Extended Closure

With all the safety issues, massive downtimes, and unnecessary deaths…… why would any company with any concern for their guests use Intamin ever???

Intamin has a long, long list of failures and poorly engineered rides. They wouldn't be the company they are now, with the portfolio/clientele they have without taking those engineering risks. But you don't get to that point without failing a couple times (some with tragic incidents). They took those moments and made improvements while pushing forward. Zamperla is now in that same position that Intamin has been in many many times. And while it's entirely fair to be dissapointed and criticize Zamperla for how things have turned out, we should still be rooting for them to succeed, learn and grow from this ordeal. Because, unlike some of Intamins past installments, Zamperla saw a problem and made the decision to stop things before something REALLY bad happened to riders. Which is such an overlooked fact in all of this.

Nobody has done something like this before.....period. And I'm ignoring the "Intamin has more experience with 100mph coasters" argument because they still haven't done something like this before. So it's incredibly bold to claim or assume that their attempt would have been a 100% success. Also, this "they went with the lowest bidder" argument is getting tiresome. None of us have a single clue how discussions went with the park and other manufacturers, what kind of budgets were thrown around and what specifically made them decide to go with Zamperla. It's soo disingenuous to assume the park purposely went the "cheaper route" knowing something like this has never been done and didn't care about the risks. There was likely an inherent risk regardless with who they went with......Intamin included.

We need to have faith that on the other side of this struggle is an improved, reliable and safe ride. Sometimes you have to struggle before you succeed.

XS NightClub:

It just makes you wonder why any premier amusement park operator, universal, would ever use Intamin for anything ever again?
It’s almost almost as if they may know something that the enthusiast community doesn’t.

While other park operators use Intamin it most certainly appears that they burned the bridge with Cedar Fair. Notice I brought up their recent history at Cedar Point and it isn't good, there were justifiable reasons that Intamin was not involved in TT2.

TTD 120mph:

We need to have faith that on the other side of this struggle is an improved, reliable and safe ride.

I like the whole text of your post, but the above statement in particular sort of echoes the wisdom of another participant around here. It's like we should "sit tight fellas".

I swear I hear a George Michael song in the background as I read that post.

Apropos of, you know, nothing at all, Formula Rossa appears to still be down today.

There are levels to this. A component failing unexpectedly with an obvious resolution path - i.e. replacing a gearbox like on Hyperia's lift, chain snapping, re-profiling a turn, removing a heartline roll :) - is much lower on the 'face-palm' scale than what we're witnessing here because they execute the fix right away. They clearly don't know how to fix this issue because they've tried a few very distinct things.

Let's exhaust the potential issues:

• A) Structure has excessive sway
• B) Structure has excessive wear
• C) Trains have structural deficiencies
• D) Trains have excessive wear

Given they haven't touched A & B, we're left with C & D. They shut the ride down so we know D is in play, and increased maintenance awareness (i.e. changing wheels every night) wasn't an option, we know C is in play.

But to Adam's point, is it really "face palm" if the size and scope of the ride is something that hasn't been seen before?

Jeff:

is it really "face palm" if the size and scope of the ride is something that hasn't been seen before?

I don't buy this argument. 120mph coasters have existed for 2 decades plus. There are also faster and taller coasters than TT2.

I get that there aren't many, but just because this coaster launches 3 times doesn't put it into the "never been done before" category from a technological or engineering standpoint. It's just a marketing gambit "worlds first triple launch strata coaster,"

And the layout is pretty simple. It's straight track with the exception of the twist on the way down.

I would think that the strain on the wheel assemblies and train bodies is probably a lot less than, for example, a B&M inverted where the train both hangs below the track and twists and inverts in convoluted ways.

I absolutely think it's a face palm to design a train whose wheel bogies last 8 days, and whose chassis becomes a weak point when the wheel bogies are reinforced.

It's not something radically different and new like X/X2.

I'm not damning Zamperla here, it is their first attempt at a coaster of anywhere near thus magnitude, and it is a significantly different train design than previous rides with the aluminum milled chassis.

And if they fix it and it runs reliably and they do right by Cedar Fair, they will earn deserved rehabilitation of their reputation and confidence in their large scale coasters, as did Arrow after the original Bat, for example.

But I think it's absurd to try to discount the fact that this was a major engineering failure, and a major PR disaster.

At this point in time, Zamperla has more egg on its face, and deservedly so, than Edith Massey in Pink Flamingos.

And the tired younger brother excuses continue:

"but Mom, Intamin also crapped the bed with its ride designs!"

"Junior, I don't CARE what your brother Intamin did, we are talking about what YOU did!"

Or the granddaddy of them all:

"this has never been done before" (said about a ride that launched to 120mph, up and down the same tophat for nearly 20 YEARS, but (somehow) the extra back and forth IN A STRAIGHT LINE magically made all the principles of physics and engineering unknowable in advance).

veritas55:

I hear a low chuckle all the way from Liechtenstein . . . .

