Too much excitement for one day! (7/28)

Just because this board gets off on this kind of juicy stuff...

First of all, I noticed yesterday that they were only using the left-hand downchute on White Water Landing. I'd hate to think that one minor incident in 20 years is going to prompt them to stop using both chutes... :(

Second, I rode two rides I have never ridden before. Anybody know what the ankle sprayers are for on the Thunder Canyon exit path?

Third, the power went out last night at about 9pm...from the Matterhorn back to the caricatures booth across from the Magnum restrooms; from Coasters on down to at least Millennium Force, and the island, all dark until at least 9:50 when I finally left. No walk-downs as a result, though, because all the rides had been shut down for lightning BEFORE the power went out. So it was an inconvenience, but the outage, widespread as it was, was almost a non-event because of the electrical storm. Very little rain, but lots of lightning.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Dave..I've always thought the ankle sprayers was to get the crap off your feet before you go out to put your shoes back on...haha ;)

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http://www.msu.edu/~armbrus9/cp.html
Who's Gonna Razz Dan til He Posts Again!

If that's not what they are meant for, they still do a good job at it.

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy

Dave finally rode TC!?!!? I guess it was finally hot enough for you, eh? What was the other of the two, SRF??

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Scott W. Short, Rail Junkie
mailto:scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

I came at 5 o'clock last night for the starlight which let me get about 4 rides in before the rides went down! We were standing by Chaos when the power went out and the ride was near full and coming to a stop when it happened. We didn't stand around to watch but can the harnesses still be opened with the power being out?? Anyways, we walked up to the front of the park and played some games and then we decided to go walk back by MF in the dark. And I mean dark, there were no lights at all. Lightning was the only source of light. That walk was pretty cool because there was no one back there and it just looked pretty creepy. No lights on MF,PT,or Mantis. All in all I didn't get to do much but it was still fun!

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America's Rockin' Roller Coast

Ah! I was in Ohio yesterday and was contemplating going for a couple of hours and ended up choosing sleep instead ... now I'm wishing I hadn't! For some reason walking through the back of the park without power just sounds awesome to me ...

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Steel - #1 Mantis, #2 Millie, #3 Wicked Twister ||| Wood - #1 Thunderbolt, #2 Villain, #3 Beast
"The key to a happy life is moderation" -- Jon Stewart

It was dark, rainy, and quite frankly I enjoyed myself.

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BTS Cedar Point
http://www.cedarpoint.tk

Anonymous said:
It was dark, rainy, and quite frankly I enjoyed myself.

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Heck yeah!! Walking Frontier Trail in complete darkness was a treat!! We were siting at Happy Friar when the sound system "blew up" (buzz buzz) then nothing but static the rest of the night...it was great! hahaha.

-Craig

*** This post was edited by wings51 7/29/2002 3:09:05 PM ***
*** This post was edited by wings51 7/29/2002 5:18:08 PM ***

Yes, I enjoyed last night. I ran into Joe E next to WildCat and we walked the trail back and came back around. I loved watching the lightning! We then went to WT and took a look at how they have been welding the front tower now. We also noticed that a few cross-beams were taken off of the track and laying under the ride. The lightning looked awesome over the lake!

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2002- Raptor Hot Shots
Force Laps: 431
Wicked Twists: 69

The show last night was worth the price of admission. The whole feel of the park was so erie it made halloweekends look sad. The power was restored around 10 ish. The lightning got even better towards park closing (Yeah I stayed till close). Those were the most widespread cloud to cloud I have ever seen. While standing near the front of the park this one bolt lit up the sky all the away behind MF, Power Tower and extended over to Magnum.

CPFanatic, They released everyone on Chaos manually when I walked by. Can be done but just a pain in the but.

For everyone that was there last night, when did the rides close in your area when the storm rolled in? I was riding Gemini at the time and there was some impressive cloud to cloud lightning not far off. Usually they close the rides down right away when anyone sees lightning but I talked to a nice ride op at entrance and she said they had to wait for the call to close down. Despise lightning and thunder booming nearby Gemini was up for about 5 more minutes. I was shocked to say the least. ;) Has anyone been allowed to board a coaster with lightning visible and thunder audible? The thunder being heard is the key because if you can hear that within 25 seconds flowing the bolt that means less than 5 miles away. It was so close I was counting around 10 seconds (2 miles).

*** This post was edited by Joe E. 7/29/2002 6:35:18 PM ***

We were in the Gemini area around 9:30 and they started to shut everything down over there. We saw a few minutes of lightning before the stopped the rides.

After a short while the wind kicked up and a few nice bolts appeared in the MF area and we heard the PA system make a buzz for the duration of the bolt, and then the music shut off and parts of FrontierTown went dark.

