ERT

While most of the time 2 trains stack behind the loading one, I have seen the crew dispatch a train with only 1 train behind a couple times. Today they had one especially fast interval where the train on the track just passed over the train waiting as the train in the station dispatched

Also yeah today was the first time I got told to put my wallet in the pouch (which I much rather leave in my zippered pocket). I was totally under the impression it was phones and keys, as long you had zippered pockets you could put wallet in it. Granted the lady who told me I think is very new to the ride. I asked another guy and I got a reply if they don't notice it's fine in a zippered pocket. I mean my wallet will fit along with my phone and keys, just another thing to put in and take out though. I try to put them in and take them out as quick as I can but at the same I have to make sure they are in there and make sure I have everything when taking out, keys/wallet/cell phone is an item certainly no one wants to leave behind.

I don't want to appear to be criticizing the crew, I think they are overall wonderful and I know they put up with a lot. But it totally agree they need to have consistent similar instructions and answers regarding use of the pouches.

Woof. 15 minutes late.

I expect that Just Coasting is a thrill a minute at a table service restaurant...

"My club sandwich has arrived 17 seconds later than you promised on the bread packaging"...

Well, Just, (if we can be on a first name basis) I'd say your expectations are exaggerated.

Ridership calculations based on the computer model rarely translate to the real world.

Will you be salty every single time it doesn't make 1,200RPH?

Will you deliver equal praise when it opens on time?

Will you stand there with your clicker and stopwatch shouting at the sky "Hah you motherfu@#ers! Only 1198RPH! YOU BUNCH OF LIARS! I DEMAND LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR MY WASTED LIFE... ER,.. HOURS!"?...

Just, what will make you whole buddy?

T-shirt? Shiatsu and a hot rock? C.P. ignoring safety requirements to open exactly on time for the huddled masses? Having you personally inspect wheel rotation before each day of operation? Having you stand there cracking a whip on the maintenance folks shouting "WHY IS IT NOT READY YET!!"?

Do ya really think they are saying "pfft.. 9AM open, that is optional."?

Have you ever experienced the maintenance folks working on, say, TTD near the end of the day and opening the ride ten minutes before close? It would have been a heckuva lot easier to say "well... we'll open it tomorrow...".

I think your perception of how the world should be serving you is skewed.

Maybe you just need another participation trophy...

Show me on the doll where 'just coasting' touched you and hurt your feelings.... smh

With Yukon Striker, I appreciate the effort from Cedar Fair by trying something different then just installing new lockers and requiring riders to use them. I haven’t followed up since I first saw photos on Media Day so I don’t know if they’ve truly been successful or not. But I hope that moving forward, any new ride installations continue to have a solution from the get-go regarding loose articles/bins/lockers.

I believe I first saw RideMan throw out the idea of double sided lockers prior to entering the station/boarding. I think that is a great idea and would love this to be somehow be implemented. Having the ability to store items for free prior to entering the line is definitely a good service to provide, I believe RideMan’s would be even better. As we have seen, guests don’t like to be separated from their items while they’re in line.

I realize double sided lockers probably would have been tricky or impossible to implement at an existing ride like Steel Vengeance but I would truly like it if they could come up with an even better option than the newly implemented metal detectors/pouches. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll get that lucky.

Kevinj said:

TwistedWicker77 said:

Now with the addition of the pouches on the Steel Vengeance trains, it is dang near impossible for the crew to dispatch the trains at interval.

In your estimation, how much time do you think the pouches have added to a typical loading time?

From my observation, I would say it adds a good extra minute at least. Would you agree? Or are you asking because you haven’t been on SV yet this season? Figure, last year when we didn’t see the MCBR being used as a block, the train in the station was being dispatched when the train in front of it was entering the smaller outer bank hill before diving into the in line roll inside the structure closest to the station.

@birdman, I guess what I was trying to relay in my longer post above was that the trains aren’t being dispatched efficiently. I can see the crew getting antsy to want to check seats fast to get the trains rolling out of there ASAP.

I feel like the metal detectors/hand stampers are mostly unnecessary. On opening day, the station crew were not really even checking for hand stamps (we rode multiple times that day). They would just ask everyone when they checked your belt, "got everything in the pouch?" And people said yup. I know the metal detector doesn't really take up any extra time in terms of loading, but it's one extra person/step that doesn't really need to be done if the station crew aren't checking hands anyway. I realize the metal detection/stamp is probably more so that if anyone does get injured by a flying phone, CP can say they are doing all they can to prevent that from happening, but can't we just trust people to put their stuff in pockets or the pouch?

TwistedWicker77 said:

From my observation, I would say it adds a good extra minute at least. Would you agree?

No, but I'm also not saying you're wrong. I have no data, I've never operated a ride or worked on a crew, but I really don't see it adding any time at all (to be transparent, we've been on it exactly twice this season). We got reminded multiple times to have everything we wanted to put in the pouches out and ready to put in the pouches as we boarded. You sit down, you stuff your crap in the pouch, and then you wait. From a passenger point-of-view, this added no more time than folks stuffing things in their cargo shorts pockets before sitting down.

On both of my rides (I get it, extremely small sample-size), everything was checked and ready to go, and we sat there. And waited. Until then train on the course finished its course...and then we were off.

