Saturday Sept 8

Parking lot seemed pretty busy as did security/front entry gates as of 9am. Looks like many rides are up for the private event thus far. Cool temps and wind but nothing crazy yet.

Well everyone got to ride the coasters 90+times no wonder they no longer open Friday for bonus weekend.

I'm at the park now. Surprised it's so busy given the weather conditions. The main lot is almost full.

Looking at the webcams and wow, you're right, main lot is pretty full. Looks like most coasters are down, Raptor with a 60+ minute wait. I hope it works out for everyone there but it looks like a pretty rough day to be at the park.

Reminds me of about 4-5 years ago I made the mistake of trying to go to the park on a Saturday of closing weekend. Not only was the place packed, gale force winds kept most of the coasters down. Troika Troika Troika! was pulling over an hour wait. I basically went on the train, Blue Streak, and left.

Edit: Looks like they are cycling empties on Millennium Force right now. Hopefully they can open it up for y'all.

Edit Edit: And now they opened TTD and it looks like Maverick as well, so clearly I'm a dunce.

operative_me said:

Reminds me of about 4-5 years ago I made the mistake of trying to go to the park on a Saturday of closing weekend. Not only was the place packed, gale force winds kept most of the coasters down. Troika Troika Troika! was pulling over an hour wait. I basically went on the train, Blue Streak, and left.

I remember that day well. The following day, closing day, was even worse. I witnessed mine ride, iron dragon, and even magnum all valley. They literally could not get any coaster running. I still had fun though walking around, watching the parade, and having some adult drinks. Oh yeah, and the train.

Any idea why nothing is running max trains on such a busy day? Gatekeeper running two, Raptor two, Corkscrew one.

It’s been spitting rain here on and off so they usually go down a train when that happens.

I don’t understand what is going on with this storm system. All the wind indicators show an east wind but on radar everything is moving east. Fortunately for CP it the north border seems to be hovering around Route 2 most of the time.

It's actually been a pretty nice day here. A bit on the cool side and windy, but the wind actually seemed to die down a bit. Most rides are running and the park is packed.

Pete’s the most accurate weatherman I’ve seen, I trust a boater insight.

My son & I were there today from 1:15 to 3:30. We rode some of the rides that we usually do not ride too frequently. Maxair, Wicked Twister, no wait at all. Also Cedar Downs, SkyHawk, Wave Swinger, CPLE RR. I noticed a large structure across from MF entrance that I think is a new placement for the large talking Ogre for Halloweekends. I didn't notice any of you who said you were there Brian, Steve, Pete, although the only one I ever met is Brian. I did see Jason Maclure at the front gate, maybe counting money.

Always good to see Gemini running both sides after Labor Day!

Doe anyone have any idea why Raptor went downfor a few minutes after it opened today? Also I'd love to meet other people from this site. That'd be cool...funny thing is I did actually dream about that happening. 😀

If you guys need an idea of how crowded it is here, the parking lot is so full that I've spent well over 45 minutes looking for my car. I'm still looking.

What I’d rather know is why when there is one raindrop they insist on taking every Arrow coaster to one train or simply taking them down. I know they blamed the rain on the 2007 Magnum train bump - but I just feel like there really is no evidence that Arrow brake fins aren’t reliable in the rain. And on a busy day like today, it just is a capacity disaster.

Ohio: -gently sprinkles one rain drop-

TTD: -closes for 3 hours-

^^ Want reasons why attendance might be down? Close half the park at the slightest sprinkle and watch the 40,000 people who were at the park today rethink their visit the next time they might want to go and there is any possibility of rain. And no, Magnum’s accident had nothing to to with the rain.

^^Magnums safeties never seemed like a great setup. Usually the first couple cars would stop past the brakes / end of catwalk even in dry weather. I'm sure the rain diminishes the braking ability to some degree , but I'd think by now they could've engineered a better solution to stop safely and more smoothly in all weather instead of using an operational bandaid.

Of course SV also proved you don't need rain to play bumper cars on coasters.

Skyhawk06 said:

If you guys need an idea of how crowded it is here, the parking lot is so full that I've spent well over 45 minutes looking for my car. I'm still looking.

There's an app for that.

I never for a minute believed the Magnum bump was caused by the rain. Unfortunately because it was raining that morning, it permanently changed the rain policies for the park for the worse.

Magnum's braking setup wouldn't be designed the way it is of it were built today, but I also don't think the rain was the single cause of the problem. Up through the mid 2000's, Magnum RARELY stopped in the safety brakes loaded with guests. Now, they'll stack there more in a couple hours than we did in a week when I worked there. A bad day was 3 times. The goal was zero. We used to have to run down underneath the lift to release them after calling and speaking with a supervisor to explain what happened. Now they just release the safeties with simultaneous buttons in the booth ans at dispatch enable. 2007 was near the beginning of when they went from stacking almost never to doing it as commonplace. I forget when the loose article bins showed up, but I bet they were there that year and they didn't help matters. CP probably wasn't keeping as close of an eye on the wear of those safety brakes as they needed to be given the change in how the ride was being operated. In addition to the brake pads/calipers, all of the other components were approaching 20 years old.

I'm pleasantly surprised that Magnum continues to operate most of the summer with three trains. I'm not sure how much longer that will last though. Although the bins are gone, the constraints of the park's own procedures (thanks IROC!) make it a lot harder to maintain a consistent interval than it used to be. The rain policy has been nonsense for the last decade. Going down to two trains light rain makes sense on Magnum or any coaster where there's a potential for a high speed stop using friction brakes or tires and no extra set of brakes between trains. Closing completely or going to one is overboard. But it's CP and they're pretty much known for knee jerk reactions in the name of safety. It's been that way for a long time an probably won't change until they hire some better lawyers or something.