Way to Increase Capacity

I was at Kings Island for the first time this past weekend and loved it. I was extremely impressed by Banshee especially its capacity. At about 11:00 it was only a 40 minute wait and the park was very crowded. When I got to the station I saw that they were dispatching trains every 30 seconds exactly, just as they said on the speaker. Although I they wouldn't have started the ride immediately for safety reasons, they said the train would be dispatched every 30 seconds no matter what. This seemed to rush the riders more and the ride ops moved with a greater speed I have ever witnessed at Cedar Point.

This system could obviously not work on rides like Millennium and Dragster due having to wait for the cable to come re-attach to the train, but why couldn't Cedar Point Try this with rides such as Mantis, Magnum, Gatekeeper, and even Maverick, although I believe they have reached the best they can on Maverick.

Cedar Point still moves through the lines quickly but I feel like Kings Island has found a way that works much better. Thoughts?

Banshee is a tremendous people eater and I bet it can be as good or better than any ride at CP (except Gemini with six trains). Even having said that, I doubt they were as low as 30 seconds. 30 seconds of parked time in the station, maybe, but the interval (dispatch to dispatch) would have to be closer to a minute. It takes over 40 seconds for Banshee to drop off the lift and that is faster than most rides. The next train can't drop off the lift until the previous one has cleared the first set of brakes at the end of the ride since there is no midcourse block on Banshee. Since the time on the course (lift to course) is close to a minute, that would be the minimum interval possible.

The thing that is nice about Banshee is everything is done right from a ride design standpoint compared to an older, but similar ride in Raptor. No floor to wait for to come up, really fast parking of the train in the station, ample room to maneuver in the station, etc. I will say though that I remember riding Raptor back in the late 90's and it did park a lot faster. I remember the whole station track would rock back and forth as the train stopped just about on a dime.

Raptor already stops way too fast outside the station. It doesn't need to stop any faster inside the station. I can't even marathon Raptor during ERT because of the force from that sudden stop. Even when there is no other train until the station.

I'm not talking about the end of the ride when it hits the brakes - that stop occurs the way it does because there isn't enough track there and a long enough brake run to do it more gently. I am talking about when it is coming into the station and under the control of the drive tires. It comes in super slow, then you have to wait for the floor to come up and then finally, the harnesses release. These things have been improved upon with Banshee and it probably gives them 10 extra seconds to actually get people boarded and makes it more likely that they can hit the designed interval of the ride. That adds up over a day and season.

I get what you're saying. Waiting to park and then for the floor to raise is definitely a waste of valuable load time.

Luckily Banshee's brake run is sufficiently long and also uses a magnetic hybrid braking system. If only retrofitting those brakes would fix things..

What I don't understand about Banshee is why the gate doesn't come up until the train entering the station stops. If they brought the gate up as soon as the departing train clears it, they could shave almost ten seconds off the park time, and *all* of that time would be available for turning the train (as the restraints don't open until the gate is up).

Plus the people in the front row get the added thrill of barreling into the station with the closed gate in front of them. 8-)

For the record, I also don't approve of the way they move people on Banshee. They have been assigning rows *and* being jerks about it. It's more efficient, and people hate you a lot less, if you simply let more people into the station and *direct* them towards rows. Limit the number of people who can wait for the front row, and otherwise keep three or four trainloads in the station so that the shotguns are always full. But let people figure out where to sit on their own; most people are pretty good at it, and some people *do* actually care.

--Dave Althoff, Jr. (who is really tired of riding Banshee in the 5th row and is willing to make a stink about it!)

Rideman - what happens when the brakes fail and the gate is up? Do you really want your legs pinned between a steel gate and a 10 ton train? With the gate down, at least if the brakes fail, the train just rolls through and engages on the lift.

I would think after the debut season, they will lighten up on Banshee's seating preferences.

Can you wait for a front row seat?

We're headed there in July, and I'm just curious.

I don't appreciate being treated like a 3rd grader with assigned seats on a coaster at all.

Who comes up with this crap?

Anybody been to a Six Flags park recently? The rider capacity at their parks SUCKS! I recently visited Great Adventure and New England. On El Toro, they were taking as long as 5 minutes to dispatch the next train! Same with Nitro. We sat on the break run on Nitro for at least 5 mins, and the 3rd train was never used that day. I had visited Great Adventure two years ago and it was the same story. The only ride that was running all three trains both times i visited Great Adventure was Bizarro, and all three trains were stacking after every cycle. At New England, they really can't help it because none of the rides there were designed with a MCBR, so they pretty much have to wait until the train go to the final break run. And yes KevinJ, you can wait for front row. On Gatekeeper and Raptor, however, they will assign you to a row especially during the busy parts of the day. All you have to do is respectfully request to wait for front row. I say "respectfully" because i've seen people lose their cool asking to wait for front row.

thank you for saying how bad SFGAdv dispatches are. its my home park, and anytime I mention it on a great adventure board, I got hammered because I don't drink the SFAGdv kool aid. I have made my first 2 ever trips out to cedar point this year, opening weekend, and coastermania, your parks ride operations kick ass. especially the amount of employees on a each ride. SFGadv is usually 2 atendants plus a operator for every ride, with exception to kingda ka, and green lantern, they have 4 attendants. and even with 4 on kingda ka, they were stacking the 3 trains. what makes it even worse, they have 4 load/unload stations, and only use 1. and only have 3 trains now. its f-ing terrible,

