Recent rain policies

I seem to remember reading shortly after the Magnum accident earlier this season that even rides that traditionally remained open in the rain, specifically coasters, were closed once it began raining. Since I'm going up with a friend this weekend and the forecast generally calls for rain, I was wondering if this policy is this policy still in effect?

I have a season pass so I personally don't care, but he might change his mind on going to save a bit of cash. (Yay college...)

Thanks!

I was there about a month ago. We were in line for maverik, and the sky got all cloudy. They shut the ride down, because they said there was a storm in the area. We left the line, and it seemed as if most of the rides were shut down. Its really a dumb policy, all the rides shut down if its raining a little bit.

The only rides really affected are rides that run on tracks... basically the coasters. Attractions like maXair will still run as long as there is no lightning in the area. Most coasters either reduce operation in a light rain (if they don't close), and they typically all close in a heavy rain.

When I was there a week ago it was raining for a couple hours. It seems like everything will run in light rain (except TTD) but will close when it gets too hard. For some reason Millennium Force never really closed and it was raining pretty bad at times, which surprised me. Everything else was down and they were still running Millennium. Rides like Power Tower and MaXair never closed...

Don't blame the park. Blame that people that sue the park when they're injured or killed by the weather. I can't really fault them for protecting themselves from the lawyers.

The Millenium Force uses unpowered magnetic brakes, usually why it doesn't close I guess.

millennium uses a braking system which is not affected by water. however so does ttd, and maverick, so why they shut those and not millennium, I don't know...

Well... I can't really imagine going 0 to 120mph in under 4 seconds while it's raining. It has got to feel like rocks being thrown at your face. Ouch.

Maverick I'm not too sure about though.

All three of those technically use the rubber drive tires to stop the train. The magnets slow it down to almost a stop, but it relies on the tires to physically stop the train. Obviously rubber tires are affected by water. So, that's why they shut down. I believe Wildcat is the same way.

I was there 7/26, and it barely sprinkled, and EVERYTHING coasterwise shut down. TTD was the worst though, b/c it can't make it over the hill with wet tracks. PT & Maxair remained open through the rain, and so did most if not all of the flat rides.

Top Thrill Dragster loses traction on the unload tires when wet which makes the overtravel pretty bad. Better to leave a train over them and wait for the rain to clear. Also, the catch car is effected by the water. The reason the brakes were added at the launch end for the catch car was that the catch car would haul ass and slam into the limit when wet. Shortly after, the water system was added to keep the catch car cool and protect the nylon from damage.
Dragster becomes interesting when transfering trains off with wet drive tires. Many hosts bumped trains together at low speed.

Millennium Force's issues are with the drive tires. The waiting area overtravels the most often. The ideal position for the train is when the front car running board is about a foot before the end of the catwalk on the end of the platform. Normally, it's closer to a foot past. The train must overtravel about 6 feet before triggereing the overtravel proximity sensors. The train has something like 6-10 feet more to travel before hitting the unload train. It's come damn close, but has never happened. The close call was when the rod the holds up the drive tire snapped causing it to drop down leaving 1 tire to stop the train. When you exit by the stairs you can see it, it has a spring wrapped around it.

Unload overtravels on occasion, but it's rare these days. It happened more when the ride was new. The noteworthy point is that it can travel onto the transfer. This can be particularly annoying when the train in load needs to be transfered off for a bad wheel or tire. As rumor has it, there was at least one occasion that the train in unload completely failed to stop an ran into the load train.

Load overtravels are the most interesting. They are also the most uncommon. When running 3 trains, they cause the ride two switch train op modes. With two train, load and unload dispatch independently and waiting proceeds when clear. Three trains dispatches together to keep run trains faster. Waiting also proceeds when clear. When the train in load overtravels, it can cause the trains to dispatch independently. This means you can send load only. When it clear the load block, then you can send the unload train. This guarantees that the load train will block stop at the top of the lift. Sometimes the unload train will be dispatched, and sometimes it won't be. This type of operation is uncharted so sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Also the person in charge might freak out and shut the ride down.

As a side note, magnetic brakes are able to stop trains dead in their tracks on level track. Wicked Twister stops with just magnetic brakes. Millennium Force does so too during some estops. If Top Thrill Dragster didn't have drive tires in it's hold areas, it would too. The problem with this is that something needs to get the trains going again so drive tires are often used to take control of the train after retarding. Wicked Twister gets around this by operationg the motors at a low frequency to move the trains. This creates a lot of heat though.

Wildcat's brakes simply don't work well when wet enough. The good thing is that the ride keeps 2 brakes between cars. If a car does slip through a brake, it has another to stop it. The tires do become slippery when wet, but that is easily dealt with.

Demon Drop has 3 reason why it can't run in rain. The photoeyes get falsely triggered, the brakes don't work well, and the anti rollbacks on the elevator don't work either.

I think its funny how TTD can't run in any precipitation at all but the launch track is constantly dripping water and they spray the end of the launch with water during every run...

I'm sure theres a reason, it just seems funny...

The brakes that they put in fixed the problem with the catch car reversing issues.

Now it's more of an issue of the unload drive tires. They don't make static contact with the trains because of the turn which decreases friction. Water makes the situation worse.

Disaster transport can't run in the rain because of it's free wheeling design. The trough is always greasy, but once it gets wet, the shuttles go completely out of control. What happens is that going around the corners the back end kicks out, and it climbs up the wall.... it's a little like a lose racecar at bristol.
Next time you are going through the second half look up in the tunnels, those aren't simulated stars... they're holes in the roof.