Millennium Force Cable Issue

It is what physically hooks onto the train to pull it up the lift hill. TTD has one too.

Jason Hammond said:
It is what physically hooks onto the train to pull it up the lift hill. TTD has one too.

I just thought i would put it in the easiest words possible :P sorry it wasn't good enough for you haha.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened.... If you look in the pic I posted you can still see the cable running vertically as it normally is... I'm guessing that the cable possible broke behind the catch car when it was cresting the hill? I'm stumped.

My first thought is that the catch car somehow stuck to the train and got ripped over the hill, snapping the cable at some point on the up sideof the hill. Its tough to say based solely on that picture and withoutspecific knowledge of the ride. I'd like to hear what an eyewitness sawwhen it happened.

For some reason to me i'm thinking the catch car didn't want to let go. I don't know I don't think this has ever happened so I have no clue.

I don't even know if that's possible. If it did happen where a train pulled the catch car down with it, I imagine the train would have been damaged too...

OKSIRYDOC said:
I just thought i would put it in the easiest words possible :P sorry it wasn't good enough for you haha.

Your post wasn't on the screen when I clicked submit. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered posting mine. I wasn't trying to usurp you.

Yeah i know, but looking at the picture it looks like the cable was pulled down until it hit something. Oh, and Jason i was just joking haha I didn't care

Seems like a plausible theory, especially since there has been no word of a lift evacuation.

Oh no! We're making our first trip to CP on Tuesday - travelling more than 1,000 miles to get there, and this!? Please, if anyone has information about what's happened and if it's likely to be fixed, post it as soon as you can.

^If the issue is what everyone here is suggesting then it very well may take a while to fix MF.

What I'm wondering is if when the cable pulled to begin reversing the catch car down the hill, it snapped, causing the catch car to fall forward... If that were the case, the train would have already been going around the overbank, and would have completed the course safely. However... It just seems like there would have been other residual damage due to the cable snapping back, or getting caught on things. A ride host would have to E-stop the ride almost immediately to prevent more damage from occuring. Of course this is all speculation since this has never happened before...

The catch car does go over the top of the hill, and as such, if the return cable (the one uptrack of the car that returns to the winding drum nearer to the ground) breaks, it's perfectly expected that the catch car will slide down the first drop. The problem is, I'm guessing that the channel it sits in has an abrupt stop somewhere around where the pulling cable goes through the track down to the drum, giving it nowhere to go.

The damage issue will likely come down to the condition of the catch car and the channel in the track it slides through. If it came out, I suspect it's not a trivial repair.

Based on the funcam, it looks like the catch car and the cable separated at the back end of the car (assuming there is an attachment here to bring it back to the station), perhaps as the cable was rewinding. The train had most likely already been released and headed down the course. The resulting release in tension may have provided enough energy to cause the car to flip over on itself, which is what it looks like on the cam.

Chickadee: A swag, but if the car is not damaged, and if where it separated from the cable is easily repaired, and if they can get a crane in there in short order to pick up the pieces, and if they can figure out why it happened in the first place and is not a safety issue, then you may yet get your ride. A lot of ifs!!

In any case, the Point is a fantastic trip, with or without MF.

Yes, a lot of ifs, but we'll cross our fingers and stay hopeful. It sounds crazy, because so many of the other coasters are better, but I've been most looking forward to MF. It'll be tough to stomach if we get there, and it's closed.

However, like Jeff said... The catch car should not have come out of it's track/channel. Since it did, I would have to assume there is additional damage. In this pic you can see how the catch car sits in it's channel at the top of the hill. Under the 2 blue rails are the wheels for the catch car. What I don't know is if there is an "abrupt stop" at the end of the catch car channel. I know in the load station the catch car can just slide out of the channel under the station, but I don't know how it is at the top of the hill.

Oh no!! My son who is 51 1/2" tall (and thus just barely not able to go on TTD or Maverick which he also desperately wants to go on) was really looking forward to riding MF on his first "BIG" coaster riding trip tomorrow. I guess you can all blame me for MF's troubles--that thing is ALWAYS down every single time I go. :(

Anyone call the park yet? The blog says the exclusive ride time on the MF is cancelled tonight but they "hope" to reschedule it "soon." That's too inspecific 5 days before our trip.

Did some research and found this thread:
CoasterBuzz

Looks like a similar kind of thing happened in September of 2001, but from the thread, it sounds like there wasn't much if any damage to the catch car. Anyone have links to what ultimately happened with that and how long it took to get fixed?

chickadee: I seriously doubt that Cedar Point management knows the entire extent of the problem and how long it will take to fix. Frankly, even if they did, I doubt they'd be releasing that info to the public already.