The "I experienced this" and "I experienced that" stories seem to be all over the place...from trains being dispatched at decent intervals to trains being dispatched at a snail's pace. I can only speak from my own personal experience...and that would be that, while a little silly, the metal detectors added zero time to the wait...and the pouches made me wish every coaster had them. I have never lost anything on a ride, but having my phone (and my wife's) in a pouch instead of my cargo-shorts pocket was, in a way, liberating. I spent zero seconds worrying (however irrational) that something would slip out of my cargo pocket...which has never happened...and fully enjoyed the ride.

100% correct Kevin

Ahh gotcha. In my experience, I have yet to see the crew standing there waiting for the last train to be finished before dispatching for reasons other than waiting on someone to put their phone inside the pouches. I’ve even spoken with some of the ride hosts who worked the ride both last year and so far this year and they have said it makes dispatching very slow.

To be honest, and in theory, it would serve zero purpose to have 3 trains on SV if they literally are unable to dispatch until the last train finishes the course. Like I said before, last year once all 3 trains were running, the crew was able to dispatch once the train on the course hit the zero g roll closest to the station. This year, from what I have seen so far after 11 rides, it’s not happening with the pouches. I don’t know. I’m interested to see what you were experiencing. Either way, I agree that the metal detectors add zero time to the wait. I just personally think that the budgeted hours could be more useful on other rides or positions rather than at metal detectors. Nor do I feel like that should be a ride host’s job but that’s neither her nor there. Just my opinion and outlook on it.

While I would say definitely more than half the time 2 trains are stacked behind when current train is in station (probably above 75% even), there are moments where 3 trains serve their purpose and the train gets dispatched before 2 stack behind (saying this with 45 rides in the season so far).

That said having all season fast lane I probably could deride quicker with 2 trains with the line being a walk on the days I have went. 3 trains I think is still best though.

So hopefully as the season progresses, consistency will reign and the guests (at least those who are repeats) will largely also get better. Pouches on coasters are not exactly a novel idea; for Cedar Point, yes, but not as a whole.

I'm sure for a ride-op, the thought of having one more thing to check is not exactly an exciting idea.

As far as the metal detectors, I don't see why there needs to be two employees dedicated to the metal detector in the line. The first one just says..."please raise your hands as you go through"...while the second watches you go through and stamps your hand.

It's good to hear that there is a record of quicker dispatches. I look forward to experiencing one next week :)

I wish CP would do what Kings Island does with ERT and make it 2 hour long ride times, wonder why they do it differently? Still cool they do it at all!

3 trains on steel Vengeance at all times SHOULD be what they use.

Why? That would make it unnecessary to eat up 25 minutes of early entry transferring and testing a third train.

XS NightClub said:
Why? That would make it unnecessary to eat up 25 minutes of early entry transferring and testing a third train.

I meant during regular operation from 10-10/etc

Nobody is arguing that. I’m saying that if the crew has all of the seats checked and is waiting to dispatch (for reasons outside of the pouches taking up time ie: blocking on the course won’t allow for it) for the last train to finish the course, then it isn’t efficient.

But let’s not also forget that mechanical downtime hasn’t allowed the ride to be a part of early entry since opening day a couple weeks ago.

I rode SV six times this weekend. The first was Saturday morning. The ride opened about 25 minutes late for ERT and I was able to observe them doing block checks and test rides. They DID stop a train with about two cars of water dummies in the midcourse and release it from a stop and it completed the course so that's definitely a change from last year and indicates to me that the blocking on the ride itself is no longer the bottleneck with regard to quick dispatches. I'm not sure what the cause of the late openings has been - structural inspections, issues with trains, controls issues, etc. I don't really even have a guess.

Saturday morning, they were running three trains and seemed to be able to dispatch most of the time when the previous one passed by the station. This is about how it was going toward the end of last year. I'm not sure if we can expect much better than this unless they put two more people checking seats or change their procedures to not be physically double checking each seat, but rather just do it visually while walking by. I think the way they meet in the middle, criss-cross and switch positions on that ride would probably work well in other places ala Magnum to avoid so many wasted steps to visually double check your own work. To be honest, the other times I rode this weekend though, things were kind of in the toilet. Maybe it was better during morning ERT because riders knew what they were doing and then the general poulations showed up? Sunday, it was raining on and off so they ran two trains all day and stacked them probably at least 80% of the time. Monday, it was back to three, but again stacking all three very often.

From what I saw, at this point, the metal detectors are not slowing things down because the station operations are plenty slow already. They moved the Fastlane one down to the bottom to avoid it being a cluster up at the top of the steps and I think that was a good move. The metal detectors would only become an issue if they can manage to speed things up in the station. It honestly seems to just be a combination of a lot of little things adding up to lousy intervals. The train coming in moves quite slow, the lapbars take a couple seconds to release and are hard to lift, then add in the pouches, people forgetting to buckle their searbelt after pouching their stuff, people pulling down their own bars instead of letting the operators do it, the occasional large guest, and the procedures of physically double checking every seat which they don't do anywhere else in the park that I'm aware of. It's not any one thing, but more just a lot of little things being less than optimal. Hopefully with a bit of time, it at least gets back to being as good as it was at the end of last year.

Shades said:
I agree with you for the most part but what we don't know is how many people reacted negatively while on Facebook, Twitter, etc or even the old fashioned way of talking to people about how that stupid ride was down all day. It may be that those "silent" fits do hurt the park in ways that really cannot be measured.

If those "silent fits" can't really be measured, do they really have an effect on the park?