Top 5 Ridership 2018

Like I say, as long as it consistently sends out misty full trains at interval it will have high ridership. GateKeeper rarely has a line either. They are both people eaters.

These rides don't need lines, just full trains .

Nonsense. Everyone hates Magnum because it doesn’t feel like you’re riding in a car down the freeway, and any ride that you can feel that you’re moving is rough and painful and should be replaced with a B&M (as long as it doesn’t have a rattle, because B&M rattles give people headaches).

I heart you, Magnum <3

So if it doesn't feel like you're riding down a car in the freeway and B&M rattle is a problem with B&M(something I think Valravn has at some points), then we should replace it with an intamin.

Zoug68 said:

The only ways I see SV getting in the top 5 is by there being no major mechanical issues and they would have to decrease dispatch trains much faster. It was originally advertised at 1,200 pph. To get that, dispatches would need to be 40 seconds faster. We'd need to have too many thing fall into place for that to happen. I'm not sure why they can't get the trains to move in and out of the station, in sync with each other, the same way Skyrush does. Aren't both trains being moved out with drive motors?

Rumor has it that SV's interval is slowed by a non-working MCBR-as-a-block. They often have to wait for interval, and the behavior of the ride from an observer's point of view (the timing of the variable-speed lift, for example) seems to indicate that the train cannot crest the left until the next train has cleared the first block of the brake run.

As for rolling blocks, my guess is that if it has that capability sensor-wise, they decided to be conservative after the "bump."

GigaG said:
Rumor has it that SV's interval is slowed by a non-working MCBR-as-a-block. They often have to wait for interval, and the behavior of the ride from an observer's point of view (the timing of the variable-speed lift, for example) seems to indicate that the train cannot crest the left until the next train has cleared the first block of the brake run.

As for rolling blocks, my guess is that if it has that capability sensor-wise, they decided to be conservative after the "bump."

This rumor is correct, although the MCBR block was actually removed before the season for a different reason. They were having issues with trains valleying after being released from a block stop up there, so rather than having extended downtime to find a solution for that, they instead opted to just go with the slower interval and one less block. This is also why they only ran 2 trains for a large portion of the season. One, because 3 trains hadn't been tested on the new configuration. And two, adding the 3rd train doesn't actually help capacity all that much since the crew has to wait to dispatch, as you said.

GigaG said:

Some observations:

• Valravn seems to operate quite close to its theoretical capacity of 1200pph, as opposed to Maverick (which in practice does not seem to hit that, maybe 800-900pph?

Also correct. Maverick's true max capacity is about 900 riders per hour; I don't know why it's listed as 1200 everywhere because it isn't and never has been. Maverick is another one that the crew tends to be faster than the ride allows as you can't dispatch the next cycle until the second train is passing through the second inversion. Dispatching any faster causes trains to start block stopping in the tunnel. A lot of times when I checked seats at Maverick I ended up throwing my clear up only to have to hold it up for like 20 seconds because we were too fast and the ride wasn't even ready yet. This is why Maverick always has a line even when the park isn't very busy.

SR71 said:

This rumor is correct, although the MCBR block was actually removed before the season for a different reason. They were having issues with trains valleying after being released from a block stop up there...

So it seems the only robust solution is to raise the height of the MCBR run?

Maverick is another one that the crew tends to be faster than the ride allows as you can't dispatch the next cycle until the second train is passing through the second inversion. Dispatching any faster causes trains to start block stopping in the tunnel.

In my experience the crew tends to wait too long. When in the second train of a station dispatch (waiting downtrack outside the station), it used to be relatively common that you'd start moving around the time the first train entered the tunnel, resulting in the near-miss of the two trains near the bottom of the first drop. Seems that in earlier years that tended to happen pretty frequently. These days, not so much.

Gosh it feels like I worked an awe fully long time in RCT2 to get my block sections to work perfect before I opened the ride so I could always have max efficiency. I thought it was just me, maybe I should design the real thing.

I don't know how RMC could make an epic mistake like that. I have to wonder if CF regrets going with RMC for SV and TT, both were plagued with issues this year. SV is a great ride, it's my top coaster. But after these issues, I don't see CF working with RMC again anytime soon. I haven't been following Railblazer, but that's been fine as far as I know, they may just do more of those kinds of rides in the future. But I'm sure RMC made CF whole way better than Intamin ever did. But I think B&M will still be CF's go-to vendor for coasters.

The main reason Cedar Fair May shy away from RMC in the near future is Steel Vengeance and Twisted Timbers both did little to nothing to move the needle. Wasn’t attendance down? I think per cap spending was up a bit to pretty much make it a wash but those were both pretty decent investments to not have sizeable increases.

And yes, I know numbers are only really released for the chain.

Their satisfaction with RMC probably has more to do with the response to the issues than that they happened to begin with. I've heard stories about B&M scrambling at the last minute to satisfy state inspectors before the Banshee opening so oversights do seem to happen even to the best manufacturers. I agree that RMC seemed to fail at some pretty basic stuff which is concerning, but they were new trains and also a new ride system as compared to previous RMCs. Not sure why they went with all new parts, but it definitely played a role in some if the issues. Long term though, those trains are going to ride smoother and probably burn through less wheels than the Gen 1 trains would have on this ride.

