Something odd from closing day...

But it's MORE GOODER and MORE SAFE Craig!

I have a hard time deciding which control system sucks harder - Mine Ride or Blue Streak? Both rides are operating at a fraction of their former capacity. CP has just gotten really lame with these things over the past couple years. Raptor even parks slower than crap now. After going to Vallyfair and seeing how they operate their screamin' swing, Skyhawk really annoys me with the double checking and slow parking.

I'd love to see Gemini back to six trains, but considering they stack with four pretty regularly, it is going to take a lot to make that happen. I'd be happy if they'd just run it right with 4.

Bill Spehn has a lot of work to do to ge things back to the way they should be, but if anyone can pull it off, it's him.

Skyhawk has trouble parking because the swing on the right side is missing a counterweight. Which you'll notice that it always takes longer to stop on one swing.

Minus the seatbelts, Corkscrew actually runs well on a newer control system. Blue Streak and Mine Ride are horrible, like you pointed out.

On Gemini, can the transfer track be used as a block, as well as the mid-course trims? I'm slightly confused on the blocking, and how three trains would operate safely.

I could be totally wrong, but I think the blocks are 1) Station, 2) Lift 3) Course 4) Brakes right before station.

I'm pretty sure the mid-course trims are just that - trims. I don't think they can double as a block brake.

Gemini's blocks are station, lift, mid-course, brakerun. Four is just enough to allow three trains.

I must not know where the mid-course brakes are on Gemini. I'm thinking of the helix trims which are just trims, right?

Where are the mid-course brakes? I can't remember ever feeling them.

edit: Are they here on the very right side of the photo? I've never even noticed these before while riding. Do they ever use these as trims? Or, just block brakes? *** Edited 11/6/2007 6:01:21 AM UTC by halltd***

So the mid-course trims can stop the train completely, if necessary?

http://www.lib.jmu.edu/edge/archives/Spring2003(2)/images/Gemini.jpg

Look at the semi-flat part near the rear of the ride, right below the turn.

Tim, yes those are them in the very right of the photo. I've felt them used before. If you catch an early ride they won't be used but later on in the day with full trains you might feel them. They really slow down the train to a crawl.

The block brakes after the turn around are fully capable of stopping a train. Without 3 trains on a given track, they are brought down to trim service unless for whatever reason a train is in the block ahead.

The brakes near the ground before the station are just trims. Although they can cause a train to roll back if set too high.

I remember seeing the Gemini block brakes used before back when the ride ran three trains. If there was a holdup in the station, and the second train was waiting outside of the station, the third train would stop on the mid-course.

^ That would be a different / odd feeling.

WOW! we just stopped in the middle of the ride hmmm... didnt see that one coming.

If you watch them test Gemini in the morning they do a block check with that block brake. They will stop a train fully there.

If I remember right the button to clear that block is directly below the brakes on a control panel near the ground.

Now that I think about it, I recall seeing numerous evacuations from that block in the few years prior to the removal of the third train.

That being said, could the removal of the third train be for that very reason? With only two trains, you reduce the risk of having a train stop in that block and thus, reduce the risk of having to evacuate from there if the ride goes down mechanical, or otherwise. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but it seems to me that it involves a fair amount of "ride walking/climbing," so to speak.

Stopping in that mid-course brake was painful. I always wondered why they didn't put the brake at the end of the turnaround. It's a big surprise after the headchopper hill.

Even worse, until "fairly recently" there was a problem with the mid-course block brake: Cedar Point's operational standards were such that when the train stopped in the block brake, the back end of the train was still hanging down the hill, and sometimes the ride could not be restarted without pushing it. They did finally move a couple of the calipers around so that they could stop the train with the whole thing pointing downhill.

As some of you have figured out, yes, I would very much like to see Gemini get its other two trains back, although to run six trains would require re-reconfiguring the queue. With six trains running on interval, Gemini can move about 3,400-3,600 PPH, and a single turnstile can only handle about 2,400, so they would need the second turnstile and downtrack entrance ramp. In fact, that's why the uptrack entrance was installed in the first place. In reality, with all the other new coasters and increased total capacity, most of the time there is no need for Gemini to run more than four trains. The real challenge, though, is that if Gemini suffers a breakdown on a busy day, or if there are staffing problems, it would sure be useful if the thing could stiill run *three* on a single track.

Gemini can't even run four trains efficiently right now. The gates kind of hurt, as do the poorly positioned exit gates, but those are not the real problem. It's easy to blame the seat belts, but it was running six trains with seat belts; in fact that's why it has the shared belts instead of Magnum-style individual belts. The real problem as nearly as I can tell is that it is the only coaster in the park where every lap bar gets physically checked twice. Back when each bar got checked once visually, running six trains was (comparatively) easy, especially before the belts were installed.

Oh, there is one other problem. Because the ride can stack one pair of trains uptrack of the station without any trouble, there is no penalty to the crew for stacking with four trains. Stacking with six trains would cause a ride set-up, and would interrupt the ride for a trainload of people, so there were good reasons not to do it. But with four, it's no big deal, unless, of course, you're in the train and trying not to bash your teeth in on the grab bar when you hit the safety brake.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Dave, I'm not sure about other coasters, but I know Millennium now has all lapbars physically checked twice as well. I noticed that on closing weekend.

Most of them they check physically now, but officially they only check once...but two attendants look at each row, with one doing the left side and the other doing the right.

Millennium Force may be different, and on closing weekend the amount of "green help" working might have also affected the exact method of test. Personally, I haven't ridden Millennium Force since mid-season, so I haven't seen what they're doing up there these days.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

When I worked at Millennium for a day, the procedure was to go down in one direction checking seatbelts and lap bars. When you met the host who was coming the opposite direction, you went back in the direction you came from double checking just the lap bars.