New Steel Vengeance Locker System for 2021

I definitely think the program needs tweaking, but I tend to agree that limiting the number of rides mid season would devalue the thing for people who already bought it and I wouldn't say that's a smart thing to do. I'd probably vote for a stiff price increase on the daily sales. It won't help as much for the rest of the season since a ton of them are probably already pre-purchased at this point, but it will help some and then come next season, they could sell half as many at double the price and both the purchasers and no purchasers will be happy.

But then again, there's another thread about how they're letting Gold pass people in at 9AM devaluing the Platinum Pass and the Resort perks so obviously they didn't care enough about the feeling of people who bought something expecting one thing and then end up getting something else in that case.

CP just need to think things through a little more sometimes. Randomly changing crap midseason just seems unpolished for a park of their stature. I'd expect it from a carnival, not from a world class amusement park.

I was at CP on Thursday, June 3rd, and have to say it was one of the best days I've had there in a very long time. Plenty of rides, quick food lines and even 4 rides on SV with less than an hour wait in the regular line. Seeing trains dispatched on SV as the one on the course hit the MCBR was awesome. I had never seen that nor did I ever expect to. Also, not seeing the same FL users given preferential treatment when it comes to choosing seats on SV, over and over again, makes me very happy. I do love the new lockers, too.

My only suggestion is that with the right and left line for SV, they need to figure out where the spot is that both lines are equal after the lockers and only fill the right line to that point or maybe the seat assigner should split the seats 14-10 for longer vs shorter line. The left line (former fast lane line) is 2-3 trains shorter.

Otherwise, an awesome day there. Looking forward to going back on Sunday.

Is anyone able to report on how SV's line has been working recently? I've seen reports that the park has been experimenting with filling less of the post-merge tunnel and staircases, as many on here have suggested.

I was there on Thursday. They were limiting the number of people in the merge line to about 1/3 of the length of it. They had just one line going into the station also. It seemed like it worked better then before...maybe less confusion going on when you use the lockers. They weren't using the stairs on the left for just FL users anymore so merging the locker and non-locker users into a single lane didn't change the time. I rode it two times yesterday and it seemed like they were making a better effort filling the trains. Maybe having one stairs helped that.

^ Thanks for sharing. That sounds like the best solution to me. It ensures there are always people available to fill the next train without making people (mainly FLP users) wait longer than they have to after the merge point.

And although there’s no FLP staircase, reducing to one merged staircase ensures the line flows more quickly and evenly. And it also saves a second metal detector staff position.

Just checking for signs of the zombie apocalypse. No one has posted all day in any thread!

I'll play along... I'd say the locker system is helping with throughout. Someone said the crew hit 45 cycles in an hour yesterday. I've NEVER seen what's happening in this tweet happen since the Mean Streak days (and even then not very often the last few years).

https://twitter.com/Rytheguy2000/status/1406091352711090177

Wow. I'll say the Steel Vengeance crew has to be the fastest moving crew I have seen this year at Cedar Point. However, I'm not convinced that picture isn't photoshopped.

The full queue combined with the empty rows because of the lockers drives me crazy

0g, You could be right considering I've not seen them come within probably 30 seconds of doing that ever. But if they truly hit 45 cycles in an hour as they said, that's an average of a dispatch every 80 seconds. By my calculation in order to get this pic, they'd have had to have had about a 72 second dispatch which would probably mean about 45 seconds of station dwell time which is what Magnum crew has been dealing with and hitting interval quite regularly for 30+ years. I wonder if there have been any changes to the ride by CP or IOE to get the train in faster from the holding brake? It always has seemed like they might be able to save a handful of seconds there as the train doesn't get parked until the previous one has gone through transfer, around the turn, over the bunnies, and hits the lift. It pretty much takes as long as Magnum does to get the train parked and this is a brand new ride with drive tires instead of gravity doing the work. :)

Cartwright - I've seen a lot of that this year and yea, that is a big hit to capacity to have 3 or 4 empty seats on a 24 passenger train. I think the problem is not necessarily the lockers as there are always people waiting on the stairways after the lockers, but the two stairway system. I honestly think they'd be better just using one of the stairways after the lockers. Either that or just alternating full trains from left to right and not trying to do two here, two there, etc. Then they get near the end and have a couple groups of 6 or 8 and can't get anyone else up there quick enough to fill the train. They could mitigate the Fastlane complainers by keeping the tunnel leading to the lockers less full - say a third or half full.

