Opening day

Sounds really smart to me, Every time i have waited for dragster i have missed a rollback by one or two trains a head of me. Then we wait another half hour while they reset the ride. Then they launch one train and close the ride. Never fails. So putting Anti rollback wheels on the arch would be great. Maybe this year i can wait a normal wait and ride. Instead of waiting two hours then another hour while they reset.

Rollbacks or drive wheels on top of Dragsters tower?? What a joke! I pray some of you aren't taking it seriously (and I know some of you don't) cause that will never happen for the main reason that it doesn't make sense.

Actually it makes perfect sense because last season one of the trains got stuck at the top for a second time. I'm sure CF doesn't want that to happen again.

I wouldn't mind hearing from Tony about the authenticity of this.

It's authentic.

Its not that big a deal. Its one of those things that will get mentioned in the "list of all the changes we made for 2009". Maybe not even that... for example: who here even remembers/knew that Snake River Falls got magnetic brakes in 2007 (or was it 2006)?

Yeah, I'm with YeeHaw. I doubt it will even be mentioned.

TTD 120mph said:
Rollbacks or drive wheels on top of Dragsters tower?? What a joke! I pray some of you aren't taking it seriously (and I know some of you don't) cause that will never happen for the main reason that it doesn't make sense.

I'm going with Adam since he is the "expert". :) I thought it was BS at first, but then got worried. I don't know what to think now! ;)

Adam just isn't in the loop. It's true.

In the words of atari users no pics no clicks, so until I see an actual picture of these or can actually see them for myself I'm not believing it.

PIX OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN?

You will see opening day.

I'm not sure what, but it appeared in the latter part of the season (at least) that they were doing something differently. I wasn't seeing any trains getting rollbacks first thing in the morning.

It's sad that I know this is something Ben is doing to get to me. He's just still upset that I've passed him in posts.;)
Heck I'd prob be one of the first to know of something of this ridiculous magnitude.

And I really don't know what started this, but trust me (yes I know I'm sounding a bit high and mighty) when I say this isn't happening and will never happen. The top of the tower itself is a block. The sensor at the top is needed to tell the computer whether or not to move the next set of trains and so on and so on.
Drive wheels wouldn't help because they would have to be placed at a certain point on the crest for them to be of any help. The thing is, they don't make drive wheels that would be able to handle the load of pulling an already moving multiple ton train over an arched piece of track. Not to mention the maintenance nightmare it would be. If something were to happen and the drive motor stopped, the whole ride would stop until maintenance got up the tower, fixed the motors, got back down and did test runs.

The only possible idea is a set of drive wheels that engaged a train ONLY if it was stuck in order to give it just a little nudge to get it over the top. That idea is still a maintenance nightmare and all of this is a silly notion. You're going to go to the park in 82 days and see the same good ol Dragster.....trust me. And you can quote me on this.

Tony. If you are allowed to, could you please put an end to this and let us know either way?

If you dislike waits, you will appreciate them eliminating roll backs on TTD. Although an awesome ERT idea would be to give every ride a rollback and another shot over the hill. If they could purposely give us a rollback that is. That would make ERT much more valuable. When I say ERT here I mean the once a year ERT for TTD. Not morning ERT.

Mathematically though it seemed about every 12-15 times you ride TTD, you should get a roll back. We probably rode it around 30 times before we got a roll back.

Considering that several people now have come forward to say they have heard of this modification, it doesn't seem like just a joke to get you. Hell, I don't even know who you are.

As for "they don't make drive wheels that would be able to handle the load of pulling an already moving multiple ton train over an arched piece of track", once again, consider that we are not talking about pulling the train from the middle or high middle of the tower over the top. We are talking about trains that nearly make it over but don't (see that youtube I posted for an example of a rollback that would be eliminated). Furthermore, drive tires ALREADY move the multi-ton trains around the track. They do it every day. Looking at the youtube videos or the two (just loaded) times it got stuck, all the train needs is a little extra push.I don't know the engineering involved, but the ride already has retractable drive wheels on the brake run, I bet they could be similar at the top and only come up for a low speed launch. Plus the walkway is there for maintenance already, its no harder (and maybe easier) than fixing those sensors on top of the tower anyway.

I was anticipating for a post such as yours Yee Haw and I have a response. I understand the purpose of what the few of you are describing but it's still a silly idea. The fact that they'd spend that much money and time putting drive wheels up on a 420 ft hill is silly in itself. There's a lot of welding and cutting that would be required. All of which is for aiding a train that barely makes it over (as you described). The fact is that kind of scenario doesn't always happen. Each rollback is different due to launch speeds and other weather related variables. So that makes it pointless and not worth the time fixing when it's needed. The block at the top is required to tell the computer if the pressure in the hydraulic room needs to be increased or decreased. And I still stick with my point about the drive motors. They CAN NOT handle the load of a train that's at that high of a angle. They move them on a level plane. Not a plane exceeding 10 degrees. They just cant handle that load by themselves. You would need drive motors lining the whole top of the tower to be of any help. I know enough about Dragster to know this is nothing but a silly notion.

CP fanatic 2400 said:
Actually it makes perfect sense because last season one of the trains got stuck at the top for a second time. I'm sure CF doesn't want that to happen again.

So, do you get new windshield wipers because on 2 separate and unrelated swipes across your windshield they happened to not clean a bug?

The cost of doing this because of a couple instances doesn't make sense.

Lastly, most rollbacks are predictable. First full train of the day, first full train after down time. Other than that, unless there is an errant gust of wind at just the right time, rollbacks aren't that common. Not common enough to make a change to the ride like this.

Secondly, as someone else said, what happens if the wheel locks up and acts like a brake stopping the train at the crest? Then you can't even give the train a push.

I got my only ever rollback on TTD when temperatures were not ideal for a rollback, timing was not in our favor either in terms of after downtime or morning.

What was in our favor is for the first time I was on a train full of people who had half a brain.

If we all stick our arms out to the side just that alone will create drag.

So basically we get creeping forward and the whole front train is yelling everyones arms to the sides. they held there arms out to the side and showed what they meant.
kind of like make your arm an L, not a put your hands in the air straight up kind of look.

Anyways sure enough the train had atleast the first 2 trains doing it and it was enough to cause a rollback if you ask me. We also did the same thing on the second trip and we creeped over.

On the way back down from the rollback we all yelled and cheered as if we achieved victory.

Its ok if you are just upset that your chance of getting a rollback is going down. But to say that friction wheels can't handle moving up an incline is just wrong.Examples: http://rcdb.com/ig553.htm?picture=3 http://rcdb.com/ig557.htm?picture=1