Gemini Warm Up

I heard somewhere that Gemini has to be "Warmed up" everyday before opening everday to get the oil warm so the trains dont valley after the first drop, is it true that Gemini must be wamred up everyday?

It true that every roller coaster takes some warm up laps. Now the real big question I have is when I was there this past Friday 6/4/04 they where still testing at noon and i couldn't figure out why? Any one from the crew that might read this please try to answer that for me.

I heard it valleyed the other day. I guess it didn't warm up enough.

What does it mean when a roller coaster valleys? I got stuck on gemini the other day. my train stopped and the other one kept going on one of the block brakes.

They are referring to a roll back. If I remember right from reading other threads, Gemini is somewhat tempermental in the morning. If she's not warmed up enough the first load of passengers won't make it up the second hill and she'll roll right back down....and then they have to shut down and disassemble the train and it just causes a ton of problems. As to what could have caused the problems Friday, I have no idea.

John

Yes its true that Gemini needs to be "warmed up" in the morning. This is especially true on cold mornings. Way back when I used to work on Paddlewheel we would often be called over to Gemini to help load sandbags on the trains to give them some weight to help make it through the circuit. They would run several cycles then we would have to unload all the sandbags. When I was up there in early May I saw the same sandbags sitting on the platform so I guess its still done today.

Matt

Way,way back in the day when I worked at Paddlewheel we would often be called over, along with the rest of the employees in the zone to ride Gemini on the cold mornings. Instead of using the sandbags, operations would just load up the trains with employees for weight. I had many rough mornings riding Gemini trimless, after a crazy night at Louies. As well as a few fun rollbacks. Once we even rolled back in the helix at the end of the ride. ;)

Yeah it did valley on the 4th I believe. It was one of the past few days I can't remember though. I was there for JC and made my way to the back of the park but on my way back I saw the red train sitting at the bottom of the helix and some maitenance(sp?) guys all standing there.

What do they do in the case of a valley or rollback. It's kinda of a stupid question but i have never experienced a valley or seen one.

in a valley they normally take the trian that vallied off the track and inspect it to try to figure out why it vallied. But in the case of Gemini they more then likely relized that there wasn't enough wieght in the train when they tested it so they got it back to the station and re-ran it. They also took a look at it. And if anyone dissagress about the train not being taken off I was there on the 4th and both red trains where running and both blue tracks where running.

in the old photos on GTTP of MF they had like half a sun peice pushing a car along the tracks, now why cant they just make pushing contraptions???

Twister:

You could not do that on large coasters. When you go down a hill you have speed to go through the rest of the track. Usually a machine pushing a VERY heavy car cannot get over 40 mph, thus the car getting stuck at another low point.

Were the "sandbags" ever actually filled with sand? I know the ones currently being used are filled with washers.

Maby sand was spilling out on to the seats and that would be most unpleasent for guests.

LOL. Sitting in sand would be much more pleasant than sitting in a pile of washers. Those weight bags do bust open and spill washers once in a while. It can be a real pain in the butt to pick up spills(and I suppose a pain in the butt to sit on too).