Idea for upgrading the Skyride

The Skyride is a great ride at Cedar Point and helps you get from place to place.

But I noticed, this ride is awfully difficult for the ride operators to dispatch cabins.

This thing is old, it's very old. I was wondering, why doesn't cedar point upgrade it and turn it into a high speed detachable Gondola similar to those at ski resorts.

Why? It is all timed correctly and the cabins slow down to let the passengers on and automatically speed up when it approaches the haul cable.

http://www.poma.net/english/index.html

This is a design of what the 'terminal' would look like. This page shows some great pictures of how it works. Basically it is the same concept as before but there isn't the pause and let go feature like on the current sky ride. Instead when the gondola detaches, it moves at a constant speed around the terminal, slow enough for people to load. It then will gently pick up speed to about 6 meters per second.

What do you think about this idea?

This is pretty much what they have now. When the basket comes into the station is slows down so that people can load into it. And then after it lauches it speeds up. It just isn't as fast as the one you have above. Which it doesn't need to go that fast. It's not always about the speed, in this case it is also about the views that you get.

Some people have to slow down these days. Sky Ride, Giant Wheel, CP & LE Railroad are all slow rides for a relaxing getaway from the roller coasters and thrill rides on the midways.

I've never noticed any problem with Sky Ride.

I'm saying more the loading and unloading of the ride. It doesn' have to travel that fast. This design automatically closes the gates and all the ride ops have to do it direct people.

I love Skyride the way it is. Those Poma things seem too... *looking for the right word*... fancy/formal for an amusement park. Skyride's gondolas are painted nice bright colours which make it fit into the park. They are open concept so people can look around freely.

I understand what some of you are saying but...

It's not a Poma thing, it's a modern chairlift design which is used by two major companies, Poma/Leitner and Doppelmayr CTEC. It's like comparing B&M to Intamin.

A company called CWA makes the cabins. Hypothetically they could make cabins that are open air as well as different colors. They could probably even use the same towers.

It'll probably never happen til the current pulls a vertigo, but just a though :) I was just thinking it would be much much easier on the ride operators. *** Edited 3/30/2005 12:54:51 AM UTC by skifan23***

Leave Skyride alone. It's not that difficult of a ride to operate, just a physically demanding one, and that's only when you're on catch.

The Sky Ride is a detachable gondola. The system is relatively simple and it works well. It differs from the motion controlled systems in that it uses gravity to accelerate the gondolas to the cable speed. The result is that apart from the clamping system, there is very little to go wrong. I just wish I could get a good enough collection of photos of the guts of it to put together an article for PointBuzz... :)

Now, that isn't to say I don't think the Sky Ride could be improved...wouldn't it be nice if the idler end were back by Magnum instead of up by the Scrambler? It would have to navigate a bend to slip in between Corkscrew and Dragster, but I think it could be done. It would be even cooler if it could have a third station in Frontiertown, but I don't think the angles line up right for that...too many obstructions in the way.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree with you Dave. It would be nice to have another station so you could travel farther into the park. So of the views would be spectacular if it were to go all the way back to FrontierTown.

RideMan said:
It differs from the motion controlled systems in that it uses gravity to accelerate the gondolas to the cable speed.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yea, see the difference with what I'm talking about is that the cabins are accellerated to the cable speed by use of small tires lines up in the "loading carousel", the faster wheels where gondolas are coming in and out, to accelerate and decaccelerate.

But don't the ride ops have to physically move the cabins when they are detached from the cable?

Don't you be talking about changing skyride or I'll pimpsmack you. :)

Yes, the hosts have to slow and move the cabins, finally setting them on the trip.

There are 4 positions at full capacity, they are condensed into 2 positions at lower capacity. Catch, unload, load, trip.

Catch takes control of the cabin and unlocks it with his key.

Unload, unloads the the cabin.

Load, loads the cabin.

Trip locks the cabin, checks the door, then gently sets the cabin onto the trip mechanism, finally the ride takes it over from there. There are 3 states the door can be in: open, single locked, and double locked. An open door is obvious, single locked means the door is closed, double locked mean the key is turned the opposite way locking the shank in place. If the door is properly double locked, it can't be opened without the key.

On top of each cabin's truck, there is a lever. Move it one way it clamps move it the other way it unclamps. As the cabin enters the station, it simultaneously unclamps and the guide track raises up at the truck. The ride will shut down if the cabin fails to unclamp within a certain distance. It's opposite on the other side.

The trip is simply a lever that holds the cabin in place untill conditions allow for it to be released or the manual release cord is pulled.

There are a number of other sensors that detect a fryed cable to limit switches that indicate if the cabins are swinging too much.

Yea they have to push them around the track, to a switch that holds it in place untill it cfan be launched.

Skyride has worked fine for decades. What needs to be improved?

Bring back the Frontier Lift!! Hey they wouldn't have to contend with all the hippies smoking weed this time...

'Pushing' the cabins around the track isn't very hard at all. Especially when theres no one in them. It's more of a hand off from catch to unload to load to trip anyway.

Gotta love a grip-release e-stop :)

The modern detachable lifts have one very big disadvantage compared to the Sky Ride. The cabins or chairs never come to a complete stop. When in the terminal the cabins move through at slow speed propelled by the tires, so riders have to hop on a moving cabin. Works great for chairlifts at ski areas, works pretty good for gondolas at ski areas also. But, for CP, I think the Sky Ride is a much better system because the cabins come to a complete stop to allow easy entry for riders that may have difficulty handling a moving cabin.

*** Edited 3/30/2005 2:28:42 PM UTC by Pete***

IWantBansheeBack said:
Bring back the Frontier Lift!! Hey they wouldn't have to contend with all the hippies smoking weed this time...

Nope, just have to contend with all the hippies' kids smoking weed.

skifan23 said:
I understand what some of you are saying but...

It's not a Poma thing, it's a modern chairlift design which is used by two major companies, Poma/Leitner and Doppelmayr CTEC. It's like comparing B&M to Intamin.

A company called CWA makes the cabins. Hypothetically they could make cabins that are open air as well as different colors. They could probably even use the same towers.

The Sky Ride was built by Von Roll AG of Switzerland.
In 1982, Von Roll merged with Habegger AG.
In 1996, Von Roll/Habegger was bought by Doppelmayr
In 2002, Doppelmayr merged with Garaventa
(see: history page at garaventa.com)

Carrosseriewerke Aarburg (CWA, now CWA Constructions SA) has been building aerial tramway gondolas since 1954, and in fact if you ride the Space Spiral, you will find that the Space Spiral is also credited to Von Roll, and the cabin credited to CWA. In 2001, CWA was purchased by Doppelmayr.

So given the fact that Von Roll was known to use Carrosseriewerke Aarburg gondolas, it is very possible that Cedar Point's Sky Ride may already have CWA gondolas, and in any case, the entire system was constructed by companies that are now a part of Garaventa/CTEC. :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:
I just wish I could get a good enough collection of photos of the guts of it to put together an article for PointBuzz... :)

If I had only known. ;) Although ForgottenEE did a pretty good job of describing the process in layman's terms. I'm sure Dave has plenty he could add to it.

Skyride has had at least two sets of tubs. The original ones were cylindrical. They were replaced with rectangular tubs (late 60's-early 70's?), possibly at the time of the instalation of the Frontier Lift.