It was really neat walking through the park with few people there in the dark. The lightning was very frequent and entertaining. It was better than the 9:00 Laser Show. Or is the 9:00 Laser Show at 10?

Uhhhh, I don't think you have to wait for a call to take down your ride. You have to wait for a call to take it back up, but the ops have (or at least had) the power to stop running the ride, should they, for any reason feel it is unsafe. This could be weather, wierd sounds coming from the ride, noticing something wrong on a trackwalk, etc.

Anyway, I'm sure Bill Spehn read what Joe E said and will make sure there's a tidbit about this issue in the next park op weekly notes or whatever those little books were called... :)

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
*** This post was edited by MDOmnis 7/29/2002 6:12:53 PM ***

Yeah, I remember reading that in the news that they can shut the ride down at their own discretion. I was actually about to get in line again when I saw some more lightning even closer accompanied by thunder. I said to myself "I am not going on Gemini while it's raining" and that's when I talked to the op.

The power went out just minutes before they shut down the rides on the other side of the park. It could have been ugly if those rides were closed just a bit later, especially on MF. This is one instance where I would not want to be stopped on the lift.

Speaking of this watch out CP, here comes another round. 3 nights in a row!
*** This post was edited by Joe E. 7/29/2002 6:43:29 PM ***

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The power went out just minutes before they shut down the rides on the other side of the park. It could have been ugly if those rides were closed just a bit later, especially on MF. This is one instance where I would not want to be stopped on the lift.

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I'm pretty sure I noticed a backup generator for MF while driving down the road next to the ride.

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It's very hard to drink all day...
Unless you start first thing in the morning.

Just enough power to get people safely off the ride?

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BTS Cedar Point
http://www.cedarpoint.tk

Hmmm, while you guys were frolicing through the darkened Frontier, we were *this* close to panic over at Breakers. Our power went out! For some reason, the power outage triggered the fire alarms, telling guests to leave and evacuate the building. There were some very mixed signals, however, as we were going down the stairs some people were heading up to their rooms. At the time, I thought that something big happened, like lightning struck Breakers Tower, but of course I learned otherwise.

I do agree, however, that a darkened Breakers enterance and lobby is something else. Perhaps they'll pickup the idea...

Also, I was up until about 3am, some of that time outside on the boardwalk watching the lightning. The lightning was amazing to watch.

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Tommy Penner - Variable X
"And that's why I'm a coaster enthusiast." -- Dude behind me on MF.
*** This post was edited by MiLLeNNiuMRiDeR 7/30/2002 2:47:48 AM ***

The lightning show was far better than any of the Laser Shows have been just missing the music;)

We headed into the Arcade where my little one (7 year old), managed to win the Pig Race 6(or7) times to win himself the Giant Scobby Doo which is just about as tall as him. And don't think I helped him...NO WAY. (just a hint if you play the game try number 6 as it seemed to move three spaces EVERYTIME the ball went in.)

Dave about your "other question", the ankle spray on the TC Exit I am sure is an answer to the "build up" of sludge that would collect from peolpe riding. Remember TC uses BAY/LAKE ERIE water. The first few years of the ride it was difficult to maintain the walk way because it would become quite slippery. Also, the GlassBlower theatre would fill up with wet peolpe trying to dry off their clothes.

Wow, that sounds like it would have been fun to be there that night. I was no where near the Point, as me and my family went to Hersheypark on vacation. I remember how great the back of the park and Frontier Trail was during Halloweekends last year with the dim lighting and extreme lack of people. It must have been a lot better in pitch blackness.

Also, in response to one of Joe E's questions, I have seen MF run in lightning. Last summer there was a storm on NW side of MF over the lake. I was on the ramp near the exit station, and the lightning started getting pretty intense, so they shut it down. After that, they would just kind of run it in between bolts of lightning. If the lightning was further away, they'd load a few trains and send them until the lightning got closer, then they'd stop it again for a few minutes. In all, it went back and forth like that for about 20 minutes until the storm blew by.

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-Chris Woodard
Just because you can't justify charging $3 for a Pepsi doesn't mean you can't charge $3 for a Pepsi.

Several years back I was in line (yes LINE) for Mean Streak. We'd just reached the loading area when lighting flashed way off in the distance. No thunder, no rain. But they closed the ride down. Since it was close to closing, they opted to close down completely. It was a disappointment.
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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

The horizon around Cedar Point is flat for miles and as a result lightning can be visible at the park when it is a long distance away and the electrical potential at the park is not conducive (if you will...) to lightning.

In such a case, you could potentially (so to speak...) see lightning from Cedar Point but not have need for the rides to be shut down. In which case, the decision may lie at least partially with THOR.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.