Millenium Force Fiberglass Trains

Can someone tell me the myth with the green train? Was there actually one and what happened to it?

The green train was the best train until..... the accident. We try not to talk about accident anymore.

If I hear people in line complain about a long wait it only tells me that they don't like to wait, not that they're necessarily being observant as to what's happening with the ride or what they've overheard.

I do, however, hear people say things like "they were only running one car" and I always want to turn and say "seats, cars, trains".

The Green Train never existed, MF has always had 3 trains--except for Opening Weekend this year. :)

The fable is that the fictional green train missed the curve and landed in the bay. Or, if you prefer, it missed the turn, flew off and landed in the bay. That's why they added the overbank :)

RCMAC said:

If I hear people in line complain about a long wait it only tells me that they don't like to wait

...as opposed to those people that like to wait?

So has anybody been to the park this week, and know whether the yellow train has been put on the track?

As for the line discussion, I would agree that the casual park guest would probably not see much of a difference between 2-train and 3-train operation. We do because we've been in the line enough times to know how it affects loading speed. I guarantee the casual park guest noticed how slow the line was moving when it went down to only a single train Sunday afternoon.

The unload station on MF makes 2 trains horribly inefficient. The ride really needs three trains to run at any decent capacity with the way it's designed. They'd have been better making one station where load/unload happens. If they did that, they probably could have gotten almost the same capacity with two trains as they do now with three and the separate load/unload.

Same theme with Dragster. Virtually the same capacity could have been achieved with just one station and four trains. But instead, they signed off on an over-complicated and more expensive design initially and are stuck staffing the extra positions, maintaining the extra trains, drive tires, motors, proximity switches, etc of the unload station forever. Thanks Imtamin!

I'm here right now having an 8 buck up charge Midway Market.
There still is no yellow train.

When I rode MF this morning there was no line but the station was full of oncoming riders. I guess I noticed it was slightly slower with 2 trains, but not that much. Maybe if I were to wait in a full queue (which I'm never about to) I'd think differently.

And Scottyf, I meant as opposed to the people who accept they're going to wait.

Rob wins the Internet.

I think if we were to measure it, the capacity of MF would be reduced by more than a third when running two trains.

On the flip side, at least the lift is max speed the whole way up instead of kicking it into gear halfway up!

Lol.

Can we maybe stop beating a dead horse? There is no yellow train now, no one knows when it will appear. After a long winter, why not just go out to the park and enjoy yourself without getting worked up over missing trains and rides that are down?

Maybe they're eliminating the yellow train. Wouldn't be the first time they have taken a coaster to a two train operation. (I know that's crazy talk.)

Go to a park and enjoy yourself? What's the fun of that? :-)

Pete, the reason is simple:

Having trains ready to go is one of the most basic thing a park needs to do. CP FAILED!!!

CP knows when its Opening Day is. As has been pointed out, they know how long it takes to refurbish trains. Therefore. . .

It has been suggested that something atypical caused an "unexpected" delay. Of course, we don't know this. Some people are willing to assume it, others are not. If something caused an unexpected delay on MF's Yellow train, it apparently affected WT as well. In fact, these events were so unexpected that they took MORE time than CP allocated for preseason testing, training & certification. Not to mention 1 week of the season--and counting.

Possible. Can anyone remember trains on multiple rides missing testing, training & certification AND the first week of the season. (BTW, have we decided if TTD & Magnum had all of their trains ready for Opening Day?)

It is also possible, as has been pointed out, that CP had an atypical amount of in-house construction-type work being done. (See Scooby's new favorite coaster) Neither side can say for sure whether it was atypical problems (CP would certainly know how big of a time margin to build in for typical problems) or bad scheduling on CP's part. And the park isn't telling.

But people who paid for admission on Opening Day--as opposed to those of us who have season passes and will chalk it up to a bad day on one of our multiple visits--have every right to expect top level operations. CP ITSELF SAYS SO. Ask Kinzel. In fact, ask whoever had to tell Jason McClure that one of his coaster would be down on Opening Day and that his most popular coaster would be at to 2/3 capacity on a weekend. Maybe there was nothing CP could have done about it. That doesn't make the park experience any better to people who drove an hour or more and paid $$$ to go to CP on Opening Weekend--even if we enthusiasts tend to be more forgiving since we will have multiple other trips to make up for it.

And that it why it gets discussed. Even if completely justified, CP failed at one of most basic tasks, and that affected people. How many years after TTD was reliable were people & Kinzel talking about its first seasons? Or STR?

^ Exactly. And who said we weren't enjoying ourselves? I still had some great fun opening weekend. But MF being open doesn't invalidate the complaints about one less train running. How about WT? That's not running at all and the park put it on their website that there is no estimated opening for it, which doesn't sound promising.

Captain Hawkeye said:

Possible. Can anyone remember trains on multiple rides missing testing, training & certification AND the first week of the season. (BTW, have we decided if TTD & Magnum had all of their trains ready for Opening Day?)

Dragster wasn't running opening day 2011, or opening weekend if I recall I know for sure it was down all of opening day

Maxair was also down for awhile in the beginning of 2011

Sky Ride was down due to repairs a few years back (might have even been my season not too sure)

It happens, it's unfortunate. All we can do is hope for speedy fix and get it properly working again. Us contemplating and ranting and raving won't make it happen any quicker. They're working on it, clearly they'd want all of their rides operational from open to close every day of the season, but these are machines, and they do tend to break and need overhauled/worked on. Unfortunate, but we have to live with it. Trust me I'm bummed, I wanted to ride it and compare launches between this and Volcano as I rode it not long ago. However, it was down, ah well, off to enjoy other things in the park.

If there was any way they could have had the yellow train in operation on opening day they would have done it. The fact that the train is still AWOL is making the theory that something much larger than a simple lack of manpower or planning is to blame. The bottom line is CP would have had that train up and running if they could have, they aren't just letting it sit idle for no reason.

But those weren't because of trains. Mechanical stuff happens: c'est la vie. Trains are not high tech--they should be ready a much higher percent of the time than the ride itself. Do we have any other examples of trains not being ready for Opening Day? We know about boats not being ready :)

If it's so simple and easy to do, you would think they'd have done that already wouldn't you...Also I listed my examples already. Secondly how do you know maybe they found something getting it back together that needed taken care of? Maybe something they found during NDT (Non Destructive Testing). How about maybe a parts supplier didn't get them the right part, or on time? Speculating does nothing, all we can do is watch and wait

If you also want other examples outside of CP:

See BGW with Tempesto this season

Windseekers all over

Goliath was delayed opening

Verruckt the insane water coaster was super delayed

Smiler at Alton Towers had issues opening on time.

Stuff happens, yes there are schedules and timetables to hit, but again, stuff happens. Sit back, relax, enjoy the other 70+ rides, soon to be open Live E, and fantastic midway food, and of course the lake! One coaster inoperable bites, one coaster running at decreased capacity bites, but there's so much more to do and lingering on these issues goes nowhere..