Gatekeeper Test runs

Vette said:
How loud was it? I'm slightly disappointed that it's filled with sand to mitigate the classic B&M roar (which is one of the main sounds I think of when I think of amusement parks), but I can always walk by Raptor when I wanna hear it lol

It happened so fast it was hard to get a read on how loud it was. All I know is as soon as we got out of the car my daughter knew what it was right away. I told here she was full of crap until we looked over and I saw it making the turn back to the station. Reminded me of Raptor sounds though.

In my experience, B&M's Flyers and Wing Coasters seem to be more quiet than other models even without any sand filling.

Lets face it, being in the front gate, where people congregate, they needed to keep it a little quieter. exp if people are buying tickets, and coming in the main entrance.

Not really sure which GK topic to put this under, so just chose this one. Anyway, this past week I've been in Orlando at various Disney parks and Universal, and I've been pretty limited when it comes to the Internet (I kept myself to only checking facebook a few times) so I've loved reading through all this information. Via Facebook I found out GK started testing, so that was exciting to hear about while I was walking around in 80 degrees weather. But at Universal, my mom was wearing the GK offseason shirt, and a woman and her son came over to us and started talking about it. They were from the Akron area and have been following GK's construction and said they plan on going on it opening day, and they also asked where we got the shirt. So of course we told them about pointbuzz and the off season tour. But I thought it was cool to meet other local Cedar Point enthusiasts all the way in Florida.

Thats awesome man

I was up in Detroit area for a little mini-vacation to the Henry Ford and had the off-season shirt on as well. Conversation started with a guy and it turned out he asked where the shirt was from and I explained the off season tour and it turns out he was one of the steel workers that put the ride up. Small world.

I had the same thing happen to me when i was at Universal. I was talking about what both parks could take from the each other and a guy from Ann Arbor joined in.
On another side note i was googling the testing of Gatekeeper and finally saw the picture of the trains eyes lit up. They look great. I hope the lights on the side of the trains look as good as "Hollywood Ripe Ride Rockit" at Universal.

Frankly , I am surprised that none of you geeks has filmed it yet from a distance outside the parking lot or from the park across the bay. As I am here in Colorado all I can do is wait.

Another person from Colorado! YAY :D

^^^Rip Ride Rockit's trains look awesome at night, so like you, I can only hope that GK's will have a similar effect.

Ride On_17 said:
Not really sure which GK topic to put this under, so just chose this one. Anyway, this past week I've been in Orlando at various Disney parks and Universal, and I've been pretty limited when it comes to the Internet (I kept myself to only checking facebook a few times) so I've loved reading through all this information. Via Facebook I found out GK started testing, so that was exciting to hear about while I was walking around in 80 degrees weather. But at Universal, my mom was wearing the GK offseason shirt, and a woman and her son came over to us and started talking about it. They were from the Akron area and have been following GK's construction and said they plan on going on it opening day, and they also asked where we got the shirt. So of course we told them about pointbuzz and the off season tour. But I thought it was cool to meet other local Cedar Point enthusiasts all the way in Florida.

Yea that was me and my mom :), although I was on my phone reading the blogs all day. But at the end of the day Hollywood rip ride rocket was just stunning to watch, and I hope gatekeeper looks the same.

jo linn said:
Frankly , I am surprised that none of you geeks has filmed it yet from a distance outside the parking lot or from the park across the bay. As I am here in Colorado all I can do is wait.

I have to say I am quite surprised there hasn't been any amateur video taken yet as well. I thought there would have been video taken from battery park by now. I remember when Maverick started testing there was amateur footage taken from a distance.

If my trailer plates weren't expired I've had my little 14 foot boat in the waters of sandusky bay /lake erie to take pictures by now. That and the boat registration. Oh and the fact that I still need to get a hitch on my vehicle..

Yeah, I'm probably not going to splash this year.

Drove out on to the "Point" Friday after work with my son. We watched "Gatekeeper" going through its paces for about an hour. Just my observation. It looks great against a bright blue sky. It has a wonderful new sound to it. Nothing like Raptor, but a good solid roller coaster sound. I had my stop watch on it, about 26 seconds to climb the lift hill. 1:46 out and back. I did think, however, that it did not look all that fast. The train speed just did not seem to be there. It kind of limped into the station several times. Just being early test runs I am sure they were not letting it lose yet. The front gate is going to be spectacular. I just hope they get rid of the Dinosaur.

liebevision said:
If my trailer plates weren't expired I've had my little 14 foot boat in the waters of sandusky bay /lake erie to take pictures by now. That and the boat registration. Oh and the fact that I still need to get a hitch on my vehicle..

Yeah, I'm probably not going to splash this year.

BOAT = Bust Out Another Thousand......

^^ One thing that's noticeable about wing coasters is that their speed is pretty deceptive. The large trains make them look slow but they're faster than they seem.

Agreed. I thought the same when watching Wild Eagle....they do look slow.

mmckenzie123 said:
Just being early test runs I am sure they were not letting it lose yet.

Unless there is a trim somewhere (and I don't believe there is) there is no restricting the speed during early test runs. What would make it run slower than on a July afternoon, is temperature. If the wheels are cold, they provide more resistance and thus slow the trains down. But that isn't something the operators can control.

In other words, what you see now is what you get. It isn't going to get faster as they get going through testing.

Red Garter Rob said:
Not true.. There is more than one way to control the speed of a train.

I agree! Gatekeeper's trains are gas powered and the operators in the station control the brakes and gas pedal... I heard Gatekeeper has a V8 twin turbo

I saw a coaster special on television a while ago, that B & M have 3 wheel types. Slow Speed, Medium Speed, and Fast Speed wheels.

So I was under the assumption that if the coaster was slower than they wanted, they put the 'Faster' wheels on, if its too fast, they can slow it down, just by changing the wheels.

It was on T.V. so it must be true... :)