Is RMC making good on fixing the issues that still exist or are they leaving CP high and dry to figure it out for themselves? I'm guessing/hoping they're doing what it takes to make it right. If they're raising the height of the block, they have to be involved in manufacturing track to get things reconnected. :)

I'm curious where the train was valleying. It seemed to have plenty of speed through all of the elements - especially after the dive back into the structure. Maybe it wasn't even making it to that point? These alleged valleying occurrences would have been with brand new, never broken in trains running in pretty cold weather too.

I think they've got to be satisfied with the ride experiences on both rides. I've never seen a more universally highly rated ride than Steel Vengeance. Twisted Timbers is also great given what there was to work with. The fact that attendance didn't skyrocket says more about their marketing plan than it does the rides themselves.

SV getting bad press on day 1 probably didn't do them any favors and then ran at a very limited capacity for a month after that, I know capacity has nothing to do with how many ticket sales they get, but many people may have shied away from visiting this year after hearing about an "accident" on the new ride. And attendance has gone up in years past, they may have just reached their peak. There's only so many people you can market to. Then in previous years with subpar operations on Halloweekends, that may cause some people to shy away from the park after having a bad experience. And same can be said for early season operations with lack of staffing. Although, it looks like they are trying to rectify the early season issue by opening a week later this year which can allow for a smoother opening day experience. Another factor could be lack of family attractions, which really hurts that demographic, and that's another thing that they are addressing this year, as long as FF is a family attraction and we know next to nothing about it.

I would say it's a HUGE stretch to think that CF wouldn't work with RMC again due to technical issues in the opening season of the first attractions ever installed by the company at CF parks. As was said above, I think the things behind the scenes in regards to working on the issues/growing pains is FAR mor important to the long term relationship.

Now I will say that there aren't necessarily a ton of great conversion candidates in the chain, with the big exception being Wonderland. As my home park, I can testify to the fact that both Wild Beast and MCMB are AWFUL. I'd be shocked if one of them isn't given the Iron Horse treatment in the next several years. They are both as bad as any 80s/90s woodie I've ever ridden which includes Mean Streak and Predator. I know some people also say Hurler at Carowinds, which I could also see, but Wonderland has 2 awful coasters to choose from and RMC is just what the doctor ordered. Nothing for a couple years with Yukon opening in 2019 but after that...

Just finished reading John Hildebrandt's Cedar Point book. He said they expect a bad year attendance wise every 6-7 years due to the weather. I'm going to say that was this year.

Being 6 hours away, I hawk-eye the weather forecasts and use the historical trends to plan trips out there. This year was tough, there were a lot of "bad" weather days. I believe they mentioned in one of their shareholder calls earlier this year that the perception of bad weather due to forecasts was playing a role in the attendance drop.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that if Steel Vengeance hadn't opened this year, attendance would have been even worse.

It’s nice to see the topic of the MCBR being discussed more ever since I brought it up in the SV thread. When the MCBR brakes were catching pre Halloweekends, the train was running noticeably slower both while riding and visually. Also, taking into consideration, that didn’t include finishing the course from a full stop in the MCBR.

From what I have observed and was told, Irvine & Ondrey have a great relationship with both RMC sand CF. When it comes to ride programming, they provide minimal down time. And I have also seen both RMC and I&O on site A LOT this past season until they got all 3 trains running. Never once did they leave CF high and dry.

Having met Anne and Brian, there was no way they would do anything but get it all resolved. Not worth risking their working relationship with CF, and their reputation across the industry.

Exactly. They’re great people, amazing at what they do, very smart, and very interactive.

There are really two ways to fix the problem if the ride doesn't pass the proverbial "e-stop test" (Which by the way, it may simply have a chance of valleying in that case that's small, but more than the park wants. Keep in mind testing would have initially been done during a cold pre-season, and even then it doesn't have to valley EVERY TIME they run that test for them to not want to take the risk.)

Those two ways would be to either add some sort of propulsion on the MCBR (like a series of drive tires) or reprofile the MCBR to be higher.

In addition, just personal speculation - the MCBR also may have another issue - that is; not being trusted enough to stop the train.

After SV had the "bump" incident, the adjustable magnetic brakes on the main brake run were augmented with large, powerful, permanently positioned brakes (you can see this clearly on a mounted POV CP posted at one point in the summer) along with replacing some of the "thicker" pinch brakes (mostly the ones that "guard" the end of a block section) with pinch brakes that resemble those used on Blue Streak or Mean Streak. This was done before they began multi-train operations again. The MCBR kept its "thicker" fin brakes and adjustable magnetic brakes, though. Presumably, a solution would need to be implemented on the MCBR. However, the fixed magnetic brakes on the main brake cannot be turned off by moving them, so they'd need to come up with an adjustable version so the MCBR doesn't slow every train to a crawl.

By the way, I don't know who made these brakes for sure, but looking at the shape of the adjustable magnets, they look similar to ones made by Magnetar. I have no clue who provided the pinch brakes or new permanent magnetic brakes. I do not believe RMC makes their own brakes.