If you could change a ride layout?

IMHO, one of the best features of Magnum is the profile of the bunny hops. It gives a much more forceful ejector feeling than Steel Force. I find Steel Force somewhat bland and too smooth, Magnum is perfect as it is as it provides plenty of forceful airtime.

I just think they should get rid of the trim brake on the turnaround and make the final stop much steadier. Honestly, Magnum's a great ride except for the roughness. Think I should cut Mags some slack? The coaster is 29 years old and was designed before advanced software, so the thing was built by hand. Seriously Pete, you don't get beaten up when you ride?

Why would you want Magnum to ride like Steel Force, especially with Steel Vengeance right down the midway? There is a reason some of us very much prefer Magnum to Steel Force.
And until designer/engineers figure out how to build decent coaster trains again, you can leave Magnum’s train alone, too. Well, fix the seat belts. The nonadjustable buckle end goes on the OUTSIDE, the adjustable end goes on the INSIDE and needs to be a bit longer...should be long enough to hang over the back of the seat.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

Pete said:

Ellex K. said:

Speaking of Magnum XL 200, I'd like to see it being reprofiled to where the bunny airtime hills are more rounded like Steel Force. Much better than on Magnum and less painful. Even it means removing one bunny hill on Magnum XL 200.

HORRIBLE idea. Leave Magnum the way it is.

Pete, you have been an advocate of keeping Magnum the way it is for a long time. I typically agree with you on a lot of topics, but after riding Magnum a few time this year and really TRYING so hard to enjoy it, I just can’t anymore. Not once did I walk off and say “that was a good ride this time”. IMO, I wouldn’t say that anything needs reprofiled, but retracking in some spots would be ideal (especially that pretzel turn).

I have more “good rides” on magnum than “bad” rides. I really enjoy the coaster.

Eh, my good and bad rides I would say are equally numbered. I remember coming off Magnum with a headache worthy of ibuprofen a couple times.

As Magnum is typically my first ride every visit, I have had a consistent number of good rides over the years.

I wish the current Magnum trains would just be altered to have the same mechanism found on the lapbars on Adventure Express at KI. Those lapbars STAY UP - imagine that! They wouldn’t clamp down onto your thighs, which is no fun during ejector airtime, and as an added bonus, they would actually POP UP when unlocked, which would speed up dispatches. I think this alone would curb a lot of the complaints from people who say Magnum is painful.

You guys go ahead and keep not riding Magnum. I'll enjoy the short lines. It's one of the best coasters in the park, and they shouldn't make any changes to it. :)

Magnum, I would make it another 50 feet higher, bring the track under the beach after the first tunnel, over the lake turn around with outside banking with a second lift hill, finally ending with a double small air hill. Smoother!

Add music while riding, similar to Universal studios.

Ok, I just returned from my first trip to Kennywood and although I stated above that I enjoy Magnum as it is (I still do), I can see merit in someone's desire to retrack the coaster with Chance/Morgan track and replace the old Arrow trains with the newer/old Chance/Morgan trains as implemented on Phantom's Revenge - In a word, Phantom's Revenge was "amazing."

Still doesn’t hold a candle light to Magnum though.

Okay, it's not changing the layout, but I'd put Iron Horizion(by Aviators) as magnum's station music:

Or Kill Switch:

This one could easily work too:

I would be so happy if one day the coaster gods decided to completely remove Magnum and place a nice B&M hyper in the same spot along the beach. We can dream, can't we?

Magnum isn’t going anywhere in the near future, and CP has no reason to do any more than minor renovations to it considering it’s still one of the most popular coasters. (Which shocks me considering how I always hear somebody complaining after the ride... but then again some people don’t like how Gatekeeper is rattly or even borderline rough in some seats and it’s even more popular. Not advocating any changes, as I generally like Magnum the way it is.)

Perhaps some new lap bar return springs and softer padding would help make the ride more comfortable while keeping that Arrow airtime. Adventure Express is an example of this, as mentioned earlier, although that could make things worse in some cases just because you’d have more time to accumulate kinetic energy from hitting the bar. Another modification from AE that could work on Magnum is the handles welded to the lapbar to facilitate checking, like a metal version of the cloth handle on RMC trains. (Please no retractor belts though. Please.)

As for now, if you think it’s uncomfortable, try different seats (especially middle rows off wheels) for a smoother ride and tighten your seatbelt to lighten the impact of thigh-bashing.

GigaG said:

Which shocks me considering how I always hear somebody complaining after the ride...

I do not recall a Magnum ride in which I haven't heard people complaining about how it hurt their legs, back, neck, etc. and that they are never going to ride it again. In terms of those negative comments, it seems as if it is getting close to Mean Streak territory. But yet bodies keep filling the seats.

I still scratch my head at all these comments about Magnum. Its an amazing ride, nothing like Mean Streak was at the end. Its my personal favorite coaster at Cedar Point. I could marathon that ride all evening long.

I’m also confused by the negative comments regarding magnum. We just returned from a two day trip to cedar point with a group of twelve people ages between 6-46. Everyone either enjoyed our many rides on magnum and/or thought it was one of the best rides at the park.

I can kind of see where you guys are coming from now. One ride on corkscrew changed that for me and now magnum feels like a massage compared to a beating that corkscrew gives. Fun fact: I rode corkscrew with healing cartilage piercings in once(so I couldn't take out my earrings) and the whole ride was so painful. As for the rough comments, where do you people ride at? Front of the train? Back of the train? It's a bit less rougher near the front, but I rode the back row quite a bit and it doesn't really bother me.