Magnum Change for 2008

I noticed so far when riding Magnum this year that there is no longer a "clank" noise in the first tunnel.

The noise had been present for at least one season, and probably longer.

I was wondering if anyone knows what the noise was, and how they managed to get rid of it?

I actually miss it, as I had gotten used to it, and I am a creature of habit.

-Sam

I DO know what that noise was, and I DID notice that it was gone. Somewhere at home I have a video clip that shows what it was, in fact...

Here it is; for the moment I'll make it available via my web site. As is typical of my video clips, you need QuickTime 6 or later to watch it. I had a lot of trouble encoding it, and while the version I grabbed played OK on my laptop, there is a chance that it was the version I had problems with; if you can't see what's going on because of jagged lines running through the image, let me know and I'll re-encode it. Anyway, the video shows the bottom edge of the lake-side skin of the tunnel as a train is going through. Naturally, you can't see the train; it's a close up shot.

It turns out that the tunnel skin is, or at least was, missing a few fasteners on the lake side. As the train enters the tunnel, it pushes a significant mass of air ahead of it. The bottom portion of the tunnel wall is vented further downtrack, and of course the far end of the tunnel is open, but that air being crammed into the tunnel is enough to cause the tunnel wall to push out at the bottom. As the train goes through, the pneumatics shift. As the train bottoms out and heads back up to exit the tunnel, the train literally pulls a low-pressure zone behind it. This results in a very sudden drop in the air pressure inside the tunnel, which literally sucks the blown-out tunnel skin back in with a BANG!.

This has been going on for a long time. The video, which was taken from the walking path along the beach, was shot in 2005.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

So, I guess we can assume they added some more fasteners?

I gathered that from his post as well.

I noticed the absense of the noise right away yesterday during my first ride.

While the noise was gone...the airtime on the third hill was still there.

:)

I don't know what they did, I only know what was causing the noise. I haven't been down the footpath to look at it yet this season.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Did anyone notice that the lift hill is faster this season?

It did appear to be a bit faster to me...

It was really fast on opening day and also doing some really funny things in terms of speeding up/slowing down at random times. There were a bunch of maintenance guys down there at the end of the night looking at the motor. The next day it had slowed down to what seemed pretty close to normal to me, but I didn't do any timings. Normally dispatch to the top of the 2nd hill should be about 1:20.

I felt the speed change on the second ride on Tuesday, which was the fourth or third last train of the night. Seemed to get faster just past the half way point. Didn't notice it in the morning though.

so is this a good or bad thing... i guess it could work both ways.

Sweet video. Watched it 10x in a row. You learn something new every day :)

I would say that if the lift is faster that's good news. It seems to take forever and a day to get to the top. I love coasters, but I'm TERRIFIED of heights. So the stairs up to the coasters and the lift hill gets to me. The quicker it's over, the better. Could you imagine if Millenium's hill was as slow as some of the other coasters? lol. How long do you think it would take you to get to the top? Like 5 years. haha.

^ - not really, the lift is part of the timing. It takes as long as it does to give the crew time to unload and load the next train and get it onto the lift as you are cresting the 2nd hill. So speeding it up gives the crew less time to work with to hit interval.

Lift hill speed is often a blocking tool on coasters where there's no mid-course block brake. For instance, if Millenium Force is operating 3 trains the first part of your lift experience is slower, and once the other two trains are safely out of the way it speeds up. (always a little scary- definitely adds to the thrill) This week they were operating only two trains and the lift hill speed was constant (fast) from bottom to top. You can notice the same thing on KI's Top Gun, er, Flight Deck. I have, however, never noticed a change in speed on Magnum's lift, and I always assumed that if for some reason trains 2 and 3 weren't in the right place then train 1 would just stop on the lift before it had a chance to go all the way over. Maybe now they've added a sensor or two that govern lift hill speed to prevent it from stopping altogether.

I rode Magnum a lot this week, and didn't notice any change in the lift hill, but once again most days it was only 2 train operation. And maybe it's my imagination, but I thought it was running better than ever. Some days this week, due to low attendance and/or rainy weather there was only one train and the trim before the turn around was light or off. Regardless, the ride was rockin and cemented in my mind that Magnum remains the best coaster at CP.

Uh oh. Now I've done it...

^I can't wait to ride Magnum. How long is the typical wait time?

^I don't know what day you're going, but this week I had many walk-on rides.

I haven't tried Magnum on a super busy day lately, but I recall with three train operation and all the queues full it was only about an hour. Wait times are posted at the entrance to all major rides at CP and it's fairly accurate, if not on the long side. Magnum is good to catch early in the day for multiple rides and then again toward park close. (there's an entrance gate to the park right by it) Magnum was substituted for Maverick a couple of days this week for early ride time. (Maverick is having a lot of down time issues this year for some reason)

Ride the front seat of the last car in the train for a great first drop, and then try the 3rd or 4th seat from the front for maximum airtime, especially on the return trip.

1st trip to the Point? Have fun.