Lots of Cedar Point news on this week's "In the Loop" podcast

Back in my day, pointless procedures (i.e. the verbal "check") only would have been done when certain managers were seen approaching our ride. The crew member at spiels would give a "signal 99!" and we'd all say it for a while, then stop once they were gone. A signal 99 is park code for a full trash can :)

I always wondered what a Signal 99 was. Recall that it was posted on the side of a forklift in the Disaster Transport queue.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

So it was! Good memory :)

During my time at the park a Signal 99 meant 'Implement Emergency Procedures'. I only know this because I found my little laminated card that has every signal on in recently while cleaning out a tub of old Cedar Point stuff.

Yeah from my year at Corkscrew, operations are ridiculously changed:

Guests have to tug on the belts to show they're secured. A ride op can't visual check them or if they doubt it's bucked (see em enough times you know if it is or isn't) and do it themselves. Load has to clear from the front of the train. Check in a row to the back, and scan walking to the front of the station, and then give the clear from there. We used to be able to say clear from the front, check the train, and throw the clear up in the back. Then just repeat the process starting from the back of the train. Employees standing right on the dots now seems to be a huge issue. Standing right on the dots for Corkscrew especially in the front is kind of an odd angle to try and watch trains dispatch and the other train roll in. Unload 2 (bins) stands by the elevator or next to the railing by the exit door. The only one that can't move is unload 1 (dispatch) because they have a panel with gates/dispatch enable/e-stop on it. Clears went load-unload 2-unload one (high clear) then controls did their checks, checked the trains and platform, and gave the all clear. Now it seems this jumbled wait to close the gates, check in a line, slow, watch your dots scrutinized deal. Like for unload 2, I used to throw my clear, then go swap the bins with my other arm while watching the train roll through and hell even spiel sometimes. Now, leave that dot I guess all hell breaks loose.

The seatbelt tugging thing killed operations big time. We used to just tug the OTSR and visual checks or tug the belt ourselves. Now, many guests fart around or talk to friends and don't tug the belt when the ride op comes by, so then he repeats himself two or three times, the guest complies, then moves to the next seat. Guess what, sometimes there's more than one guest like that on the train..Sigh

Dave, I agree, I loved working under Spehn..He seemed to be a no nonsense, get stuff done, safety always, work as a team kind of guy. He went back to Geauga Lake WWK didn't he if memory serves correct.

But IROC to me is a joke. For all of you at KI this weekend watch their park, it's crazy. Banshee has four dispatch enables on platform, no order of clears really it's kind of a cluster. The ridiculous scans, and the ready/station clear/all clear deal. Diamondstack got it's name over the past two years now unfortunately because of stuff like this. My problem I see is CF bought into the IROC stuff and took it on full force. That really worries me a tad because that means somewhere high up, people thought all of this was a great idea.

Well my memory is a little more rusty than RideMan's, apparently. It's been 5 years since I worked at the park. But whatever the signal for a full trash can was, that's what we used :)

I'll be visiting the park next month, and I'm getting a little anxious about these changes. After 5 summers working there, I've made trips every year since. Every year has been more groan-worthy than the last in terms of changes and overall operations. Made it out just in time. I'd have gone mad with IROC policies.

Also after spending a full weekend at KI, one thing that irks me that park does is not enforcing loose article policy and cameras on rides. Someone can blatantly have it out, and all they do is spiel over the lift essentially going "oh hey, put it away, the're not allowed shame on you"

CP, nope..take Gemini as a prime example. Ya got a phone, bam, run out, snag it, you're done. Sometimes they get through when people do it where it can't be stopped or if they just do miss it from time to time, but 90% of the time they're stopped and taken care of. I fear one day on that dive loop a phone will come flying off of Banshee right down into Action Zone.

Definitely agree with most of your prior post, thedevariouseffect. Not so sure about the cameras though.

I'd actually argue that stopping a ride on a lift, running out, and grabbing the camera is actually more dangerous than just letting them ride with it. You've got the ride op hustling out, stairs to trip on, etc to deal with, not to mention the freaking out of everyone on the train as well as sometimes difficulties restarting things if you stop it in the wrong spot, etc. Plus it brings operations to a screeching halt and causes your line to build. I worked at CP back in the early 2000's and I am about 90% sure their SOP manual used to say something to this effect. We used to try out best to catch it in the station, but if we saw one out on the lift, we just spieled on the lift (which admittedly, you can't even hear on most rides). It's been more recently that they've gotten way more strict about grabbing it if they see it. Quite honestly, I think some of the staff take a little too much enjoyment in doing this too. But if they will take a camera from someone on the lift, why won't they do it in the station and place it in the bin. I know they don't want to touch anyone's stuff for liability reasons, but it's just one more thing that seems kind of inconsistent to me.

The reason why ride ops won't take it in the station is because guests try to be sly and don't pull out their phone or camera until they get to the lift.

I had one of my friends do an equation for me, I'm not a math guy by any means. But apparently a cell phone in Corkscrew launched from the ride has about the force of a cinder block getting thrown at you from the corkscrews. That's not worth the risk letting them ride with it. Safety is a high priority.

Stopping on a lift is easy, then heading out to it on some rides is fairly simple too. Take Gatekeeper, ya just walk around to it, its stopped on the bottom third no problems. As for stairs, yeah its a risk, but not a considerable one. A camera of phone launched from the ride is a bigger issue.

For every phone/camera that is seen by ride ops, lift stopped, and confiscated, there are 20 people who are smart enough to just pull it out at the top of the lift and are never caught. Besides, it's not the phones/cameras in peoples' hands that are the problem. The problems come from those that fly out of peoples' pockets.

thedevariouseffect said:

I had one of my friends do an equation for me, I'm not a math guy by any means. But apparently a cell phone in Corkscrew launched from the ride has about the force of a cinder block getting thrown at you from the corkscrews. That's not worth the risk letting them ride with it. Safety is a high priority.

Apparently your friends aren't very strong in physics then, because to "launch" a phone from within the corkscrews, you would need to deliberately throw it. Otherwise, it's going inside the tub by your feet.

You can drop it out of your hand, and I'm sure it would fall, regardless, it needs to not happen or be an issue to think about in the first place. I still remember the issue on Maverick where a lighter in the guys hand in the tunnel on Maverick busted a guy in the face, wasn't a good day back there. People need not be injured because someone can't put an item away or tries to record a crappy POV

This reminds me of when my Enginneering class went on a field trip to a plant and the outside it had a sign a long the lines of saying "if someone does something wrong or something is wrong and you see it then you are now apart of it and at fault" so if a phone did hit someone it would be the somewhat ride ops fault . Of course there's a difference between chemicals at a plant and a phone/camera dropping and hitting someone at an amusement park

happy?

And how was your trip with the English class?

thedevariouseffect said:

You can drop it out of your hand, and I'm sure it would fall, regardless...

You sure about that? Because you could ride Corkscrew with no harness at all and not fall into the midway. The physics are not complicated.

Two things...

1) Our schools are clearly failing us.

2) There's an enormous chasm between what you wrote above and perfect grammar.

I'd have no problem with no restraints in the corkscrews...it's that ejector air hill after the first drop that would scare me on Corkscrew.

I might ride Corkscrew without a harness, but I'd probably be thinking about Demon at Great America for the entire ride. :)

Ride without a harness and I know an ejection is quite easy. Quite a few times in controls I watched the ride throw things from the bunny hill and the loop, practically a sea of loose articles there everyday from closing.