Running 6 trains ???

I have heard that TTD was running 6 trains Friday night (I believe it was that day). It was reported that it was running fine this way.

Can anyone confirm this? I was there on the 23rd and 24th, but never saw it run 6.

According to PB's TTD tech thing, it's possible. I've never seen it before though either.

The ride is designed to run 6 trains, so it is technically possible.

Whether or not it is practical is another matter. If true, it sounds like perhaps they've tweaked the programming again, or figured out a way to speed up operations a little, so maybe they're trying to get all six running.

Did you happen to notice what kind of interval they were running? If they can dispatch every 45 seconds, they can run all six trains to their advantage. Typically, though, they can dispatch one, dispatch the second in 45 seconds, then it takes a minute and a half to get the third train out. And that's because it takes too long to move the trains in the station and load them up.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(note: Has not studied Dragster operation as closely as Magnum operation)

I chuckle at your incorrect observations..

He's right more often than 3/4 of the people who have worked at CP. If he's wrong and you want to say something about it, how about you tell everyone what's really going on?

Dave always has a good answer (educated guess) with all the technical topics. Even though you work on the TTD crew, don't dis Dave.

TTDcrew05 what is he wrong about. Don't criticize if you have nothing to back it up.

I've never understood how 5 trains works so well because of how the ride loads and unloads in twos.

2 in the station 2 unloading, 1 in transit.

2 in load, 2 in unload, 1 in transit, then where's the 6th? It would either be prepping for launch or at the end of the brake run, correct?

/dons flame gear...

The 6th is usually on the storage tracks and not being used on a given day.

If I am correct, the trains are rotated every day so that there is an equal amount of wear on each train. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

^ No they switch every year or so I think. The 6th is just there for back up it seems.

^No Bird of Prey is correct. Not to sure on how they rotate and decide what train not to use, but there's always a different train on the storage track.

Gomez, they probably just rotate through the trains in order, each day putting a different one back on the storage after the morning test runs. Wouldn't be too hard to do.

I think daily rotation makes much more sense then yearly, after sitting around for a year a lot can happen, whereas sitting around for a day won't do any harm..

I think this is post 200,000!!

To back up Dave, the problem is (at least the problem was) there's a serious lag in moving the trains from block to block. They only move one train at a time so when you increase the number of trains, you increase the time to clear a block. With five, there's always room in safety/holding to put a train leaving the launch reset as the only real bottleneck (at least in a perfect world it's the only bottleneck, seatbelt/restraint issues aside).

As Dave said, unless they've tweaked the programming to something more like MF's "moving block" system, six train operation is more of a hinderance due to the extra time it takes to move so many trains. If they can move all six trains at the same time and not stagger when they move them, then there should be no issues.

Confusing?? Just hang out in the grandstands for a while to get the hang of this.

TTDcrew05 said:
I chuckle at your incorrect observations..

Put up or shut up, dude. Dave's been observing ride operations since you were wetting your nickers. If he's wrong, say why or stop trolling.

They actually have to log the number of hours they put on each train, and they try to keep the hours between trains as similar as possible.

The other day when I was there they took the ride down to take one train off and put the one on the storage track on. Not sure why they disturbed perfectly good operation to do this though because it had been running flawlessly nearly all day. Maybe they had to replace a wheel on the train.

If I remember correctly the red train sat out all of last year and when I was at CP the same train stayed on the storage track.

Last Year I rode red train at night. And about the train rotation some times I think they rotate trains durring the day because last year I walked by and the red train was off the next time I walked by the Black cherry train was off.

Going to be in Cedar Point in 7 Days 8-9-05 8-12-05