Magnum policy change?

RideMan said:
Why don't they solve the real problem, which is that the new control system brings the trains into the station a lot more slowly than the old one did. What used to take about 20 seconds (dispatch to next-train lap bar unlock) now takes more than twice as long. That time is lost from the station dwell time.

I'll get a second look at it this weekend and a first look with three trains. I too noticed that the train parking in the station had some room for improvement, but there is no way it is taking TWICE as long for the train to park as it used to - at least it wasn't on opening weekend. Maybe something has changed?

With the old system, the first squeeze of the station brakes did not occur until just a split second after the previous train started to audibly engage the lift. (I can still hear the sounds of Magnum in my sleep 10 years after working the ride!) According to the POV on YouTube, that is about 22-23 seconds from dispatch. With the old system, you'd get a fairly hard squeeze of the station brakes, release, followed by some slight taps of the brakes (tap tap tap pause tap tap tap pause tap PARKED lapbars released). I would guess the time from dispatch to parked with the old control system was about 28 seconds. That left about 52 seconds of station time before the interval point and about 82 seconds of station time before the setup point - assuming the lift timings are the same (and if anything, the lift is slower now so that would give them more time).

I do think it would probably be better to stop the train on the readies farther back and start it rolling earlier so that it gets a bit more speed coming around the corner, but from what I saw, the train on the readies is starting forward at the same time as it used to (just before 2 cars are out of the station). As a result of starting farther up, it is coming around the corner with less momentum than it use to.

My question is - what happens when they have to HOLD a train halfway out of the station? To me, now you've got the train behind it farther up than it used to be about to make the turn into the station rather than farther back and still within the confines of the ready block. It's still able to be grabbed by the brakes and held to avoid a collision, but unless they've moved the end of that block further up toward the station which I didn't see any prox changes to indicate, they might be having some sort of perceived blocking violation. I'd be curious how much of the downtime has occurred immediately after they've been forced to stop a train that was on its way out of the station and consequently stop the train behind it halfway out of that block. It USED to be that if the train was held in the station, the one in the readies would stop in its perfectly parked position and the system wouldn't allow us to release it forward again at all until the station was clear. We knew exactly the right time to start that train in so that it would arrive at the station as early as possible, but if you started it in too early and reached the end of that block before the station was clear, it would stop and the result was the crew really having to hustle their ass off to get that next train out. I suspect this process of bringing the train in from the ready brake is now automated and not left to the good sense of the operator.

Also, I would disagree that the amount of time to deal with the crap has not been a problem since the bins were installed. The ride isn't designed to have people coming to a screeching stop outside the third tunnel. That is called a set up and was to be avoided. It used to require a call to a supervisor, an explanation of what happened, documentation on the daily report, and someone running out under the brake run to release the brakes. These things have all been relaxed in recent years, but it still doesn't mean having people slamming to a stop out there dozens of times a day is a good thing. We used to go multiple days in a row sometimes running three trains without a single set up. A really bad day was four or five of them. In recent years, they've been doing it four or five times an hour I bet.

Shush! Don't give the park any ideas like charging for benches.

I can see them having a "fast bench pass" that even comes with a personal shade tree if they could enact a policy that required non-riders to be sheltered from the sun's harmful rays.

Don't they already have Cabanas for rent in Soak City? :) I don't think they're even stocked with booze! Pretty much a shaded chair or two.

See how fast those marketing guys are? Everywhere we leak $, they put a bucket!

Scottyf said:
I would think an argument could be made that the goodwill gained would offset the money lost.

I've tried. Banks won't take goodwill, just cash or checks.

Joking aside: of course arguments can be made. That doesn't mean arguments will be won.

Matt: the train never used to park on the transfer table, it just stopped out there. More critically, it used to be 28 seconds from dispatch to park, now it's more than 40, and the train coming in from the transfer table isn't going as far (because it now parks there), and it actually starts rolling before the station is clear. The park routine in the station is actually simpler now...the train rolls down to a car length short, stops for way too long, then rolls down and parks. I am pretty sure that what they are doing is to operate the brakes at low pressure to keep the speed down, and it is the slower speed that accounts for the longer travel time.

It's still not as bad as Mine Ride, though....

In other news..how about re-evaluating the policies on what can be carried aboard the ride? For years, Magnum didn't need bins, largely because people were carrying their backpacks and purses aboard. It wasn't until Millennium Force came along that forbidding such carrying became common practice. But then Millennium Force lacks a car body to accommodate such stuff.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I know it usually never parked on the transfer table. The only time it did was if the station wasn't clear by the time it reached the parking position (either because the operator released it to the station too soon or the train in the station was stopped part way out after it was initially dispatched).

You're right though in that if it's taking 40 seconds from dispatch to park, that is at least 10-12 seconds longer than it ever was and will definitely make a huge difference operationally and they should strive to improve that From my impressions opening weekend, I didn't think it was THAT bad, but I didn't actually time it either and they were only running two trains so I only saw one stacked out there a couple times. I'll get a better look next time I go.

New control systems making rides WORSE than they were before in terms of capacity and common sense would hardly be new to Cedar Point.

