Good and bad news on the train themeing.

Take this how you want...

According to a ride-op I talked with at the entrance yesterday, the tire mockup on the back of the trains will not be coming back at all. Apparently they were weighing down the back of the trains and causing too many rollbacks.

On to the somewhat good news. She also informed me that each train is going to be getting another row of seats whrere the tires once were. Thats 12 more seats for the ride and hopefully, it will increase the capacity.
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"Wheres the Callahan factory?!?!?"

So you're saying the tires weigh close to 150 lbs each (average weight of a person)? Not to mention the added weight of the seats, lap bars, etc.

They might be removing the tires, but I don't think it has anything to do with a weight problem or rollbacks.

Just my 2 cents...
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Life is too short...go ride a coaster!!

Sounds like alot of Bull to me, If they all 2 more seats they will weigh the same or more then the engine and spoilers they had on and they could make fake fiberglass tires. That whole packege could weigh less then 2 people. Say 2 really overweight people sit in the last row. If they move around during the ride they will cause the same force that those tires did. I'm not getting disappointed just yet.

Heh, I was typing up my reply when you beat me to it...I agree it does sound very stupid. Also, Ejector you might want to take out your 2nd repeat thread.

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- Dennis
When I die, They'll read this And say a genius wrote it.
http://drinkduff.com/

*** This post was edited by Big D 6/2/2003 11:17:14 AM ***

Perhaps it's not the weight that is the issue...but rather the liability associated with parts falling off during the ride. Using the excuse of weight sounds more like a good cover story.

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James Draeger
"Scroll buttons aww yeah...like that, heart attack."

I would not count on seeing the theming back, look for seats!

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Matt - '02-'03 WT crew
Awwwww man, I think I got dain bramage!

Here's a question: is the station set up for an extra row? Anyone care to guess how hard it would be to rearrange the station queues if there isn't a row already there?

I'll miss the theming on the back of the cars, but I'd trade it for extra capacity any day: "Cedar Point is an amusement park, not a theme park". And, FWIW, I'm betting on a an intervention from legal. One bouncing tire through Iron Dragon's low zone is probably enough for anyone, especially since it happened after all the tires were rumored to have been "fixed".

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.

This is complete stupidety....I cant believe the greatest park in the world cant get some stronger bolts and some few welders to weld all that stuff on the trains so it never moves again. Say good bye to the smoke theming and basically the rest of the theming is pretty worthless because they will be jsut launching regular trains.

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- Dennis
When I die, They'll read this And say a genius wrote it.
http://drinkduff.com/

If this is true, I hope they at least find a way to keep the spoilers on the back.

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2003 CP trips: 1
TTD: 2
MF: 2
WT: 2

Brian, we were thinking about the same thing in line last Thursday after we heard the same thing about the additional row of seats. There is enough room to modify the queues. There is an operator station at the very end of Train #2's loading area that would have to be modified slightly. Also the opening mechanics for the gates could be modified fairly simply. However, it would take some fairly major downtime to do it during the season. They could just paint some extra dots on the floor at the last gate.

That being said, I would put my money on the wheels and motors being back next season after major redesigns of their support and attachment method and possibly their construction.

Acording to Screamscape the addition of extra seats maybe true.

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The best thing about Six Flags "Worlds of Adventure" is that Cedar Point is nearby!

This is all assuming that the themeing package on the train is not coming back---it might, I have no idea.

However, I'm guessing that some very well compensated member of cedar fair's legal staff advised the park not to put the tires back on. Imagine the liability case you'd have if the tires were put back on (after having fallen off once) and one falls off again and hurts someone---or worse. Lawyers like to put this kind of advice in writing, so it pretty much cannot be ignored. ("Mr. Kinzel, is it true that your own general counsel advised you to remove the tires weeks before this tragic event?")

There are a lot of options. The easiest would be to leave the ride just like it is for the rest of the season, and work on it in the off-season when you don't have to worry about downtime of your signature ride. That way, you can take your time and think things through carefully, either adding another row of seats or figuring out another way to attach the themeing package, with plenty of time left for testing and recertification.

