Forbidden Frontier on Adventure Island

An addition of a coaster there would be fascinating. And builds out the space.

Tony recently mentioned that a log flume is something he still consistently brings up internally when discussing ideas for new attractions.

I wonder what the biggest pushback is against one.

Well if tt2 goes well maybe we can get a zemperla flume ride in the next few years.

I would imagine cost is one reason we haven't seen one. Water can't be a very efficient means of propulsion, and on top of that it costs a fair amount of money to pump all that water.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that most log flumes use gravity to move the boats through the course. That's pretty cost efficient.

I don't have a guess as to how much it costs to pump water, but that doesn't strike me as something terribly expensive (in the world of amusement park price-tags). There's a whole water park and two other rides that pump water all day long; I would hope that wouldn't be the major obstacle.

The park never foresaw Shoot the Rapids as being the deathtrap/dud that it was. It seems safe to say that they saw this as the answer to having removed White Water Landing. Once it crashed and burned, though, there were different people with different ideas and we got Forbidden Frontier. For what it's worth, I thought thought Forbidden Frontier was a fantastic, well-executed idea that fell victim to the pandemic.

But now the park has a second chance to do something very special with a very special place of real estate. I would hope that lots of creative people have suggested lots of creative ideas, but putting Shoot the Rapids in that spot was a great idea because it's such a great place for a log flume. Just not Shoot the Rapids.

It's gravity, sure, but you still have to pump water to the top of the hill. I suspect it's still cheaper than dragging a roller coaster up a lift.

It doesn’t take much of a slope to move water downhill- in fact barely any at all, just a miniscule fraction of a degree will do it. Water is also a driving force and when concentrated into a trough like a river, a canal, or a flume it can push large items. Like boats. So the pump’s job is to push enough water up into the trough to move the boat. A lot of water will move the boat faster than just a little water.
I don’t know why I am saying all this except to make the point that water is actually a very efficient means of propulsion. It’s practically free with no moving parts and little risk from collision.

Which makes it ever more perplexing why Intamin decided to use pumps to push the boats through the troughs on STR. Slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. What an awful ride. Even when it worked correctly.

They did not use pumps to push the boats. There were pumps that got the water to the highest point in the flume and then gravity did the rest.

Same way that the boats finish the runout on Snake River Falls.

Let me preface this pontification with the caveat that I am obviously not a flume expert, and hopefully someone can correct what are surely numerous incorrect, naïve assumptions. With that said...

Kevinj:

There's a whole water park and two other rides that pump water all day long...

True, but in the case of water park, they're pumping only enough water to act as a lubricant to get riders/tubes down the slides. However, the energy required to lift water is primarily a function of the difference in height between the water level at the bottom and top of the system. So while a flume has a somewhat small elevation change compared to a water slide, a flume has quite a bit more volume of water flowing through it. So maybe it's a wash in terms of energy?

Jeff:
...you still have to pump water to the top of the hill. I suspect it's still cheaper than dragging a roller coaster up a lift.

A flume ride requires at least one flume section and one drop, so it is effectively a roller coaster (the mechanical lift and freefall drop section), plus the flume channel, which requires water pumped to the top to propel boats down it. So at the end of the day you have the energy necessary for a roller coaster plus the energy to propel the water/boats down the flume.

RCMAC:
A lot of water will move the boat faster than just a little water.
I don’t know why I am saying all this except to make the point that water is actually a very efficient means of propulsion.

I guess it doesn't seem obvious to me that water is all that efficient, at least compared to a roller coaster. With a roller coaster, most of the potential energy added via the lift is converted to kinetic with the exception of relatively small losses of rolling friction and wind resistance, but there's very little sliding friction.

With a flume, some of the water pumped to the top of the channel slips by the sides and beneath the boat (or in the case of Intamin, fills the boat, which is basically a worst-case scenario in terms of efficiency) which means only some of that water actually propels the boat forward from behind the boat. Think of it like a gun barrel - the most efficient use of that water's potential energy would be if the boat were ~the same size as the channel, meaning ~all of the water pumped through the system is propelling the boat forward. The more water that slips by the boat, the less efficient the use of the water's energy.

All that said, hopefully I'm way off base and the only thing preventing CF from installing a flume is PTSD from Shoot the Rapids.

Because people don't want to wear the log flume boat as a hat. That's what happened with cedar points last log flume, they're just a bit leary of installing a new one. They would rather sell you a Top Thrill 2 hat for your head, than plop a boat on your dome.

Were there really no pumps on WWL on the flat parts? I always figured there was some sort of mechanical means of creating a minor current through the troughs.

Yes, there were pumps on WWL, and there were no flat parts. If the flumes/troughs were flat, the boats would have simply sat there.

Not if you're creating an artificial current to push them along?

I think he's asking if there were pumps mid-trough, and no, there were not. The water emptied into the trough at the top of the lift, just like a water slide.

djDaemon:

So while a flume has a somewhat small elevation change compared to a water slide, a flume has quite a bit more volume of water flowing through it. So maybe it's a wash in terms of energy?

I would assume it's roughly the same, yes. The initial "fill" of the trough would require more energy, but once it reaches its operational level, it's just a matter of maintaining that level. I think this is no different than the small amount of water in a water slide.

As for the energy to lift the boats, I have to imagine that a conveyor belt drive motor used on the 1970's-style flumes is more efficient and less costly than the motors to lift a multi-ton coaster train. But it could just be an up-front cost and the operational costs are neutral. Shrug.

That's a good point regarding the water level that I hadn't considered. But it's not just that the water level has to be maintained, the flow rate also has to be sufficient to move the boats at a decent pace. But maybe that difference is not as much as I assume?

As for the lift motor/energy, I was wondering about the comparison between a conveyor belt and chain lift. Specifically, how much slippage there is between the conveyor and boat, whereas a chain lift has none, given it's mechanically linked to the train, while a conveyer belt uses friction between it and the boat, so I assume there would be some. On the other hand, I would imagine chains, especially for a ~200' tall coaster, are themselves a hell of a lot heavier than a conveyer belt for a much shorter hill.

Kind of funny, I was thinking about this exact topic (cost to operate), while I was waiting in line for the log flume (Coal Cracker) at Hershey Park. While in line, some Googling led me here. This mentions that the two pumps require more energy then the rest of the rides in the park combined. Now I can imagine since 1973 some of the newer / larger rides use more energy, but I thought it was interesting.

After riding the log flume at Hershey with the entire family and having a blast, this is definitely something Cedar Point is missing from their lineup.

https://www.newspapers.com/...park-1973/

Side topic of the side topic.. but I always thought the worker who had to sit on the platform above the drop at WWL had the absolute best job in the park, weather permitting.

Red Garter Rob:

There were pumps that got the water to the highest point in the flume and then gravity did the rest.

I think the notorious pumps CPVet is thinking of are the ones that pumped water out of the boats.

I could be remembering wrong because I have made a conscious effort to pretend STR never existed, but I seem to recall that for some over-engineering reason Intaride had pumps that removed the inevitable water that would collect in the boats when they returned to the station, and that these pumps would not always work correctly/adequately. Whereas the classic way log flumes removed water from the boats was...**drumroll**...drilling holes in the boats.

"Pumping water cost" wasn't an insurmountable obstacle back in 2010, and I doubt, unlike steel, the price of water (or how to move it from point A to point B, fluctuates.