I agree about re-evaluating the carry on policy, but I think it's unlikely to happen unless they get a new team of lawyers from Disney or something. Magnum with a "carry your stuff with you" policy was VERY efficient. I miss it being like that.

That would probably fall into the pattern of "consistency" over common sense (see: Iron Dragon height change). You can always tell when some new safety person comes in because of all of the arbitrary changes to things that weren't problems in the first place.

To me the whole consistency argument with the height requirement on Iron Dragon seems pretty lame - especially when in that case they're talking about consistency between all of their parks. In the case of loose articles, they aren't even consistent with that policy across just Cedar Point let alone across all of their parks.

If I were the park, I'd figure out a way to make people happy with this and make operations safe and consistent. They might need to spend some money to get that done with "free for the time of the ride" lockers or portable all day lockers or whatever, but I think the odds of it happening with Ouimet in charge are better than they ever were with Kinzel. Personally, I'm good with a no loose articles policy on all rides. That's how Universal does it. But they offer the lockers where you aren't being nickeled and dimed so people don't complain. Of course their one day admission is also close to $100 so nothing comes for free. :)

You're totally right about some of these things being "solutions" to non-existent problems. I think that is the case with Magnum's controls. I have no doubt that there was some work needed. A lot of the plumbing in terms of brake pads, air lines, etc was old and things were just worn out, but as far as programming, I don't think it needed to be re-done. It worked perfectly and with the way the ride is set up, there's really not a lot you could do better than it was done to begin with. It might be that they needed to replace the components because the old computer got hit by lightning and they couldn't replace what they needed to or something like that for all we know, but they didn't really need to change the concepts of the way things worked (and worked well).

I'm sure the system will be tweaked. Sure an older PLC, or hell even relay systems such as on my ride work quite well. I'm sure the park sees the issues in terms of ridership/etc for this and may eventually tweak the PLC to help move the trains faster.

I would hope so, but there are a hundred optimizations that you can see all over the place with programming and small things that would make operations more efficient - things like starting the floor up at Raptor while the train is finishing its parking (as is done on some of the newer inverts), slow station parking at Iron Dragon and Mine Ride, half baked train movement at Dragster (despite the 5000 prox switches), etc. They either aren't a high priority or they don't have the expertise on staff to do the modifications (at least in all cases) so they'd have to contract it out. You'd think in this case though, since it's a new system, there'd be some sort of leverage they'd have to force them to get it to function at least similar to the old system. If it's really taking 40+ seconds to get the next train parked, that is a big issue.

Magnum was facing EOL components, so the need to update the controls was obvious.

This is where the (only?) real advantage of relay logic systems like Gemini becomes obvious...that thing can run forever without updates because there is nothing to it. My understanding is that if an I/O board failed on Magnum, it could no longer be replaced. So the update does make sense.

Jeff: why is it that when the new safety person starts making arbitrary changes to things that were not problems, that person never seems to review previous arbitrary changes for sanity?

I guess this is a positive feedback loop. So long as there is no incident, you can't prove that you did too much, but if you have an incident you can be accused of doing too little. The little inconveniences start piling up but those never get evaluated, just dismissed in the name of safety, whether they make sense or not.

(Personally, I think anyone who writes a script for a safety announcement should be required to ride the ride and consider the context of the proposed announcement, but that's just me...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The bins are gone altogether now.

I haven't had a chance to ride Maggie yet as I only participated in opening day for just a few hours honestly but I have heard the trims are adjustable now and aren't the constant pressure like years prior. Not sure if it's true but that's what I've heard, and would make sense with a PLC upgrade. So if it's running slower, no trims needed, they stay open. Trims needed, it'll hit it with what it needs either alot of pressure, or a little. Hopefully I'll get clarification there

I've heard similar about the trims. Not sure what is truth and what is BS. They were always adjustable, but it involved a call to maintenance and a guy to drive out there in a truck and adjust the pressure. They'd usually start with really low pressure in the AM and on a hot day we'd have to call them to increase the pressure a bit. We tried to keep the trains running around 60 seconds from drop off the lift until they hit the safety brakes. I've had rides on Magnum ranging from 53 seconds (no trims, hot evening, super fast painful ejector air) to 75 seconds (cold windy morning, though I wasn't going to make it back). We did have the ability to turn them on or off from the control booth.

I suspect now the pressure regulates itself based on timings of previous trains. But there still SHOULD be a way to disable them completely for an empty or lightly loaded train or on cold/windy days.

Well yeah I remember they were adjustable, because you'd use the timer on the left above the trim brake on/off switch.

For what I would think, it could use the proxies to determine speed and trim accordingly, or it could even use the total trip time, who knows, all I know is I heard it self adjusts, which I have yet to verify or even experience.

Ah trimless warm rides, some of my favorites :P

A proxy and proximity (or prox) switch is not the same thing.

I've used the term proxies before in relation to a proximity switch, you understood what I meant, that's all that mattered to me.

I've definitely had Magnum rides on a hot evening when the trims grabbed hard and the pretzel was still out-of-control fast.

THANK YOU JEFF!!!