Top Thrill's Operational Status 04'

I drove 8 hours west to hit up Cedar Point this past Thursday (May 13). With my Dorney pass in hand, the people in the guest services at the Magnum gate let us in at 9:30 (I guess they thought we were Joe Cool members?) Anyway, I rode TTD 3 times before the park even opened. It was running flawless until about 2:00 or so when it seemed like it was down for a few hours. Anyway, when it officially started running again, we ran to the ride and waited for the front, only to have it shut down due to rain when we were the very next people to ride. I didn't mind, knowing we'd have a shot at a rollback, and sure enough our front car made it over and then started to get yanked backwards down the tower. It was awesome.

The rollback isn't really all that great, especially when the line for TTD all day is around 10 minutes tops. Even so, it was worth it to hear the shriek of the girl behind me who didn't happen to read the sign that warns of occasional rollbacks.

So I was impressed with Dragster's performance this year. I only saw 3 rollbacks all day, but they really have to do something about having to reset each train one by one when it breaks down. That easily takes 15-20 minutes.

Wow! I've never heard of line's that short. And I'm glad that we aren't having any trouble making it over anymore. *HINT* I wouldn't belittle rollbacks around here because some people would kill for one.(I am one as well) You are so lucky to get one so be thankful for it. LoL
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And that's how the cookie crumbles...
R.I.P.- Guide to the Point. 5/12/04
R.I.P.- Virtual Midway. 5/12/04
(I guess I will do my signature manually for now) *** Edited 5/14/2004 7:51:35 PM UTC by Topthrill420***

I haven't seen Dragster up since 12 this morning.

30 Mph wind gusts are probably the cause for that.

I was thinking about my last trip in '03 and how cool the two spotlights on TTD were. Are they on this year? I remember them not being used most of last year.

They've been there every time I have.

Ryan McCann said:

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...especially when the line for TTD all day is around 10 minutes tops.

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Is the line really that short right now? Or is it just that one day that it was really short? Because 10 minutes is like no wait at all.

I noticed a REALLY short line the other evening...there was like no one in the station, and it was like Friday night at 7:30 PM

Dragster seems to be running extremely well today. I have sporadically watched the cleveland cam all day and I havn't seen one rollback. Let's hope Dragster keeps it going!

I was there today and yesterday (16th and 17th) and it operated near perfectly the entire time. I witnessed one rollback on Sunday but on Monday the ride broke down for about thirty minutes, then came up and ran flawlessly for the rest of the day. I only managed to get in one ride on it (my first time, easily my second-favorite ride to Millennium Force), however...

Sunday, May 16th

I arrived at the park around 5 PM and as far as observing Top Thrill Dragster, it launched as it pleased, which was quite consistently. They closed off the last car and was running four train which seemed to be doing just fine. I kind of see the efficiency of having six trains, the two trains to be loaded weren't always ready when the second of the two launching trains was launched. But today she was running beautifully, and as the people in front of me claimed "we almost had a rollback" it cleared it pretty dayum well in my book.

Well TTD wasn't running so great late Saturday night when I went to CP, and it was one of my two trips to CP this year (I can only go twice because I live in Albany, NY an 8-hour drive). It was raining for the first few hours so TTD was closed. Then later in the day TTD finally opened and My friend, my dad, and I all got in line at 4:30. We thought it was going to be a 2-3 hour wait because they were running half trains.Then they slowly stated to add more people to the trains. TTD broke down once for about 20 minutes but actually helped us move forward in line because so many people left the line. After a while they finally got to full train operation. We reach the station in a little less than 2 hours. We decide to wait for the front seat and there are about 10 trains of people in front of us. A single rider gets on the train so my dad goes up and rides with him. They launch and then come down....backwards. Second time he makes it over. After that there were about 25 more rollbacks and about 10 breakdowns, they also decided to only load the first four rows. So in 3 more hours I moved about 10 feet. A 9:30 I finally sit down in the train, but not for long because the train that had been in launch position rolls back. They release the restrainsts and tell us in the train to get back in line. 15 minutes later we get back in the train and we launch with no rollback. We ended up waiting 5 hours and 15 minutes. But when it was running good they had great launch intervals of less than a minute. So I just hope this was a rare occurance and it runs much better than it did Saturday night. *** Edited 5/18/2004 9:45:21 PM UTC by Hubert Wattlesworth***

