in ride operations, you don't know the full story. I have worked in ride operations, but I don't know the full story now either. Also, If I am not mistaken the most expensive ride to operate is either Wicked Twister or Maverick. Wicked twister had its own dedicated power line brought in in 2002 to operate. I don't know if they branched off of it since, but i remember reading a statistic that one launch of Wicked Twister could power a quite a few city blocks.

I think if CP had to decide against running two trains or closing Wicked Twister for half a day a based on budget and not convenience, they would easily pick Wicked Twister.

Now the Railroad would be a strain on teh budget if CP decides to overhual Albert. Engineer you can correct me on this, I may be wrong, but Albert cannot run because he has a rivoted boiler which Rivoted steam engines are no longer aloud to operate in Ohio for Safety concerns. So if CP so decided to fix up Albert, he would need a new Boiler.

I am going to do some reasearch for you. I will compare the cost of coal to the cost of electricity. I will use the apples tgo apples comparison off my bill (I live in Sandusky, so the rate is theoretically similar) I will look up the typical launch usage of Wicked Twister, and I will add up and compare teh usage of coal to the usage of electricity. All maintenance\staffing costs aside. Just power.
Yes I understand CP would have a cheaper rate on electricity from their sponsorship deal, but there is no way for me to know what that rate may be. I do know they pay, as I have seen the meter readers drive through the park in the am.

There is certainly something special about the train we have at CP. I wonder how many parks have full-size working locomotives like we enjoy here? I know KI and Dollywood (now that was a gorgeous train ride) have them...it just really sticks out when a park uses something electric or on a much smaller scale (e.g., Dorney Park).

The cost of operating the railroad pales in comparison to most of the large coasters. As far as how much it costs to move the same amount of of people, the CP&LE is the least expensive, hands down.(Look at the ridership numbers for last season) Also, what it would cost to overhaul either of the two sidelined locomotives would be a miniscule part of the parks budget. The reason (so far) that it hasn't been done is that there hasn't been a need to. The necessity to do that maybe looming in the future however.

As far as the engine crews getting a break every hour, in my day we didn't get that. We carried a jug of ice water and some salt tablets. We got rest room breaks when we came into main, plus meal breaks.We ran three trains back in my day, and the third engineer would sometimes give us a quick break before he took his train out, and after it had been pulled from service. What the procedure is now CP&LE Engineer can fill us in .

Warning: The following post has theoretical numbers based on factual information.

The results. I didn't get very far in electricity consumption. Monty Jasper had written the actual energy usage per hour for Wicked Twister in the construction blog in 2001-2ish, but it seems CP has since removed the construction blogs. I wasn't about to convert MVA's for a silly thing anyways.

However in researching the price of coal on looking at average use of coal in Steam Locomotives of regular service. I figured the average locomotive uses 200 pounds of coal per day. In 2000 1 ton of coal had a cost of at most $50 in the state of Ohio (reference: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/cia/html/tbl82p01p1.html). Assuming the CPLE uses 200 pounds per day, that is $5 a day. Figure in the cost of employees, and insurance, ( i don't know insurance rates) and water usage. I'll raise that $5 a day operating cost to $675 a day. Maintenance is part of employee cost. I don't know how parts work for the engines, I can guess that the engineers fix up the parts as needed with the occasional special order needed. $675 a day is cheap, and yes it could be more as I sure the rates are different now.

Lets use the 2000 ridership as taken from the CP website 2,057,093 in order to keep pricing accurate with 2000. We'll give CP a 130 day operating season. We'll round the resulting number to 16000 riders a day average. Lets say in order to come up with the required budget CP charges you 10cents per turnstile click (from ticket price paid). So on average the CP&LE made $1600 a day in 2000. a profit of $925. Not to mention the railroad can operate rain or shine and can theoretically operate when the park is without power (it does not operate when the power goes out due to safety concerns at the crossings).So if you think of every location as it's own business, then the CP&LE made $825 a day in 2000. ( I figured 2 employees for each station and 1 for each crossing paid at 6.25/hour [CP 2000 wage] and a 10 hour day, 1 person on unpaid lunch break)

I include lunch breaks because I know someone will chime out. However, remember you only get paid for working ;)

Fast forward to 2008, and lets pick coaster XYZ with a crew of 10 and 1 person on unpaid lunch break Those 10 people will be paid $7.30/hour and a 10 hour day. That is already $730 for the day, and that does not include insurance costs, the cost of the maintenance staff to repair, the parts needed, electricity, then you also have the inevitable downtime in which you lose profit per turnstile click.

