Steel Vengeance "accident"?

Does anyone know what's up with the no fanny pack thing though? I thought it might be because of how the restraints were designed but after riding it didn't seem like that was the reason. Absolutely confused about it. Maybe there was some situation where someone lost a fanny pack somehow and threatened to sue? If that's the case, do you think other rides might start banning them too? Gosh, I hope not.

Zoug68 said:

The loading procedure for these trains requires the public to load them perfectly in order to justify 3 train operations. Having ridden 5 RMC's now, I just don't see that ever happening.

How do you load them perfectly?

Everyone has to fit and the ride op push works on the first pass to turn the lights green. I don't think in practice that can really happen. I'm also not sure what the reasoning is for not pulling your own bar down. I'm sure it's not arbitrary, I just don't know the reason.

As I’m sure I’ve said before in one of these threads somewhere, on First Rider night everything went smoothly with two train op. And maybe riders were causing delay, and maybe everyone was new at their job, and maybe it was their first night with riders in those two trains, because the previous train was just about to show up as the next one was leaving.
In my happy, happy mind I quietly wondered how things might go with three. I reckoned it would be possible and the layout seemed set up for it, but I had horrible visions of stacking and the inevitable crying and complaints that go with it.

Mean Streak could run with three trains but loading was faster, less complicated, and the course took longer to complete.

Jeff said:

I'm also not sure what the reasoning is for not pulling your own bar down. I'm sure it's not arbitrary, I just don't know the reason.

They told us on media day that it makes it easier for them to check the belt before the restraint is down and in the way of it. It makes a bit of sense, and is far faster than doing a seatbelt check then allowing everyone to pull their restraints down and doing a restraint check after that.

Sledge4cp said:
But they also allowed those whom bought FastLane Plus for today to use them as one usually would.

As I had Fast lane today I can say that this was absolutely NOT the case. I was told that I could not enter the line without having the boarding pass (which I knew nothing about until just then) and the fact that I had Fast lane didn't matter. I marched right to guest services and was made whole though.

Joe E said:
^Could be, Millennium Force only opened with 2 for the same reason. Only 1 train was certified for AAA day.

I could have sworn blue and red were both running on AAA day.

Hard to believe that was 18 years ago. Cray cray.

harmony29 said:
I hate to say it but I can bet these people that claimed whiplash see dollar signs in there eyes. It sounds like it was really nothing but in todays day and age people look for any opportunity they can to use it to their advantage

Being one of the people that was seen by EMS.. dollar signs were never in my eyes. I got hurt. Plain and simple. Today was much worse than yesterday. It's been a little rough trying to move my back. I.e. Sitting and standing. Decided to end my trip early. Came home to rest and ice my back. It's just like getting in a car crash. The next few days are going to suck but the muscles will heal. Now.. to say I'm not a little shaken by the whole ordeal though? That's another story.

e x i t english said:
They told us on media day that it makes it easier for them to check the belt before the restraint is down and in the way of it.

That makes a world of sense. I wonder if a longer belt tug would help.

It's still strange that Cedar Fair doesn't believe the odds of a double hydraulic failure are virtually non-existent, but that's another thing. I live in a different world here, with no seat belts and guests pushing up on their own lap bars.

A longer belt tug and maybe make it yellow would likely solve the issue. You know, like how just about every Disney ride does it.

I tried to observe loading operations closely at the first rider benefit. We rode 3 times and I watched 6 cars load from the top of the stairs and platform. All 6 had multiple seats need re-check and guests that had to try to push the bar down farther. The ride hosts had to watch, did not (probably aren't allowed to) assist. 2 of the 6 cars had riders who did not fit and had to step off to the exit without riding. On all 6, the next train made it back to the brake behind the station before the one in the station dispatched.

This is, admittedly, a very small sample size. But based on other things people have observed from the weekend, it seems like dispatch times are going to be a consistent issue due to the procedures that have to be in place, apparently, for the RMC trains.

Bluestreaker said:

Zoug68 said:

The loading procedure for these trains requires the public to load them perfectly in order to justify 3 train operations. Having ridden 5 RMC's now, I just don't see that ever happening.

How do you load them perfectly?

By customers using the test seat and actually following instructions. The ride duration is too short to allow for any issues during unloading and loading on top of the operators having to lower each lap bar. MAYBE it could happen if there were at least 4 ride ops per side.

What are some possible reasons for the no stapling policy?

Is there a reason they seem to design these retractable belt systems with the buckle on the inside? If the buckle were on the outside, with the longer yellow belt tug 99er mentioned, seems it would be considerably easier to manually verify.

Second question, why do they need to manually verify the seat belt? The trains are smart enough to give a green light when the lap bar is pulled down far enough, so would adding a couple extra sensors be that big of a deal? When was the last time a car was sold in the US without the seat-belt warning ding? It seems like a long-solved problem.

Jeff said:

e x i t english said:
They told us on media day that it makes it easier for them to check the belt before the restraint is down and in the way of it.

It's still strange that Cedar Fair doesn't believe the odds of a double hydraulic failure are virtually non-existent, but that's another thing. I live in a different world here, with no seat belts and guests pushing up on their own lap bars.

And what a difference it makes. My wife and I can't visit CP without having a conversation about how much better Disney is at everything related to managing an amusement park. And don't get me started on the differences in food service efficiency.

Ken P said:
Second question, why do they need to manually verify the seat belt?

I don't know which rides have seatbelt sensors but they'd still do intentionally redundant manual checks like they do with lapbars. They can't just launch the train when the light goes green.

Ken P said:

Second question, why do they need to manually verify the seat belt? The trains are smart enough to give a green light when the lap bar is pulled down far enough, so would adding a couple extra sensors be that big of a deal? When was the last time a car was sold in the US without the seat-belt warning ding? It seems like a long-solved problem.

The issue with that is somebody could buckle the belt and then sit on it. People who don’t buckle up while driving just click the seat belt in it shuts up. I personally thought the operations saturday morning were great, There were lots of times that we had to wait for a train to come during the two train ops. They were dispatching when the ride was at the overbanked turn, we were all surprised.

Magnum and SV both get you to the top of the lift from the station in about a minute. Considering there are 12 fewer passengers on SV than Magnum and that the ride times are nearly identical, I truly hope they can get people loaded quickly enough to dispatch trains equally as fast as they do on Magnum.

Scott Cameron said:

And what a difference it makes. My wife and I can't visit CP without having a conversation about how much better Disney is at everything related to managing an amusement park. And don't get me started on the differences in food service efficiency.

It's more of a difference in philosophy than competency. If you're old enough, you probably remember CP operations being very similar to Disney with the "pull down and push up to ensure your safety bar is locked" spiels and other similarities to the Anaheim operation. Over the years CP got away from putting a lot of responsibility on the riders to putting the responsibility on the ride operators. I don't know if this evolved from guest experiences over the years or maybe IROC or a combination of both but it is certainly not bad management. I was annoyed by it also in the beginning but I've found that a lot of people actually like it when the ride ops check their restraints, especially if they have their kids on the ride.

CP is still one of the best managed amusement parks around and I think food service will even be a little more efficient this year with the service modifications they made to some of the stands. Stockade had a frightening long line on Saturday but the kiosks and order and pickup areas seemed to make the wait not so bad. It least the line seemed to move better than in the past.

SV just got a nice news shot on national news, Fox network. It was about world record breaking stats and also a nice plug for how great the Sandusky park is. Some great video of the ride in the report.