TTD down long term?

It actually opened up yesterday.

Jeff said:

I would be surprised if it didn't open before the end of the season. They desperately need all the capacity they can get during Halloweekends.

If there is anything I would hedge my bets on, it is this. I have yet to visit a park anywhere where the maintenance team is working as tirelessly as they do to open a ride up until the final hour.

If something can be done, it will be done.

I mean, if you happen to be a clearance testing frame, SV is now open for you.

As an aside and according to the article linked here, during TTD's first year there were only 600,000 riders but due to Cedar Point figuring out how to maximize the ride's operations they pumped that up to approximately 1.2M riders a year.

Paul Florio said:

I have brought this up both on this and over on our Great Adventure forum for KK and people insist the magnetic system wouldn't be powerful enough. Id like to see a facts based answer though

I posted some cocktail napkin math a while ago based on Intamin's latest magnetic launch ride, and based on the acceleration of that ride, Dragster would need more launch track.

If the normal straight launch track isn’t long enough, I presume an LSM type system could still continue on the curved track up. A lot of newer coasters do this. Tempesto type coasters in particular.

I’m not arguing for or against investing in a conversion, but I think it’s possible.

Kevinj said:
I have yet to visit a park anywhere where the maintenance team is not working tirelessly to open a ride up until the final hour.
.

Never been to a Six Flags park I take it :)

Mr. Potato said:

If the normal straight launch track isn’t long enough, I presume an LSM type system could still continue on the curved track up. A lot of newer coasters do this. Tempesto type coasters in particular.

I don't disagree, but the design of Red Force suggests it was not possible:

The entire induced acceleration of Red Force takes place during the initial horizontal 160m track, which supplies the car with enough momentum to take it over the ‘top hat’ at the ride’s summit where gravity takes the train-car on the rest of its journey.

The accelerating LSM system accounts for about 128m of the initial track, leaving 32m for additional high efficient eddy current brakes in the event of a roll back.

Cartwright said:

Kevinj said:
I have yet to visit a park anywhere where the maintenance team is not working tirelessly to open a ride up until the final hour.
.

Never been to a Six Flags park I take it :)

hahahaha

TTD 120mph said:
It actually opened up yesterday.

TTD opened Sunday?

Urumqi said:

during TTD's first year there were only 600,000 riders

A good chunk of that was because the ride was closed for about a month early in the season while they waited for parts.

So, just to clarify, it did open Sunday?

I couldn't tell if you meant TTD opened on Sunday, or if that was just a joke with regards to Steel Vengeance (above).

Winky faces are your friend, Adam. ;) (See?!)

He was almost certainly joking about SteeVe (can't believe I'm using this) opening this season.

Gee, Adam. *shuffles feet*....thanks.

Dvo said:

...SteeVe (can't believe I'm using this)...

Then don't. Beyond it being a moronic nickname, it makes no sense to write 5 or 6 letters when you can write two to accomplish the same thing: SV. :-)

Thank you.

SteeVe apparently accomplishes one additional thing that SV does not - It pisses DJ off.

I don't agree with using Red Force as an argument as to why LSMs couldn't be used on Dragster. This assumes that Red Force is "maxing out" the LSMs and thus a faster launch would require a longer track. While not an electrical engineer or physicist, my understanding is that the amount of force generated is proportional to the amount of electricity fed to the motors. As such, it should be possible to create a faster launch without extending the length of the launch track. The bigger concern is storing the electricity needed to create such a surge... this would require an extremely large flywheel or similar mechanism. It is my opinion that there isn't a technical limitation to converting Dragster to a magnetic launch, but rather a question of the amount of money that would be involved and if management thinks it would be an appropriate use of funds on a 14-year-old ride.

Red Force uses supercapacitors for energy storage, presumably for reliability reasons.

And of course the limitations aren't technical. It would, after all, be technically trivial to extend Dragster's track to make the launch section longer.

Realistically, depending on the amount of launch track needed, you could relocate the station to load in the curved section, or cut the double station in half and utilize the front half of the station/transfer track area to add stators. Sure, you'd have to limit the number of trains, or turn the end of the brake run into an unload station, but it could be done.

Is it practical to do that? Probably not, but if you needed the extra room, it's theoretically there.