Now lets say Coaster XYZ also earned 2,057,093 last season, and the season also had 130 operating days and the park is still charging 10cents per turnstile click from the ticket price paid so Coaster XYZ made $1600 a day as the railroad did. However the Coaster has a much narrower profit margin from employee costs and it may even be negative from all the other associated costs.

Basically, I don't care if anybody wants to debate my post here, my point is that Cedar Point makes profit off the railroad nearly everyday. It doesn't matter how many trains they run. Honestly most days 1 train is all it literally takes. Especially in May. CP has the railroad, because it is a Unique feature, it is nostalgic and provides children with the opportunity to see a real Steam Engine in service. It is cost effective and it provides both great guest service and convenience while maximizing entertainment with boneville. If they had to choose whether to close Coaster XYZ or the Train, from the budget perspective they would lean towards Coaster XYZ, as it costs more from employee and energy costs.

In fact outside the initial upfront costs to obtain the materials and set it up, we could all operate one of the railroads cheap and effectively. Can you afford $50 for a ton of coal, I can. It is cheap to staff and cheap to power.

My point in one sentence, COAL is CHEAP!

MonsterMan:

To answer your question, the main reason that Albert is sidelined is because of a cracked frame. The only bad sopt in the boiler is were the front course meets the flue sheet. As for rivoted boilers being banned in Ohio Im not sure of that because Wasseon and Marion still have their threasher reunions. Georges boiler is rivoted and was new in 1942. To be honest I spent last summer operating a 100 plus year old rivoted boiler and have more faith in them then I do welded boilers. However, if Jennie or Al were to get rebuilt they would most likely get new boilers for longevity.

Now for getting brakes, there needs to be at least 6 people to operate two trains since we are required to have two people on the engine. First crew comes in at 8am and gets the first loco ready. The second crew comes in at 9am and gets their loco ready. First train (Red) goes on at 9:45am they will then get relived for lunch by the crew that comes in at 11am (or 11:30). The second train (Green) then goes on at Noon. After they 11am crew does two rounds on the Red train, they give the Green train a two round lunch break and then they take a two round break to do their buckets. If there is no 3pm crew the 8am crew becomes the break crew the 9am crew stays with their train and leave when their train comes off for the night, and the 11am crew becomes the closing crew. Then starts the regular break rotation. They will give the green train a two round break, then give the red train a two round break. They then take a round a half break and start the process all over again. It should normally work out that you are the loco for no more than six rounds.

The other option is to do Disney style breaks. This works by having a crew of three for each engine. This works best when you have three engineers or two engineers and a fireman that is training to run. You would fire the loco for two rounds, run the loco for two rounds, then take a two round break and start the rotation over again with all three crewman moving through the postions.

Thank you for clarifying Engineer. I didn't realize George was also riveted. I've only seen it once.

MonsterMan - nice writeup. Not to pick, but the 200 lbs/day at $50/ton would be $5/day, not $10/day. (2000/200 = 10, 50/10=5) Sorry, I just hate mis-stated math, but I do like your analysis.

I suspected I missed something else. Oh well It happens. I did have to go back and correct the hourly cost earlier too as I forgot that they had to staff the stations and crossings. Thanks for letting me know I'll go fix that. ;)

That was a lot of math. Wanna do my algebra for me?

Actually I should have stated this earlier, but if we run one train from 10 to 10 and the other from Noon to 8, we go through somewhere around a ton of coal a day. The last time checked for the type of coal we burn it cost anywhere from $150 to $200 plus to have a ton shipped to Cedar Point, and we get 29 tons at a time. Coal is cheap, right around $60 a ton, but its the cost of getting it here that hurts. However, it is still cheaper to operate our train versus that of KI(propane) or Disney(fuel oil). Dollywood uses the same coal we do but runs a bigger engine on a pretty good grade so Im not sure how much they burn in a day.

cple_engineer said:
Actually I should have stated this earlier, but if we run one train from 10 to 10 and the other from Noon to 8, we go through somewhere around a ton of coal a day.

And my arms still remember every scoop full that I bailed into Jennie K's firebox.