I just wanted to update this that Dragster wasn't working it's best on May 19. From what I saw it was open in the morning. Around 1:00 the ride went down due to a problem with on of the brakes on the launch track. After the ride opened back up the trains had problems getting all the way up the hill. The ride also took a long time to get the intervals right after a breakdown. I came back to the ride at 4:00 and it was once again down. Don't know for sure what happened. All I can say is thank god for Freeway stamps. I saved an hour and 15 minutes waiting for it. The ride is just as good as I remember it to be.

After 4 trips to the park this year, all I can say is that IMHO Dragster is working anything BUT well. Only once has it run long enough for me to be able to get in line without waiting outside the fence, and that was when I got straight back in line after a ride.

It's laughable that they still have to run 1/2-full trains when its warming up, and that they also rarely run full trains. If the launch mechanism cannot cope with the extra weight of 6 or 8 riders, to me this is an indication that there is simply not enough "oomph" in it - it was under-designed by about 5% or something. Those extra 6 or 8 people do not constitute a 30% increase in the mass of the train.

I don't think I have yet seen it run consistently with full trains. The persistent breakdowns are an indication that this coaster still has a LONG way to go before it can be considered "reliable" in the way that MF, WT and Raptor are "reliable". On Wednesday 19th, my "Freeway" ride took close to an hour and 30 mins due to mechanical problems. I can understand that from time to time any machine is going to have down time. I find it surprising that a year down the road, TTD seems to still be having *significant* down time.

I'm not knocking the ride as a RIDE - it is awesome - but anyone who thinks it is really reliable is deluding themselves.

As a separate observation, it seems that rollbacks can be predicted (in part) by the amount of swaying in the train right at the end of the launch run, at the point that the launch sled disengages. Trains that sway a lot seem prone to roll backs. I watched the yellow train sway significantly at 124mph and not even come close to clearing the hill. But on the next launch (same passengers), the release was silky smooth, and with a speed of 124mph it comfortably cleared the top. It was interesting to see that trains that have the rear car empty sway less than fully loaded trains.

Dragster seemed to be working well today! I dont know how much downtime it had but I saw it clear the top many times and it was running close to minute intervals!

Just some questions for the people that have already been to the park this season....Does top thrill dragster still use the countdown lights on the tower during the day? Are there still sound effects on the ride like when you launch and you hear tires squeeling? Is there that smoke effect behind the train? Is the line for Dragster almost always moving nicely?

Yes the countdown lights are still used on the tower during the day

Yes the awesome dragster sounds are still there

Yes the smoke effect is still there

Sometimes the queue moves nicely, sometimes it doesn't.

Damien

Has anybody noticed the sound of a bottle clanking, right as the train rolls back a little before it launches. And if you have...what is it? I dont remember it from last year.

I came to the park at 6:30pm on friday, and TTD was closed until about 8 when they opened the line to the people who had been waiting so we jumped in, ever though there wasn't many people they only operated 4 rows on each car making for about a 45 minute wait. I thought it was funny for them to open the ride at the parks official closing time but this must have been to accomadate the people waiting by the gate to get in the line. On Saturday I got to the park around 2:30. TTD was open til about 3 and then closed til about 8:30 which it ran til about 10:15 when it started raining and lightning which is when I left the park. I was told it was closed most of the day due to wind and about 6 they thought there was a storm front coming in.

yeah yesterday it was closed almost all day...but luckly i got on it before it started lighting.