Steel Vengeance is a lot harder to operate than Magnum because you have to manually push down the lap bar for each and every seat.

Well, that's the way the park has chosen to operate it (they could just as easily let the guests pull the lapbars down and have the staff just check that they are locked), but I wouldn't argue with you that there have been a lot of factors preventing high throughput on Steel Vengeance. I think the RMC trains leave a lot to be desired in this regard. The belts aren't really very visible at all when the bar is down which I assume is why they do what they do with having the staff put them down. Those lapbars are so heavy and hard to lift are another factor so it takes people longer to exit. I noticed last visit, they weren't doing the criss-cross double check nonsense. Just check your seats visualy double check them yourself as you return to position.

During the night ERT at CoasterMania, they were at approximate 1 minute dispatch intervals. As soon as a train cleared the MCBR, they dispatched another train. It was definitely a sight.

I owe Zoug and apology. You were right about FastLane. Reading some of these horror stories make me almost not want to go back to CP…

As for the proposed FLP restrictions, I’ve been saying that for a few years now. Offer tiered access. Truly unlimited would be ultra big bucks. And I’ve specifically mentioned the ride-a-different-ride-before-reriding deal. Y’all* said I was making things too complicated.

*Maybe not all y’all here on PB, I can’t remember if the conversation was here or on Facebook.

Top Thrill 182 said:

Is anyone able to report on how SV's line has been working recently? I've seen reports that the park has been experimenting with filling less of the post-merge tunnel and staircases, as many on here have suggested.

Let's use a busy day as an example (this past Sunday).

FLP was about a 25 minute wait. The tunnel was vacated completely up to the metal detectors. Regular queue was about 90 minutes. This was our first trip, and I was a little confused about where everything was headed with regards to the approach to the tunnel, but once I saw it was clear to the metal detectors it all made sense.

Multiple rides, and I don't recall seeing many empty seats outside the norm of any other ride, much less empty rows. The crew was hustling as much as possible, with trains dispatching once the previous train hit the MCBR. A stark difference from the past two seasons. Then again, three train operation is also a big difference.

I'm not sure what "horror stories" Shane is referring to. I just got home, and we're already planning our next trip.

I rode SV for the first time yesterday (Saturday) since Memorial Day. The post-merge line was much shorter and faster than before, but I’m not sure if I just got lucky.

The merge attendant seemed to admit a large number of guests (standby and FLP) into the tunnel all at once to more or less fill it, then wait for the tunnel to completely clear before repeating the process.

Both metal detectors/stairways to the station were in use, but the process at each metal detector felt slow. Attendants appeared to hand wand every guest on all four sides and throughly examine every detection.

After the metal detectors, each stairway was about half full. Though, since guests were largely free to choose, the right stairway had a slightly longer line than the left.

I don’t really understand the purpose of completely filling and then clearing the merge tunnel (as opposed to keeping a consistent, small number of guests on hand). And I wonder what prevents the stairways from overfilling in that scenario (unless the merge attendant just keeps an eye on it). But at least tonight, I was able to get on and off the ride using FLP much faster than I did in May.

The standby line was actually significantly longer than the FLP line, which was nice to see (at least for a FLP user!).

For what it’s worth, dispatches we’re consistently fast, too. I didn’t see much stacking, which is a first for me!

Was at the park last night. They really need to figure out Steel Vengeance queues.

They were only running two trains and they couldn't get enough people to fill the trains. One time I rode with 8 other people. Another time 11. They need to let more people past the merge point and use both lanes for metal detecting. That would hopefully keep the stairs full for available riders to fill the train. As popular ride as it is, filling the trains should be a priority.

I completely agree. I haven't rode in a couple weeks but it seems like every time they struggle to fill the trains. I don't know that both stairs is the answer though. Every time I've been there they were using both and were still sending trains half full. I actually felt like they'd do better with one because it seemed like they couldn't manage sending people from both lines fast enough. Something really needs to be changed with their operation.

Can someone briefly explain how a SV train can possibly get only 10 or so passengers in it?

^ We saw that a couple of weeks ago...the person wanding was so incredibly slow they couldn't keep the platform full.