Extended Closure

This is everyone’s screw up. Zamperla screwed up design wise. Cedar Fair screwed up by hiring an unproven company (in this aspect of the amusement industry) with an unproven design. The blame is not to only be laid on Zamperla here. Cedar Fair made their choice to award the contract to this specific manufacturer as opposed to another. All that can be done here is to wait it out and hopefully they’re smart enough to figure out a solution.

Well, I don't personally fault CF for their decision. I think it would be pretty incredible to anticipate that Z couldn't design a train wheel system adequately, regardless of their experience level with bigger coasters. The rest of the ride isn't all that innovative or cutting edge. They added a simple track section (a vertical spike) with very basic geometry, regadless of its height. It's not like they had all kinds of twists and turns and inversions and fancy elements that would require more design expertise. It's just a vertical spike. And the LSM system I believe was a contracted third party with plenty of experience. So the biggest risk factor was the train design, and like I said, you'd figure they wouldn't have trouble producing an adequate wheel assembly. Obviously they figured wrong, but I think it would've been far-fetched to credibly anticipate this particular deficiency when CF was evaluating Zamperla's proposal.

Respectfully disagree. The idiom applies here… “you made your bed…” Cedar Fair opted for unproven whether it’s just a train or not. It was the first installation EVER and you ordered it on a 420 foot tall 120 mph ride? If that’s not gutsy or stupid then I don’t know what is. Even with hiring an unproven company like Intamin in the early 2000s, Intamin was doing more complex installs than Zamperla ever has. And look where that got them. They didn’t learn from their past.

For what it's worth, they appear to be powerwashing/cleaning the station. Could just be simple cleaning that needed to be done....or something more.

Cautiously optimistic it means something more.

They've got an entire crew needing hours each week. They have probably exhausted every other thing to do so they are down to cleaning things. Unless who you saw cleaning were somebody other than Ride Operators.

Very true. I was going to brush it off as it simply being that. From what I can gleam from the Twitter post, there were different employees in the station today. The photo of said activity shows a blue shirt employee but the person reporting the activity seems to indicate that the ride's crew members have been there too. Again, not trying to infer TOO much. But seeing Silver testing this morning and now this feels like a positive development.

come on now, this whole "it's a third launch ride with more time spent over 100mph than other rides" stuff is nonsense. It's moving in a straight line the entire time and are any of the physics / engineering majors out there going to proclaim that TT2's dynamic demands on the wheel bogies and the train are appreciably greater than the original TTD, or King Da, or Fury 325 or Intimidator or even Millennium Force, both of which traverse maneuvers at 90 mph+ speeds that likely impart greater forces. All these rides had train designs that held up for years -- not a week (and I don't want to hear about the flag plate that flew off 20 years into operation on TTD -- other than CP's dumb idea to tack on actual dragster wheels to the damn trains the first season, the failure of TTD can't be laid on the train design.)

I was -- and continue to -- root for Zamperla, but now that we getting deep into the season and it looks like this thing will sit like a gigantic paperweight into July 4th, there's no way to sugarcoat this and pretend it was some brand new, cutting edge engineering feat to get the wheel assemblies right on this thing..... This was subpar design and engineering: pure and simple.

That certainly is a string of.....sentences.

SRE123:

unproven

Wait... who has proven they can build a ride with three LSM launches on the same track to send a train over a 420-foot tophat?

Anyone? Anyone?

I still think Zamperla’s own statement of “pushing the boundaries of engineering” was more than just hype.

They knew what they were getting themselves into.

Jeff:

You're impossible to respond to because you get hung up on every little word that isn't a perfect analog when someone is speaking in generalizations. It's exhausting.

If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black then I don't know what is.

Jeff, this is another example of cope, just in case you still don't know what that word means.

The entire argument of if Cedar Fair would have gone with anyone but Zamperla then TT2 would have already won multiple awards is both ridiculous and tiresome. No one has ever built a ride like this therefore no one has any experience in doing so.

I have been working a lot so I have not been at the park in over a week. The comment that caught my attention the most in this thread today was that there were ride ops at TT2 cleaning. Is that correct? If so that is a big change as the ride op team at TT2 was re-assigned the week after the closure announcement. If part of the team was brought back that is good news to anyone who wants to ride TT2 soon…

I wouldn’t get so hungup on them cleaning the station. Between all the dead mayflies, the rain, and debris from storms, the station had probably accrued quite a mess, so it was probably time for a routine cleaning.

