Steel Vengeance "accident"?

Without "walks of shame", I think the current procedures are sufficient. Although checking seatbelts takes a while, RMCs have a handy little cloth handle on the outside that makes checking the bar itself a breeze.

I also could imagine that if they desperately needed a few more seconds, that the ride could be programmed to jog the trains in and out of the station faster.

Or slow down the lift hill until the train reaches the top.

Believe it or not, it does take the train a lengthy time to make it to the lift hill once it is dispatched.

First off, the train goes up a little incline once released from the station with motion wheels propelling it forward towards the transfer track.

^The train goes UP an incline? I only saw the angle downhill get steeper at the transfer, and I find it hard to believe that the station is uphill because MS' original station was mildly slanted downhill (as are most wooden coasters.)

Compared to Mean Streak the steeper lift hill is clear not just from passing over the banked turn instead of under it, but also from the longer section before the lift hill after the dispatched train turns around. This allowed Schilke to include some foreplay hops before the hill but may be another reason why Vengeance has trouble running three trains compared to Mean Streak.

A full capacity of 1200 per hour is not on the high side for Cedar Point, regardless.

With no bags allowed past the entrance (and no bins) I have a hard time believing SV will not eventually be able to make that third train worthwhile capacity-wise. Ever making interval in real life practice is likely another story entirely.

Pete said:

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.

Pete I agree with your points and should clarify my post a bit as it seemed to be attacking ride ops and really should not have. I think CP's ride ops are very good. I also understand that CP's rides are much more extreme so more caution should certainly be used with regard to restraints. Therefore, I agree that doing the "pull up on lap bar" the way Disney World does is not as appropriate.

I never said CP had bad management. I agree that overall their parks are run pretty well, especially compared to other competitors like Six Flags. In fact, before I went to Disney World the first time CP used to be the gold standard I compared all other park's operations against.

I can't comment on Anaheim because I've never been to Disneyland. When is the last time you went to Disney World? It really is a difference. They have the cleanest parks I've ever been, I've never even seen a single bathroom that wasn't spotless, any park, any time of day. Their food service is like a well oiled machine. It doesn't matter how busy it is the lines move, and they get it right the first time. They move people through ride lines quicker than any other park I've seen as well, but again it's not apple to apples. I could go on but this isn't disboards or coasterbuzz.

I will agree that I saw some promising improvements in food service yesterday so I'm optimistic. Round-up had the kiosks and was very busy. I was surprised based on how many people were there how quickly I received the food, but it still wasn't without error. After telling two people 3 times no cheese (wife is lactose) we still got cheese, and I had to go back for my fruit cup. Still, it's only the second day so I give them a pass.

Panda had a much better system where a person was taking orders in the line and writing them onto carryout containers. When you got to the service part the people behind the counter just took your container and filled it assembly line style and gave it back. They had 3 registers open so overall it moved really quick. I hope it stays that way. Much better. Fresh cut fries by Gemini ran well too. A friend of mine had a good experience at Mrs. Keets. They seem more generous with all season dining portions than last year too so that's a plus.

Back on topic, they handled my Fastlane "boarding pass" issue very well but it was a self-inflicted problem due to a lack of communication. Either way, I'm happy with the result as we got to use Fastlane for everything else yesterday (although not really needed - besides Maverick and Valravn) and will get to use it again in the future with (hopefully) Steel Vengeance for the price of one day. Not too shabby.

Disney being a year round park with a full time staff in a good sized city makes a difference. Went to Disney World once. Largely found it boring after growing up with Cedar Point.

Jeff said:

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.

Amen Brother!! Seems like every attraction has some sort of added restraint or seatbelt at CP. Always orange of course. And it’s only Cedar Fair parks that do this that I have seen. Disney and Universal BOTH lack redundant restraints. Look at the riders per hour at those parks attractions vs Cedar Fair parks. Very comparable. How many people have fallen from space mountain? It lacks all these restraints, but manages to throw you around in complete darkness.

JohnMosesBrowning said:

Disney being a year round park with a full time staff in a good sized city makes a difference. Went to Disney World once. Largely found it boring after growing up with Cedar Point.

Yeah, I've been to Disneyland but never had the urge to check out WDW as I found the Anaheim park kind of boring as well, though i have heard that Food & Wine is right up my alley by a good source, so I will have to check that out sometime. :) Trouble with a WDW vacation with me is that for the money spent, I'd much rather go to Europe or the Caribbean or best of all, a ski vacation.

Another comparison is Europa Park, which doesn't use extra seatbelts and doesn't check restraints on many rides whose restraints are safely operable like that (e.g., the restraint can't be down and unlocked but seem locked, the restraint has sensors to determine safe locking, etc...) from what I've heard. Its rides are much more comparable to the ones at CP than most Disney rides are.

