Last year for 6 trains on Gemini?

The other two trains are in the center of MeanStreak, by one of the warehouses ther covered in ivory tarps. I think that if they seriously think this out they can still run all six. Maybe a exit station?(highly doubtful) I think even if they don't run all six trains on the ride they will keep the other ones on the transfer track to switch out incase of malfunction as to not slow the ride down too badly. Also on Magnum I've seen the ops close and open the gates.

My Basic Opinion:

Air Gates = Low Capscity (BAD)

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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

Air Gates dont cause lower capacities if they actually TIME THEM CORRECTLY. I'm still hoping CP will rethink this and keep Gemini able to run 6 trains.

Gates haven't changed the rides at CP that much thus far, because as noted they actually open them at a logical time. It's not like certain other parks where the train is mostly empty before they have the common sense to open them. There they use it at pointless crowd control instead of what they're really for: keeping people from stepping in front of a moving train.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

No, gates aren't the problem with ride capacity. What is more of a problem for Cedar Point is that on the rides where they have 'improved' the control systems, invariably the train approaches the station much more slowly than it used to, and takes a lot longer to come to that complete and final stop than it should.

Gemini is operated by hand with an electronic safety system to prevent the operators from doing anything stupid. Which really is no less safe than a fully automatic system; if anything it should help to keep the control operator awake. When six trains are running under the control of a couple of expert operators, the trains come flying into the station and come to a smooth stop at exactly the right spot, they unload, they reload, the red train leaves, the blue train leaves, and the next pair of trains comes flying in just seconds after the departing trains clear the brakes. The seat belts have harmed things a little, because it takes extra time to get them fastened. The timing is extremely tight with six trains.

The most likely thing CP is thinking about is that they have yet to figure out how to make a computer park a train quickly, and the added time required to park the train is going to torpedo that tight interval. Personally, I think it ought to be do-able, but what do I know?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yea - for examples of some of CP's "improved" control systems, look no further than Blue Streak and Mine Ride.

On Blue Streak, the first train has to be nearly to the lift before the second one can come into the station. This is absolutely rediculous when they have all that space in front of the station (the old loading station) where they could have installed another set of breaks creating a buffer block if they wanted to. But why should that be necessary? How many other coasters have a block between the station and the lift? Like none. I'm not exactly sure why it's set up this way, but it would seem that the second train should be able to roll in as soon as the other one is clear of the station. Maybe the price of those couple extra proximity switches was too high at the time. Obviously times have changed since Dragster has about 620 of them. Why not correct the mistake now?

On Mine Ride, the train just parks terribly slow. It comes to three seperate stops before finally being done. This is in addition to the fact that it already comes into the station at an ungodly slow speed. This is a modern control system by Consign too. They figured out how to park trains on Raptor, so why not fix it right over at Mine Ride?

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

Not just Mine Ride. I've noticed that it takes the computer around 3 tries to park the Iron Dragon trains too.

As for Blue Streak, they should add a set of blocks in the transfer area, they would be able to get 3 trains running then instead of only two.

Blue Streak can't run more than two trains...it's too short.

And the Blue Streak blocking is not nearly as bad as it was when they first changed it over, in 1994. Originally, the train on the back brake could not begin to roll until the other train was halfway up the lift. Which meant that odds were good for that train not clearing the back brake before the other train cleared the lift, the block violation visible on the Blue Streak model in the Town Hall Museum. In...I think it was '97...they changed it so that once the departing train completely clears the platform, the incoming train can begin to roll. Another five years of practice and they can occasionally get the trains through without stacking. A far cry from the 'old days' when the action in the station never stopped.

It seems that all of the rides that have new computers can't manage to stop on the first try. Raptor, Manshee, Millennium Force, and Dragster can do it, but those all have feed motors in the station to bring the trains in. The other rides...don't. I can understand the need to get the speed down because the computer can't actually watch the train, and it needs to be able to stop the train reliably. But is it necessary to bring the train to a full stop two blocks uptrack of the station and then bring it in at a crawl? Why not let it fly into the station, hit the brakes when the first car gets about halfway down the platform, and let it creep from there?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

My guess is that at least some of this boils down to sacraficing a portion of a ride's capacity in an effort to reduce maintenance costs. This seems to be a growing trend recently at the park...with rides not running all of their trains much more often.

It's pretty amazing to see how little wear the brakes on Mine Ride took over the course of the entire summer. Compare that to rides like Gemini (manually controlled braking) and how much wear could vary from one day to the next (due to who was working controls and how they brought trains in) and it seems like an argument that holds some weight.

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James Draeger
-not saying I like how any of the automated rides mentioned above park.
*** This post was edited by Draegs 9/30/2003 9:09:35 AM ***

I would think that on Mine Ride they'd be trading wear on the station brakes for wear on the first caliper in what used to be F...

Well, the other option would be to completely redesign the station braking and convert over to magnetic trims...on Gemini, for instance, use a moderate magnetic trim on the safety brake followed by a caliper or two for the safety brake (don't use that brake at all if the train doesn't have to stop) and a heavy magnetic trim in the uptrack end of the station, again with calipers at the downtrack end. No wear at all on the magnetics, if they hit interval no wear on the safety brake caliper, and in the station only minimal wear because the magnetics get the speed down, then the caliper stops the train on a dime. Hey, it works great on the Kennywood Jack Rabbit....

--Dave Althoff, Jr.