Last year for 6 trains on Gemini?

Are they like what they have on iron dragon? Thats what i thought they were but i didnt wanna sound like an idiot if i was wrong. ;)

--brennan

Been a few months since I took my yearly trip to CP... I cant really remember if Iron Dragon has ***gates or not... I think it does. So yes. Like on Raptor, Magun, Millenium force, and Mine Ride too.

Yeah Iron dragon does.

I cant wait for them on the wildcat, that should really speed up the line. ;)

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http://said.uc.edu/students/oakleysd/cp/CP.jpg
Now tell me Cedar Point is running out of space.

ive never seen gemini run 6 trains nor have i ever waited more than 20 minutes for the ride.

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Jeff said:
It's not a solution to anything. First ask yourself how many people have been hit by trains on the platform in the last twenty years, then ask how many kids have been squished in the gates in the last month. I think you know which number is higher.

Like auto-spiels, this is another thing that CP has clearly not thought out very well.

Do you have ANY idea how draining it is to say a speil as long as some of the autospeils are? If everyone had to say the WT speil, TTD speil, or MF speil, no one would want controls. After working the number of hours you work and having controls sometimes four times in a day, saying just the normal speil from WT (hats, glasses, shoes) makes my throat raw. I think CP was indeed thinking very hard when they said they wanted an auto speil, it works out very nicely, sounds very professional, is always energetic even when you are tired as heck, and all around is a great idea and anybody that thinks differently, I'm sorry, is a fool.

Now for the air gates: If adults could control their children / people had common sense you would think they would realize that the platform is a different color for a reason... that is because it is NOT to be stepped on until you are next and are actually climbing into a train. The air gates are maybe not the BEST thing to some people, but it reduces confusion for guests 100% in the way that they know exactly when to go and when to stay back and wait. Also it stops the random guest from just jumping out onto the track or heaven forbid someone pushing them... it completely kills that problem... now if only we could install a small electrical current in the queue rails so people would not stand and sit on them and have a huge risk of falling off... HMM...

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You have OSHA to thank for people sitting on the rails. If the rails were 48" high instead of 42" high, people wouldn't sit on them.

Something I noticed years ago: Back when NO Cedar Point coaster had boarding gates, there were some coasters where people standing on the Yellow Line was a constant problem (Gemini, Blue Streak, Magnum) and there were coasters where people standing on the Yellow Line almost never happened at all (Corkscrew, Mine Ride, Iron Dragon). You know what the big difference was? On the ones where there wasn't usually a problem, the yellow line started where the railing ended. The ones where it was a problem had yellow paint on the floor under the railings. My obvious conclusion: People don't look at the floor. They walk up to the end of the railing (because they want to lean against it for one thing...) . Want to get people to stand behind the yellow line? Pull the railing back so that the railing is behind the line. Even better, add a large-scale texture to the floor in the Yellow Line Zone so that people won't stand on it, like they do on some subway platforms. Except that would trip the operators.....

Finally, the big problem with spiels, automatic or otherwise...to make them effective, they need to be concise, understandable, and useful. The station recordings on Millennium Force, Wicked Twister and Dragster are none of the above. They are long, convoluted, written in legalese, and completely fail to provide information that riders need in a way that riders can use it. To put it another way, the recording in the Dragster station is terrible. The recording at the launch staging point, on the other hand, is just about perfect.

Of course, my favorite coaster spiel is still the one on the Phoenix at Knoebels:

"Get out. Get in. Goodbye!"

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

So how exactly will this "leveling" of the station work? Wouldn't that require almost the entire station to be re-built?

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Race for the Sky. :::::::::::::9

Ahhh, the Phoenix. 'Course you don't have to have much in the way of instructions when the ride has a one-position lap bar and no seat belts ...

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Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

Neo-

The center portion of the station will likely be raised with the stairway leading to the station still leading to the (newly raised) platform. I could invision the ramp entrance being closed.

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- John
I Snap Flyers

The question is, WHY would they do this?

