Vertical lift

I was at Universal Orlando yesterday and saw them testing their new coaster - Rockit. It has a vertical lift hill which greatly reduces the amount of space needed for the lift. Will be interesting to see how it feels as a rider, but with space becoming a premium at CP, I would imagine that they may have this on their drawing boards as well.

Anyone experienced on of these type of lifts? If they do indeed put a new coaster where they cleared out the trees (my vote, however, is for a flume ride), this would save a ton of space.

Fahrenheit at Hershey has this. I wouldn't be suprised, if they went with steel, to do a vertical lift. However, GCI doesn't do vertical lifts, and that what I hope we are getting.

http://rcdb.com/ig4049.htm?picture=17

tallest, fastest, longest vertical lift coaster...bam.

The vertical lift hill is weird the first few times, after that its really nothing special.

I've been on the one at Hershey (Intamin) and at Nick Universe in Mall of America (Gerstlauer), and aside from the space saving, don't find it that interesting. The Intamin version has a double chain lift with pushers at opposite ends, and redundancy is because it has no anti-rollbacks. I'm not sure why Intamin is so fascinated with position and sense lifting/launching devices.

The GP eats up the vertical lift though. Thats all you hear when you go to Hershey. So GP loves it and it saves space, sounds like a winner. But really, how much more Intamin do we need?

^^Ride the Mystery Mine, the first vertical lift is not all that spectacular, but the second one in the dark with a storm approaching is pretty darn cool.

I was about to mention Mystery Mine. That is a great ride, and the second vertical lift is very cool with the effects. Of course, we know how great theming gets kept up on at the Point...

The Eurofighter platform (SpongeBob, Mystery Mine) is very interesting to me. Like the short-train Intamin rides, it can do a lot of interesting things in a tight spot. The two-row trains concern me a little for most parks though, and I'm wondering if they'd work in a park like CP. The modern era has all been about capacity machines. I can't see them doing a mouse ride or something like that, which kinda sucks because they're so much fun.

Mystery Mine has the ability to be a capacity monster, but it isn't for reasons that would not be an issue at Cedar Point, at least based on my observation. The short trains and more blocks mean quick loading/unloading times, short intervals, and theoretically shorter restraint checking time. The station setup on Mystery Mine is 4 load/unload zones, but they were only using two of them, which meant they usually had at least one full train sitting in an unused restraint unlock loading block behind the first two loading blocks. The system is setup to load/unload 4 trains at a time, but they were doing pretty well with just using two (despite the fact that they were stacking at times, but that's something I'll come back to in a minute), and could have gone even faster had they been able to use the two unused loading blocks as unload points. The biggest bottleneck to their operations was in my observation the ride ops, but it isn't something I fault them for as I realize that probably 90% of the employees are twice the age (or older) of the typical CF/SF ride op.

So in short, I would say that as long as the station is set up efficiently, these more compact coaster designs have the ability to be capacity monsters. I feel the station is the key because the rides are naturally designed to accommodate several ride vehicles at once on the course.

Also when I was there in April, the Mystery Mine was always a walk on while Thunderhead (even with two train operations) I usually had to wait a cycle or two.

IMO, I don't think that they would add another mine ride, vertical lift or not. It's not like Cedar Point to do that. I think it'll be a flume, but that opinion is only formed on personal logic.

Jeff, how bad was capacity on Fahrenheit when you went on it? I was there the day it opened and it was running SO SLOW with 2 trains. I know it was mostly because it was it's first day running with riders but that double chain takes soooo long to engage the train and send it up the lift at full speed. So I can't imagine capacity being a WHOLE bunch better than what I experienced with as slow as it takes to send 1 train up the tower. Though I'd love to be proven wrong.

^I've been on it w/ 3 train operation and didn't think capacity was terrible. I mean, not the best ever, but about as expected.

I think from that tree near the stairs it was 30 mins. With half the main queue section full (excluding that branched-off section in the back) it was 60 mins or so. Also, on all my HP visits, I've never personally thought it took abnormally long for Fahrenheit's train to engage the lift, nor did I think it was slow...I timed it and it took like 20 seconds or something?? I mean, that's totally average for a chain lift.

Fahrenheit had three trains running when I was there, and I think we waited around a half-hour with a 75% queue. It was all good, we had good company.

The lift on Rockit takes about 15 seconds - not bad at all. They have two MCBRs, so they can safely have two out on the course at a time. Long station too, so I'm guessing maybe a four to five train operation. Each train seats 12. Once they get it up to full operational capacity, it will be interesting to see what kind of numbers they get per hour.

BTW, the LED lights along the side of the trains are very cool. Easily seen during the day and synched to the ride. Are you listening CP?

Doesn't Rocket have four mid courses? One after the "loop", the one directly under it, one after the "crowd surfer" element and then one before the final brakes.