I wouldn't expect any major changes at this point, especially since we are entering the meat of the season this weekend.

Edit: well, if it was on screamscape, it must be true. ;)

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.
*** This post was edited by Brian Noble 6/2/2003 12:21:29 PM ***

Again, a tried and failed theme element. While I know that the ride itself is great, I really got into the whole Dragster element. Oh well, we've still got the countdown tower lights....oh, wait, those aren't even right either..

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"What time does the 10 pm laser show start?"

ok here is one problem with the whole idea of it being to heavy for the themeing, if you watch, the heaver the train is, the more likely that it will make it over, now this sounds totally wrong, but if you've ever seen them launch empty test trains, you will notice it barely makes it over every time, with it full, it flies over, the reason is with the greater mass, you have more inertia, so it wants to keep going, so i don't think its that the train was too heavy.
*** This post was edited by liebevision 6/2/2003 1:10:12 PM ***

There's a reason that Disney attractions that seem like relatively simple rides have astronomical price tags with insane lead times.

For example, name someone *not* in Imagineering that really thinks it should take two years (plus) to replace Space Mountain at Disneyland with *exactly the same layout*, but updated themeing.

Current speculation is that the addition of the speakers on the old SM trains changed their center of gravity enough to accelerate the stress fractures in the track much more than anticipated. Now, compare the weight of that speaker system to a pair of goodyear slicks, and you can begin to consider how well Intamin/Cedar Fair might have understood the ramifications of the theme package.

Intamin understands how to design the tains for the weight of people, and that weight might be similar to the theme package, but it's arrayed differently. It's easy to imagine that such a system fails in unanticipated ways.

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.

Soo, Why not get lighter weighing tires...Or leave the tires off and just keep the engine and spoiler. I dont see why they have to take the whole package off. I mean this was planned for. Its not like this was a last minute thing to put the theming on the trains. I say keep the engine and spoiler on untill they can find a way to mount the tires on or get lighter tires.

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- Dennis
When I die, They'll read this And say a genius wrote it.
http://drinkduff.com/

We noticed that, too, last week. But I think a better explanation for it is that there is a maintenance person in the hydraulic building that adjusts the power setting when they change from testing/warm-up mode to operating mode. If they ran the motor at full power with empty trains I think the trains would go too fast and overstress things or possibly run right thru the brakes. They lower the power to test and then raise it to operate.

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liebevision said:
the heaver the train is, the more likely that it will make it over, now this sounds totally wrong, but if you've ever seen them launch empty test trains, you will notice it barely makes it over every time, with it full, it flies over, the reason is with the greater mass, you have more inertia, so it wants to keep going

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True to an extent. There is more than likely an ideal mass range for the train to clear the hill. While the train does indeed clear the top with a full train with more ease than an empty train, there is still a possibility that with a full train plus all the accessories may be uncomfortably close to the upper end of that ideal range. I say drop the dragster theme and just paint the trains like bobsleds, and then in a couple of years, put a roof over it so we can all yell 'I'm losing control!' when we get to the top. (lame joke....sorry)

Think about this though, with an empty train, having the stuff on the back is doing the same thing as backloading it. Try heading over to Mine Ride on a really slow day, they make everyone go to the front of the car. If everyone were in the back, theres a higher chance of a rollback.
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"Wheres the Callahan factory?!?!?"

I don't care about the theming, and I don't care about the extra seats (although both are nice to have). I just care about riding the damn coaster!

First of all has anybody on here seen a rollback? 2nd Cedar Point would not have made this decision so soon after, and 3rd Ride-Ops would not be telling people this information if it is true, 4th, the ride is Top Thrill Dragster, you can't have TTD without the Dragster!

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2003 Counts
Visits : 2
Dragster:2 Millie:2 Maggie:1 WT:1 Raptor:1 Mantis:1 MS:1 BS:1 Gemini:1 CCMR:1 Corkscrew:1