Basically, they run every ride like Disaster Transport used to run - that was the last coaster at CP not to do physical restraint checks if memory serves.

In terms of operations on SV, from the videos and pictures I’ve seen, I notice pressure pads (similar to the ones at Gatekeeper and Rougarou) that the employees need to stand on in order to dispatch the train. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there 6 pressure pads and only 4 being used right now? Perhaps once the park has enough staff to allow for 6 operators checking restraints, they will be able to do 3 train operation.

One could argue that they should’ve allocated an extra 2 employees scheduled to cover those positions for the titled ‘Preview Weekend’ of that ride. Maybe in an effort to cut down on the 5+ hour wait... you know, Best Day ever and all.

Ha true. I’m just willing to bet that it has to do with mechanical problems or lack of commissioning/inspection by state.

Yeah, I've been to Disneyland but never had the urge to check out WDW as I found the Anaheim park kind of boring as well, though i have heard that Food & Wine is right up my alley by a good source, so I will have to check that out sometime. :)

Not to derail this thread again but you would absolutely love Food & Wine. I can't wait for my Food & Wine trip later this year. I have a feeling you'd like EPCOT in general. Drinking Around The World is a good time anytime.

I have seen a few dispatches while the on course train is entering the overbank near the station, around 90-100 seconds. That's with all the stars aligning (almost all seats green). With a 3 train op then you probably get 900 PPH as long as there are minimal guest of exceptional size.

Adding 2 ops to platform would obviously help. Though a Casual observation is it takes a long time for guest to get in and out of the trains, more so than most rides. There is not a lot of space to move around in those trains with the lap bars up. Add a few larger guest on each train, there is only so much a crew could do to get trains out faster given the current procedure.

Lots of mention has been made around the interwebs about folks skipping the test seat and then holding up the line due to rechecks...

Does anyone have any good info as far as how far the bar has to go down to get the said green light? Is it basically where the lapbar meets the side of the car or further down? I hear some of the issue is that the lapbars are hard to push down from a seated position, which would make it more difficult for someone on the edge to get a green light. Throw in a no-assist rule for the ops, means a lot of rechecks and walks.

I know Silver Dollar City ran into that issue the first weekend of Time Traveler operation and the policy was changed to allow the ops to give a push. I wonder if this will change?

In my many rides on Time Traveler this week I tried to figure out exactly how the load/lock procedure actually worked. We were seated and the ops worked each car individually. They would stand at the controls on the side of the train where there was a green light. The command was “hands up” and the bar came down on its own. We could feel the bar tighten then loosen just slightly. The control op would notify the ops of a seat number that needed rechecked. I’m a bigger guy so it was at least always my seat, and the op would come back and ask if he could push a little. Sure. So he’d push and get the ok then go back to the side button and it would automatically tighten then loosen slightly again. (Ever been on an Intamin looping ship? Like that only not suffocating) Then the system would somehow notify control that everyone was good and off we’d go. It never felt much different to me, but I trusted it.

It was fairly fast and efficient. However it worked, I always had in mind that we were on a Mack ride and German engineering is simply everything (and not cheap) so I finally quit wondering. No seatbelts whatsoever on a ride that had some fairly forceful inversions and laterals. I wished every ride in the US could be like that.

Pete said:
It's more of a difference in philosophy than competency.

I think it's a little of both (not the ride ops... they shouldn't be deciding this stuff, obviously). The first part is math and science. The odds of a double hydraulic restraint failing is basically never. Dave would know better then me, but I'm not sure if it has ever happened.

A belt could be used as a proxy for body measurement, and they (Intamin) did this with Millennium Force. Those bars have no no/go indication, and were flawed given the accidents on other rides (the Dragster version gets it right, with a deeper bucket and knees higher, when a vent vertical post to meet your thighs instead of your waist).

Disney only has one modern coaster restraint, on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which I assume is double hydraulic, no belt. I trust it with my kid's life. He can't get out of it, and neither can adults.

On the other hand, they run Barnstormer, a Vekoma rollerskater, with two trains, no stacking. Let that sink in. It may be a few seconds shorter than Woodstock Express. Would it be safer with key locked seatbelts? Well, they've been giving some 2 million rides a year on that thing for a long time without incident, riders checking their own bar. You decide.

I'm always amazed how quickly and efficiently ride operations were when I was a child compared to now. Unlocking OTSR on the way into the station, checking on the way out. No one carried large bags everywhere, and the people that did, knew not to even get into the line. Buzz bars either were in locked position, or open position.

Granted, rides are more "extreme" than in the past, and I'm sure they think the extra diligence is worth it. I'm just not convinced that removing responsibility from the riders is really the best solution for ride safety and efficiency.