TTD Closed Again??

F.Y.I. It's 3:00 on wednesday and dragster just launched and made it over and its still going *** Edited 6/30/2004 7:04:52 PM UTC by skipper747***

It's 3:30 on June 30, and Top Thrill Dragster is currently open to the public :)

Is this a big surprise to anyone? It's not like it just started happening a week ago.

This has become a play-by-play rather than a discussion...

So far I am 9 for 9 this year without seeing a "reliable" TTD.

The last 4 visit were with my brother, who is visiting from South Africa. In these 4 trips, TTD has run (intermittently) for significantly less than half of the time we were in the park. The reliability has been so questionable that we did not even bother to join the line of hopefuls standing outside the ride entrance.

CP or Intamin (or both) need to get their act together. This ride is CP's X.

The six times I have been to the park this season it has run great. It is still operating way better than last season. We should all be satisfied that the park is making progress with the ride. It could be worse, last season the ride was down for a good month. This year the ride has been down around 6 days out of 50.

Freak, you are absolutely correct, but it does get frustrating when the big draw is down. 6 days out of 50 is a 12% downtime - better, but still not great. Unfortunately it seems to be the price you pay to get a new type of ride.

Hopefully Panman has a season pass and lives close to the park. If I had is unfortunate track record (living in Boston), I would be very frustrated.

Tom

I've got some news for you, this coaster isn't a prototype. It is the second of its kind. X at SFMM is still having problems cuz it is a prototype, but CF has already made a coaster like this. So saying that the problems are because this coaster is a prototype is wrong. It is not a prototype.

I don't care if it was the 100th Intamin rocket coaster. The fact is that both X and Dragster see a lot of downtime. (It is Cedar Fair's X)

Besides, the reason that Dragster is down has nothing to do with not understanding it. The reason is the magnitude of everything in ride. 120 mph and 420 feet. Xcelerator would have had a lot of downtime if CF wouldn't have understood the type of coaster.

X, especially, has no escuse to be down that much. Especially if it has been open for 2 years already and it is half the size and 45 mph slower. *** Edited 7/2/2004 1:48:44 AM UTC by Topthrill420***

X is the only coaster of its kind. With TTD the coaster just moves over the track really fast. With X the coaster moves over the track really fast while the seats of the car move. Not to mention the massive size of the actual trains itself and the fact that that ride is longer. Speed has nothing to do with the problems with X it has to do with the fact that it is a 4 dimensional coaster. Neither coasters have excuses for being down that much, but at least X has a very legitimate reason.

Dragster is down again, as of about noon today.

I understand what you are saying with X having so many moving parts- TTD does too. You just can't see them from the outside. Here is your ligitamite reason.

http://www.cedarpoint.com/_upload/images/ride03_pics/constpics/Construction134.jpg

(Sorry, Im on a mac and can't get my hyper-links to work for some reason.)

You can see that TTD has as many, or more reasons to be down. If you launch Dragster at 70mph, it would hardly ever break down, so it being a prototype or not of this type of coaster has nothing to do with anything. You can take any type of coaster, launch it at 120mph and it will break down...

Well, at least we can agree on one thing, neither coaster should be down this much. *** Edited 7/2/2004 6:07:13 PM UTC by Topthrill420***

Anyone know what is going on with Dragster today? I noticed a crane by the launch staging area via the webcam. What are they replacing?

I was at the park for about an hour and when I walked by the end of the launch, it appeared to me that the cable had partially severed again. One of the smaller cables that are twisted together was snapped and coiled around the main cable. About 5 mechanics were in the area looking at it, and more were waiting to bring the crane in.

Is the speed of this coaster what's causing the cable to keep breaking? Will it ever run consistently, or will it always break every few weeks?

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Erikjc said:
Is the speed of this coaster what's causing the cable to keep breaking? Will it ever run consistently, or will it always break every few weeks?

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Wouldn't we all love to know the answers to those questions!

Yes, so don't we? I wish Cedar Point would be more specific in telling the public what's wrong.

You guys cannot complain, im sure that CP isn't trying to do this . CP is and has been a pleasing park I'm sure we can all agree with that. But think about it the track down by the cable is now turning from white to charcol(sp.) black. It's hard to sit back and listin to people I know because i was skepical too but since I have been up there the past few times it have been open and i have ridden it. my count is

Visits this and last year: 20

Ridden TTD:19

The one day i didn't i just didnt want to ride it

(From locked topic): Walt "Do we really need a new thread each time the web cam image changes? No more play-by-play. "

Play-by-play? It was just a question about the crane and the transfer of trains, it had nothing to do with this topic, so I didn't want to add the question here.

We don't need to hear about it whenever something appears on the web cam. If everyone wants to talk about the downtime, then whatever. But we don't need all the speculation. Cranes appear all the time in the park. They might be doing something routine. They might be working on a maintenance issue. They might be doing something above and beyond normal maintenance. In the grand scheme, none of it is all that relevant. If it's down, then it's down. What else do you need to know?

If there's something truly newsworthy, you'll hear about it first in the PointBuzz news section. If it's not there, then it's not newsworthy.

It's a beautiful day outside here in Ohio. I'm stuck in here working. Everyone else should be enjoying it, just like tens of thousands of people are doing at Cedar Point - with or without Top Thrill Dragster.

*** Edited 7/3/2004 6:14:58 PM UTC by Walt***

This is what I posted on coasterbuzz. The crane came back while Dragster was running perfectly, dont know what it was all about.

Dragster had some trouble Friday and today (Saturday) but once they got it running it ran flawlessly.

Friday it started launching trains at about 7-8, and then I belive it was running with people at around 8-9. Dont know for sure cause I didnt get over there in the evening, but from mf's que and on our way out it looked to be consitant.

Today it took them till around 3 to start testing, and they started loading up around 4 maybe. Didnt have my watch so I dont have exact times. But it looks like they were having trouble getting the rollback brakes to retract fully cause the train would launch and then slow down so it only made it a fraction of the way up the hill.

Once it got running though it was super consistant, looked to be hitting its capacity perfectly. The crew was fast and the line moved shockingly fast. They said the line was 2 hours, but we were on in 1.5.

My first ride and it was FAR better than I was expecting. I was screaming my head off the entire time, and couldnt stop laughing when it was over. I was really surprised by the air in the second seat, we floated over the tophat!