I don’t know. Ride cant run with dead mayfly carcas strewed about the station. Sounds to me like they’re opening tomorrow. I’ll be there beer in hand to heckle the cleaners if they’re not opening. 😉

The cleaning itself is irrelevant however, what is very relevant is if they brought some of the ops team back to TT2. There are crews on nights that perform general cleaning tasks. Unless it was a really slow and therefore overstaffed day having ops cleaning at TT2 would not be the norm.

JUnderhill:

The entire argument of if Cedar Fair would have gone with anyone but Zamperla then TT2 would have already won multiple awards is both ridiculous and tiresome.

It seems like you aren't tracking the conversation. Let me see if I can help you. It seems like zamperla designed the train with a significant oversight that has caused a major delay in operations. Maybe, a more experienced company would not have made this same mistake in designing the train. Let me know if you are still confused ok.

JUnderhill:
No one has ever built a ride like this therefore no one has any experience in doing so.

You are not going to believe this, but about 20 years ago, intamin made two rollercoasters pretty similar to TT2. I know crazy right. And then a decade later they built another one. But yeah you're right, no one has ever built anything like this.

No one has ever designed bogies that can endure high speeds, that's unheard of.

Jeff:

Wait... who has proven they can build a ride with three LSM launches on the same track to send a train over a 420-foot tophat?

Anyone? Anyone?

Pot calling the kettle black indeed. You’re hung up on one word and you make it impossible for anyone to say anything without you trying to get in the last word. Fact remains that Mack, Intamin, B&M, Premier, etc all have proven themselves way beyond Zamperla has. The launch is not the issue here. The trains are. Zamperla’s unproven train design has failed here whether you want to admit it or not. But we’ll also never know how it would have played had one of those other companies won the bid (assuming if they even wanted to bid). But my point is this falls on Cedar Fair’s laps more than anyone else.

Frog Hopper King:

It seems like you aren't tracking the conversation. Let me see if I can help you. It seems like zamperla made designed the train with a significant oversight that has caused a major delay in operations. Maybe, a more experienced company would not have made this same mistake in designing the train. Let me know if you are still confused ok.

First off drop the condescending tone and attitude as there is absolutely zero need for that. You said it yourself, "it seems" - that is your first telltale sign to stop acting like you know facts and criticize someone else in a condescending tone.

Frog Hopper King:
You are not going to believe this, but about 20 years ago, intamin made two rollercoasters pretty similar to TT2. I know crazy right. And then a decade later they built another one. But yeah you're right, no one has ever built anything like this.

Wow, that is impressive!!! But I have one for you! You are not going to believe this but the same company that you are talking about also had major issues with BOTH of those rides and even another that was a smaller scale but used the same technology. One of those rides was such a problem that it had to be shut down before it was even operating for 25 years, that is a great record!

On top of that the same company that you are talking up with all of this experience and know how built 5 rides in about 10 years at Cedar Point! Guess how many are still operating? Let me help you - the answer is 2. So 2 out 5 rides Intamin built at Cedar Point weren't failures, great record there buddy!!!

Lol ok, you're hilariously inaccurate strawman was super condescending.

Was wicked twister a failure because it was torn down? I'm not sure you can say intamin failed in that regard, and even then, top thrill did end up operating for decades before a freak accident. And you are aware that intamin has built more coasters for other parks around the world other than cedar point right?

I mean look at what they are building now. They seem to be the ones with the know how and experience correct? Unless of course you think velocicoaster, talon, pantheon and the new batman coasters are all freak accidents.

But it's ok buddy, we can disagree.

Intamin has built rides in the same neighborhood. Red Force with similar launch (although just 1 pass) and several quick switch coasters with a spike such as Pantheon.

Zamperla hasn’t built anything over Thunderbolt size.

Cedar fair is nothing but a moneygrubbing cost cutting company that’s taking the cheaper route possible to install attractions these days. That’s why these junk Zamperla flat rides are starting to appear around the parks. They are cheap. Not exciting, or even comfortable.

This TT2 disaster is justice for all their cost cutting over the set last several years