You brought Intamin into the discussion with that comment, like they have never had any issues and would have got this one correct on the first try.

veritas55:

And the tired younger brother excuses continue:

"but Mom, Intamin also crapped the bed with its ride designs!"

"Junior, I don't CARE what your brother Intamin did, we are talking about what YOU did!"

You invited the discussion of Intamins recent failures at CP with your Lichtenstein comment, we were talking about Zamperla until you mentioned Intamin. Yes, Zamperla messed up the train design on TT2 but it is most definitely not the first time a manufacturer has had issues on a ride.

You read a ton of things into my joke. Those are your thoughts - not mine.

It was a joke about schadenfreude. Nowhere did I said a word about "Intamin would have never had any issues or got that correct on the first try" -- nor have I ever said that.

That's the kneejerk, defensive nonsense some folks immediately jump at because (for some reason) it seems extraordinarily difficult to just forthrightly admit what is obvious to any objective person: Zamperla really royally messed this one up -- it's not some minor blip, given the context.

Much less admit that the folks who expressed significant doubts about Zamperla taking this on, were right. (And I actually wasn't a strong Zamperla detractor, although I acknowledged the risk they were taking in making such a sudden, huge leap from their prior projects and I specifically mentioned the risk of piloting a brand new train design, although I certainly don't think I was some Nostradamus or feel like it's an "I-told-you-so" moment. It's like a strong Southern California Surfer who suddenly decided to jump into some monster waves off Portugal or Hawaii -- it's a big ask to go from wild mice to TT2)

DA20Pilot:

120mph coasters have existed for 2 decades plus.

Which of those launched three times, going in both directions? Which ones have operated reliably? How many are open right now?

I'll be the first to say that maybe there was a little hubris in building a modular train that's bolted together. I think it's the right approach, for the reasons the company says (easier NDT, lower cost), but clearly there are things about it that they did not see at this scale.

^ As stated in my prior post, I think the fact that it launches 3 times is irrelevant to this issue.

And the reliability issues with the other coasters was centered around the hydraulic launch, not the trains.

Flag plate separation notwithstanding, the Accelerator trains operated with reliability for decades.

I can't think of another coaster in the post war era whose train design was so deficient other than X, which was a much more complex and radical departure from the norm.

veritas55:

That's the kneejerk, defensive nonsense some folks immediately jump at because (for some reason) it seems extraordinarily difficult to just forthrightly admit what is obvious to any objective person: Zamperla really royally messed this one up -- it's not some minor blip, given the context.

I do not think anyone said Zamperla didn't make a mistake, granted there are 54 pages in this thread so maybe someone did somewhere but I do not recall it. At this point it is rather obvious that the trains they placed on TT2 could not withstand the forces of the ride. It didn't take months or years of operation but just days for these design flaws to show up. Where there are differing opinions is how big of an issue this is for the park and for Zamperla.

While I do fault Zamperla for the train design failure I am not sold that anyone else would have done better and got it right on the first try.

JUnderhill:

While I do fault Zamperla for the train design failure I am not sold that anyone else would have done better and got it right on the first try.

Yes, because no one has ever been able to design a train that could run reliably for years at 100+mph up and over top hats. (I know, insert: [but this one traverses a straight line twice at high speeds!]

DA20Pilot:

I would think that the strain on the wheel assemblies and train bodies is probably a lot less than, for example, a B&M inverted where the train both hangs below the track and twists and inverts in convoluted ways.

Sure, but given that the ride is still down, it stands to reason there's something going on that none of us have any understanding of. So maybe the comparison to a B&M invert train is nonsensical at best.

veritas55:
Yes, because no one has ever...

Even as someone who generally agrees that this is a pretty major pooch screw situation, your constant horse beating and negativity has grown tiresome.

The argument that Intamin is just as bad is foolish...their trains withstood those forces* for 20 years without major incident. The flag plate issue, other than PR considerations, could have been easily rectified by realignment of prox sensors and rebuilt flagging mechanism.

*without data to support this, my argument is that TTD had a more forceful ride than TT2, given the hydraulic launch accelerated in almost double the speed the LSM system does.

I hardly think it’s foolish to point out that Intamin built 5 rides at CP since 2000 and only 2 remain. I think it’s foolish to ignore that fact when the online community wonders why Intamin didn’t get the job.

The TTD trains were fine after the initial removal of the decorative parts, it was the launch system that had major reliability issues throughout the life of the ride. The new LSM launch system required a new train design. Currently this new train design is where the mistakes seem to have been made.

My thought regarding the force issue on TT2 is not the launch but the spirals on the top hat. I do not recall experiencing anything like that on the original version. Could be that you are sitting higher off the track as some mentioned but those spirals were crazy.

veritas55:

Yes, because no one has ever been able to design a train that could run reliably for years at 100+mph up and over top hats.

I am curious as to where all the other LSM launched rides are that go 100+ MPH over a 400 plus foot top hat. I’ll admit I have not been to every park in the world, not even close to it so maybe they are out there. You’d think Zamperla would just visit those parks and copy that design, yet another blunder on their part I guess.