Lonliest Control Positions

I vote my ride for the lonliest control positon, Thunder Canyons control tower is 20 feet up, all you do is look down on people and out on the water and the tvs, i mean it gives you a good overview...but its quiet and lonely.

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"Captain" Nate
Paddlewheel crew 2000
Paddlewheel ATL 2001
Thunder Canyon TL 2002

Blue Streak is pretty lonely. Your all the way past the transfers and the other ops are up on platform. I can name afew people who have nodded off last year. ;)

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Mantis 2002
Broken Down Blue Ride 2001
*** This post was edited by masked_marauder 10/11/2002 2:20:28 PM ***

I feel bad for the people who sit at the entrance and the exit to the drop on WWL, very often it appers they are asleep.

Nate: You mean you guys actually only had ONE person sitting in controls all the time? haha, my TC00 crew always had at least 2/3 people up there at any given time (one of whom was usually either Tuff Guy, Brooks, or a lot of times both). It was quite fun.

Edit: And I'm going to have to agree that while not technically controls, chute at Snake & WWL are awfully boring and lonely.

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Natalie
Mine Ride '99
Thunder Canyon '00
Millennium Force '01
*** This post was edited by Ride of Steel 10/16/2002 8:19:44 AM ***

Hey Natalie--"No Comment"

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"Captain" Nate
Paddlewheel crew 2000
Paddlewheel ATL 2001
Thunder Canyon TL 2002

I have to motion for Chute and Lift positions at White Water to be the lonliest of positions in the park, short of possibly snakes chute position. Sitting up there for upwards of 45 minutes listening to the lift motor gets to you....you start to make friends with the spiders....they make very lousy friends. One still owes me twenty bucks.

I have to agree that WWL chute and lift positions are the loneliest positions. I recall countless freezing cold rotations up top. The view at sunset is pretty good, but the view of approaching thunderstorms can be pretty frightening. Hope all of you had as much fun as i did back in the day.

Geoff Radke

WWL CREW 1987

TC Crew 1987/88

WWL ATL 1988

hey...thank you.

I have to say being the person who was stuck in controls "listening for the phone" when raptor was down for weather pretty much every day in the first week of the season was pretty lonely. Everyone else is out in the transfer track and all you could do is sit and talk to the muffleheads.

I have to say Schwabinchen's controls were lonely because most of the time we only had one person working that ride, also Giant Wheel's control booth could be lonely too

Thats true Swab's controls are kinda lonely but at least you get to control what music you listen to.(to a point)

Apparently they put a lock on the cabinet this year, so you couldn't play DJ anymore. Good call on Schwabinchen being very lonely last year at night. The midway would be empty. Usually two or so hours with only about 50 riders. On the wheel you could at least call up the platform on the phone, but you were also stuck in the booth.

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2002 Raptor Crew
"Hey, Cool. My voice is on the lift"

Blue Streak Controls lonely? Usually not. Seeing as B.S. only uses 2 trains, one of the platform hosts usually have enough time between trains to come down and chit-chat before the train stops in the station. Life is good when you don't have to worry about set-ups.

-Chris
GW Triangle '01
Blue Streak TIC '02

Not to sound rotten, but I think I saw Blue Streak hit interval ONCE this season out of probably 12 times I rode. Blue Streak seemed to be understaffed alot though as several times I saw one person checking the whole train. Kind of odd. Luckily, I never waited more than a couple minutes so it didn't piss me off that bad (unlike my 15 minute wait for Mean Streak closing day with 1 train - WTF was with that!?).

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

No offense taken on that Matt. From my experience on the BS, most of our efficency problems came from our seatbelts. It seems people have a problem figuring out how to put an airplane-style seabelt on correctly. Also, about 6-8 years ago, Blue Streak changed its trains from the old bench style seats to the high-backed style with seat dividers and many of our exceptionally sized guests haven't been to the park since we got the new trains, making our job just a little more difficult. Not and excuse, just an explantion. And back to the issue at hand. Schwabinchen's controls are probably about the most boring control postion I have ever worked.

-Chris
2002 Blue Streak TIC

I agree about the seatbelts and I don't understand why they don't switch to a regular style buckle like Magnum has. A seatbelt is a seatbelt I think and there is no reason they have to have things more difficult for people by having those wierdo seatbelts! :)

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

I remember Monty Jasper addressing a seat belt issue during the presentation at Coastermania. He answered a question about why MF has shorter belts. He said they have to use what the manufacturer supplies, and Intamin changed the belts. I bet it is similar with the Blue Streak, they have to use what PTC supplies.

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Florida may have Disneyworld and Key West,
but Ohio has Cedar Point and Put-In-Bay.
It's great to live in Ohio!

I would have to say Ocean Motion's controls are pretty boring. The only way to communicate with the other person is to yell across the boat, for all to hear... and driving the train at Peanuts isn't the most exciting either, unless you've mastered the art of faking a smile and waving to the ankle-biters :)

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~Robin
'99 Disaster Transport/Ocean Motion/Peanuts Playground ATL, '01 Disaster Transport ATL, '02 Mantis TL/Wicked Twister

I’m surprised that nobody mentioned the rides in Camp Snoopy. When I worked there in 2012, aside from Snoopy Bounce and Woodstock Express, each ride only had one operator, but we did get to rotate between the rides, so it wasn’t all bad.

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