And they wouldn't want to close the second entrance...even with only four trains, the ride can still move more people than can come up a single stairway. I thought they learned that back in '79 when they added the second entrance...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I think the air gates are becomming a standard. Like, all the coasters must have air gates for the 2005 season by Ohio law or somthing. Just a guess...

But, I agree with Jeff, the air gates weren't thought out well at all.

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Evan H.
"Oh, well look who thinks he's clever dan."-Strong Bad
"Oh, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you hitting me with the mini-van.- Home Alone III

Well, I think Ohio is going to require ASTM-compliant (instead of "manufacturer specified") fencing on all rides beginning in 2004, if I remember correctly. The ASTM standard does not explicitly require the use of boarding gates, but industry standards and certain readings of the ASTM fence rules suggest that gates should be used.

But again, this isn't about adding boarding gates to Gemini. Cedar Point has already demonstrated that they are capable of adding boarding gates to coasters in such a way that it doesn't nuke the capacity...if anything, gates might actually *speed up* the loading process because the opening gate is a signal to oncoming riders that, "Hey! Its time to get into the train!". If it were just a matter of adding gates to Gemini, there would be no concern. Heck, until a few years ago, Gemini actually had boarding gate mecanisms installed! In fact, I think that's the reason the Yellow Line is so close to trackside on that coaster.

The issue here is that their plan is also to screw up the ride controls so badly that they can't run the ride properly anymore. And THAT is simply criminal.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The other 2 trains have been gone since before Spetember 1st. Hopefully they'll rethink this and not kill its capacity

Back on August 31, which was a Saturday I was in line at about 2 in the afternoon and I waited in line 30 minutes before getting on the ride. They only had 2 blue trains and 2 red trains running. The other 2 trains were no where to be found. I think they store them away for the rest of the season.

Still though, Gemini used to always be a coaster I knew had a very small line with a wait less then 10 minutes. Now we'll have much longer waits, for what was once the highest capacity coaster in the park. (No logner will be is they cut it to 4 train max operation). Another thing Cedar Point hasn't thought out very well.

It will still be a short wait. They will now always open with 4 trains instead of the normal 2. Both sides will be running full capacity when it opens. The reason for waits is usually when only one side is open.

As far as the airgates go, Corkscrew has some nice ones. As soon as the train is parked the gates are open. I didn't like how Magnum's were set up at all. There should be no delay from the time the train stops to when the gates open.

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Formerly the imbecile known as ddogg
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2003 Super Screw Crew

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Magnum's gates had a shorter delay in 2002 compared to this season. I agree with Drew that they did take at least two seconds too long to open. I'm sure it's probably just a programming thing, but once that train is stopped, I see no reason for them not to open right away. Perhaps since the gates use air to open and the lapbars on Magnum use air to release, they needed that two second delay? I don't know - I'm reaching for an explanation to something that doesn't really seem to make sense.

As for Gemini, it's just a case of them ruining something that has worked fine for 25 years. With all the technology out there, there is no reason they should have to make the ride less efficient by installing a new control system. But of course, they've already done this with Blue Streak. Here's to hoping it doesn't happen again. They should probably move the "C" brakes around to the other side of the turnaround so the train wouldn't need to be pushed and it wouldn't be the end of the world if they had a set up every now and then. Platform gates really shouldn't slow things down very much if they're implemented properly (open up fast and immediately).

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

I've noticed with Raptor's air gates that they are reducing capacity significantly. They are closing them far too quickly leaving many empty seats (sometimes 2 per row).

I don't see this problem with Gemini as it seats 2 per row but they need to allow more time on Raptor.

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Eric Morrison (Coast)
Drag Races: 10

one thing no one has mentioned is the fact that several parks dont even link the gates to the ride control system, so an operator has to actually toggle a switch to open or close the gates...

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Future CP Ride op?

If their only running 4 trains total they should color the other 2 green and yellow togeter while red and blue run together. But that might confuse riders.

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