Mean Streak - better?

Next up at cedar point, brown streak. So scary you'll leave a mess in your pants.

We went on ms yesterday and it was the worst I have ever felt. In the past people would say bad things about the ride and I would disagree with them. Now, I will bring the marshmallos if someone brings the zippo. The train before us had a puker on it and our car had a bleeder!! I hate to say it but, its time to take it down.

Yikes...I was one to defend Mean Streak as well. I'm scared to ride it this year...

lladnar said:
Next up at cedar point, brown streak. So scary you'll leave a mess in your pants.

LOL! I have not been to Cedar Point in many years but until I rode MF, Mean Streak was my favorite ride in the park. I like the fact that everyone hated it because it meant I didn't have to wait as long to ride it.

So if i am getting this correct, they have modified the steeply banked 2nd and 3rd hills to make them adapt better to lesser speeds, so if the trims were to be removed, the track is no longer properly designed for the increased speed over hills two and three, making it impossible to remove the brakes?

Why can't we just have an el toro?

Or take a page from holiday world and bring in TGG?

All i want is a respectable woodie, would love something the size of mean streak. Is that so much to ask?

^For the last 18 years, apparently it is.

On the other hand, I took two front seat rides on Monday and noticed that at the current speed, the train still isn't staying stuck to the outside rail. Which tells me that even cut down, the train is still going too slow for the track profile. I mean, there really shouldn't be any wear on the inside rail of a long curve!

Well, here's what I am talking about. This is a picture of the track on the final curve of Ravine Flyer 2. The picture was taken at the end of last season, so the coaster had been running all season long, and yet the inside rail looks like this. Not only is there no wear on the inside steel (you're looking up at the side and bottom steel) the track is actually rusting because the wheels do not touch it. But you don't see that on Mean Streak, because the train isn't running fast enough.

Now, I am not privy to Cedar Point's maintenance information. I don't know why it is that they want Mean Streak to run so slowly, especially knowing as I think I do that if it were running faster, it would run better.

I don't know this for certain, and if anybody does know, please correct me. But I honestly think that between John Miller in the 1920's and the engineers of GCI and CCI in the 1990's, I don't think anybody ever really looked seriously at how the train interacts dynamically with the track and figured out what is really going on. I know that the current designers look very carefully at that interaction, and it shows in the way the newer rides behave. But what does that mean when a ride like Mean Streak, which is designed to be a twister, was apparently designed with the design philosophy developed for out and back rides?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I rode it once Monday myself. I sat near the middle and I mean to tell you, I have never been bounced around like that on any ride. I actually thought the fillings in my teeth were going to come loose. But as strange as this may sound though, I enjoyed it. Reason being was, I couldn't quit laughing the entire run through. The unbelievable roughness and the fact that CP has put a product out there like this, is just funny to me I guess. The rest of my group ofcourse, didn't find it nearly as amusing.

I also noticed 2 rows of boards running parallel down the middle of the track almost the entire coarse. As far as I can remember, those were never there in previous years. Probably just another tell-tale sign of the ever increasing problems with this coaster.

Most excellent summaries Rideman!

Super Stew,

It has been reported elsewhere that there are similar boards on Blue Streak this season and that they are related to OSHA fines CP received last year.

As an engineer, I would like to instrument one of the trains with speed sensors, accelerometers, and a clocking data recorder. It would be interesting to then correlate the vibration data with train position during its run. It would help pinpoint where in the track layout it has the roughest ride and in what axes the vibration is occuring. An inspection of the track in those locations would help confirm any hypotheses and lead to real solutions.

Or...don't spend the money, make some guesses, slap some wood up (or take some out) and hope for the best.

Or...have a bonfire and start over.

I rode it the day after opening day and the Trim breaks were off. The ride was much more enjoyable then in the past. Im not understanding the previous posts?

Don't you think all of that engineering data has been collected already, probably many times?

Maybe, but my gut tells me that the fixes thus far have been dictated by "experts" who use their intuition based on experience to guide their decisions. I have seen this a lot in my career. It takes time, money, and good equipment to get good hard data. Sometimes the problem warrants it, sometimes not. In this case, I'm guessing since safety isn't the issue and they figure no one expects a really smooth ride from a woody, patchwork "fixes" based on someone saying "do this here" works for them.

Or...if they have it has, as Rideman has suggested, pointed out to them that the ride has basic design flaws (highly banked turns w/o correctly accounting for speed and gauge) that cannot be corrected w/o a major and costly overhaul. In that case, you just keep it patched up until the capital spending plan for its replacement kicks in some year.

And that appears to be the current operating plan, as the patchwork done this winter did nothing to improve the rideability but kept it status quo based on the feedback in this thread.

My question is, what do they do with the data?

Instrumenting the train is now standard procedure, so standard, in fact, that ASTM F2137-2004 will tell you exactly where to put the accelerometer, how to filter the data, how to calibrate the device, what sample rate to use, and how to document the test. I'm pretty sure that Cedar Point was actually one of the earliest adopters of accelerometer testing to determine the biodynamic characteristics of each ride.

Rapids does bring up an interesting point, though. We know Cedar Point is collecting this data, probably above and beyond the Standard Amusement Ride Characterization Test (SARC) described in F2137. The question is, what are they doing with the data? Are they merely performing the test, verifying that the traces all fit within industry accepted tolerances for biodynamic effects, and calling it good? Or are they leveraging that data as Rapids suggests, comparing the accelerations to the track condition and trying to optimize the ride. Based solely on what we see being done to the ride, I am inclined to believe they are using the acceleration data exclusively for biodynamic analysis, not for mechanical analysis, or at the very least they are concluding from the biodynamic analysis that the ride is "ok" and leaving it at that.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

As much as we've discussed MS and all its miseries and woes, at the end of the day, CP must feel that there aren't any real significant problems with this ride. They can't. If they did, we would have seen more than just these so-called "patch work fixes" every year. It also must not be hitting them very hard in the pocketbook either. If it were, again, I think some serious changes other than normal off season maintenance would have taken place.

Ofcourse one could also be inclined to say that CP just doesn't care about this coaster either. Basically taking the stance, as long as it's 100% safe, who gives a crap about anything else. Grant it, that's probably a stretch.

It is interesting how cedar fair owns the 2 roughest woodies in the country now with sob and ms. Mabe they could have a " bonfire across ohio" event and hand out marshmallows , chocolate , and grahm crackers!

Mean Streak and even SOB have nothing on the Rattler at SFFT. Never has one ride caused me so much pain :(. On my one and only ride, I managed to get a shot of pain shooting up my back about once every 10 sec on the stupid helix thing it has.

RideMan where were the second & third hills? THANKS! :)

I have always been a big fan of Mean Streak and even defended against those that didn't like it. I can handle rough and in a sick way, I kind of enjoy it. But I just got back from my first trip to CP in several years and after riding Mean Streak I almost cried. With those breaks at the top of the first drop, the ride has been castrated. I was worried that the train was not going to make it up the 2nd hill. The ride was so slow and tame that I literally had a conversation with my girlfriend while we were riding. I was in disbelief and I refused to ride it again because I knew I would just get more upset.

If this is how Mean Streak is going to continue to ride, please someone put the ride out of its misery and drop the match now.