water tower question

do they actually use the water tower,and if so for what?I always wondered if it was used or if it was just a historic landmark or sign.

My guess is that they use it to hold water. ;)

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure if they still use it or not. I would assume so.

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com


*** This post was edited by ShiveringTim on 2/21/2001. ***

I'm willing to bet that it's used for emergency fire fighting water pressure.

Dispite what alot of people say, that's what most towns use thiers for.

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MF 2000 - 269 laps

MF 2001 - ???????

Its main purpose is to hold water, kinda like a city's water tower!!!!!!

I heard that too Zips, I think that is where Jeff puts all of the posts he closes too!

Well, think about how most rural water systems work. Almost every small town in Ohio has a water tower. Cedar Point uses the water of a small town. Walt knows the number of gallons per day.

In short, the city can't pump that much water out there to continuously serve that large of a customer.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 50

Cedar Point has a water usage fluction of 2,000,000 gallons per day during the summer. The number was reported in the Register along with numbers from local communities last summer.

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VirtualMidway
http://www.virtualmidway.com

One thing people tend to forget is that water towers aren't there to store water. They are there to maintain the water pressure in the line. The water is pumped up into the tower and gravity feed provides the pressure for taps, fire plugs, etc. If Cedar Point did not have a water tower, they would have zilch for water pressure in the park. Maintaining pressure on the line is also important to prevent contaminants from entering the system.

Tim Bretz
"Remember to pillage before you burn"

Not only is it used for water storage and pressure regulation, but it is also used as a make shift cellphone tower. Just look at it when you pass it and you should see some celltower like antennas on two sides.

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Monster Ride Host for 2 Years
3 Years Total @ CP

I'm guessing it's probably not cell antennas, but rather antennas for the park's own communications systems. Note the plural, as I'm not just talking about business radio (there's probably a repeater up there...) but also any subscriber services they might use. Although there are some similar antennas on the Coliseum.

There are also lightning detector antennas all over the park.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'm am preatty sure that every department has there own antenna for intrapark communications. I've seen antenna's on top of the food service, merchandise, park ops, maintence, park services, and security buildings. I've also noticed a small trailer like building beneath the water tower that looks like a building beneath a cell tower. So i'm preatty sure that the antennas on the water tower are for cell phones.

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Monster Ride Host for 2 Years
3 Years Total @ CP
*** This post was edited by Monster Ride Op on 2/21/2001. ***

I thought the lightning detection system THOR only required 1 detection antenna, which has a detection radius of 15 miles. They look like Mushrooms, so if you see a mushroom sprouting on a rooftop, It's THOR's Antenna.

Because I don't know exactly how CP's THOR works I could be wrong. They may have a More advanced THOR which require's multiple Mushrooms, I mean Atenna's.

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Joe E

The Millennium Force Makes Me High

No, there are wireless antennae up there (I won't say cellular, since, technically speaking not all wireless phones are cellular).

Tim, that's what I was getting at about the pumping thing above. In my term as a city employee, I learned (but thought it was useless knowledge at the time) that there's some basic formula for elevation, distance and number of customers to determine what a tower can handle to maintain pressure. It's almost a little creepy that there are people who go to school for this stuff!

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 50

Sorry for my ignorance... what's THOR?

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-The Pants Has Spoken
"Yellow line? What Yellow Line..."

THOR is the lighting detection system used by CP. I'm not sure exactly what kind of THOR system CP has or how they work.

I learned about THOR in an article on the PGA Tour I read a while back. THOR is not really a detection system, it's a lighting prediction system which can tell you when lightning is going to strike, in the immediate future of course. I think all of this is just wired to a little box which will sound an alarm if lightning is imminent, so even TV "meteorologist" may be able to figure out how to use it. From there, calls are sent out to the red phones of death to kill the rides.

Which brings up a question I did not hear in the other thread. How do they get all the calls out to all the rides,who watches THOR, and where is THOR located?

Interesting conversation !

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:) "Did you know this goes up-side down" :)

My guess is that the THOR monitors (if they have monitors) are probably in Park Operations near the weather radar system.

- thanks to RideMan for dragging me into Park Ops all those times. Can't beat cold water and interesting conversation :)

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

Actually, I think the guts of the system is down in the Police office on the other side of the building, in the room with the sign on the door warning anyone who enters to turn off his 2-way radio. Key the radio and the system can go nuts.

I know for certain that there is a detection antenna on the Coliseum. Less logically, there is also one down by the Paddlewheel queue house. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Lightning is easy to detect, as you can detect it by a broadband burst of static on the AM radio band. Prediction is a little tougher as you have to sense the electrical charge in the air. I believe the system does a little of both.

However they do it, CP operations is pretty good at keeping abreast of the weather situation. A different attitude regarding the safety of steel buildings during lightning strikes might help a little, but in general they do a pretty good job.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Slowly beginning a study of N. Tesla...

Well, I'd say we're all pretty pumped up about that water tower! I hope the pressure doesn't get to us...

We should be OK though, because RideMan has given us a pretty thorough grounding on the potentials of the THOR system...

Ba-da... Bump!

Tim Bretz
"Remember to pillage before you burn"

I thought OTT was the former Western Cruise skipper :)

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VirtualMidway
http://www.virtualmidway.com