Gplez90 said:
Anybody been to a Six Flags park recently? The rider capacity at their parks SUCKS! I recently visited Great Adventure and New England. On El Toro, they were taking as long as 5 minutes to dispatch the next train! Same with Nitro. We sat on the break run on Nitro for at least 5 mins, and the 3rd train was never used that day. I had visited Great Adventure two years ago and it was the same story. The only ride that was running all three trains both times i visited Great Adventure was Bizarro, and all three trains were stacking after every cycle. At New England, they really can't help it because none of the rides there were designed with a MCBR, so they pretty much have to wait until the train go to the final break run. And yes KevinJ, you can wait for front row. On Gatekeeper and Raptor, however, they will assign you to a row especially during the busy parts of the day. All you have to do is respectfully request to wait for front row. I say "respectfully" because i've seen people lose their cool asking to wait for front row.

I didn't notice that about the gate in front of the train at Banshee, but you are right, Rideman. Seems to me they could start to bring it up as the train is finishing parking and under the control of the drive tires. Some of the newer inverts start the floor up as the train is parking. I forget how much room there is in front of the front row at Banshee, but if there is a bunch of space, why do they need the gate anyway? GateKeeper doesn't have one. No one walks off the end of the platform. Most inverts do, and it doesn't seem like a bad idea, but it isn't really necessary either.

Little inefficiencies that are happening thousands and thousands of times over a season really do make a difference and that they don't get the right a lot of times (outside of Disney) drives me nuts. Magnum's parking is really bad. Also noticed it the other day at Michigan's Adventure. Shivering Timbers comes flying into the station after coming around the corner only to stop dead halfway in and proceed to stop about 4-5 more times before parking.

Also, count me as one who prefers them to just let people into the station in sufficient enough quantity to have a few trains worth of people in the rows. If the load hosts are paying attention, they can fill the gaps to keep the train relatively full. With an interval of about a minute, assigning the rows probably leads to more empty seats or waiting than just letting people in. At least let people wait for the front or back and fill the middle rows with the ones who don't care where they sit.

Too bad about the Six Flags parks. I don't visit them often, but I went to Great Adventure about four years ago and it seemed like they had actually improved quite a bit from what I remembered my previous visit. Sounds like they've regressed. Might hit up Great America for Goliath at some point this year.

RideMan said:
What I don't understand about Banshee is why the gate doesn't come up until the train entering the station stops.

I think you know it's to avoid pinning riders into it and breaking their knees in the event of some train parking overshot.

MDOmnis said:
I didn't notice that about the gate in front of the train at Banshee, but you are right, Rideman. Seems to me they could start to bring it up as the train is finishing parking and under the control of the drive tires. Some of the newer inverts start the floor up as the train is parking. I forget how much room there is in front of the front row at Banshee, but if there is a bunch of space, why do they need the gate anyway? GateKeeper doesn't have one. No one walks off the end of the platform. Most inverts do, and it doesn't seem like a bad idea, but it isn't really necessary either.

Little inefficiencies that are happening thousands and thousands of times over a season really do make a difference and that they don't get the right a lot of times (outside of Disney) drives me nuts. Magnum's parking is really bad. Also noticed it the other day at Michigan's Adventure. Shivering Timbers comes flying into the station after coming around the corner only to stop dead halfway in and proceed to stop about 4-5 more times before parking.

Also, count me as one who prefers them to just let people into the station in sufficient enough quantity to have a few trains worth of people in the rows. If the load hosts are paying attention, they can fill the gaps to keep the train relatively full. With an interval of about a minute, assigning the rows probably leads to more empty seats or waiting than just letting people in. At least let people wait for the front or back and fill the middle rows with the ones who don't care where they sit.

Too bad about the Six Flags parks. I don't visit them often, but I went to Great Adventure about four years ago and it seemed like they had actually improved quite a bit from what I remembered my previous visit. Sounds like they've regressed. Might hit up Great America for Goliath at some point this year.

Then if the gate wasn't there, imagine someone walking off the edge of the platform like an idiot, falling, and breaking their leg. Then the park has to deal with a lawsuit because there was no gate. Believe it or not, i have actually seen several people get confused on where the exit was on Gatekeeper and walk out onto the catwalk (all 4 times were riders from the front row) an a host has to go grab them an tell them the exit is in the other direction.

Please don't quote an entire post. Trim it.

Gplez90 said:
Then if the gate wasn't there, imagine someone walking off the edge of the platform like an idiot, falling, and breaking their leg. Then the park has to deal with a lawsuit because there was no gate.

Seems like the bright yellow-on-black lines that say "CAUTION: DROP OFF" have worked on Wicked Twister for about 12 years with no problems. Without a gate, even!

Wicked Twister and GateKeeper do not have a sudden 20' drop to the midway below. Yes, there is a drop off at the ends of the Wicked Twister platform, but I think it is under 6'.

As for pinning riders against the gate...a valid point, but not insurmountable. Wha if the gate did not lock untl the train stops? I don't know if the mechanism is clutched, but it could be rigged to 'break away' if not completely vertical. For the train to overshoot far enough to hit the gate would be a pretty massive failure.

Getting back to the original post in this thread...Cedar Point has always pushed capacity very hard until just recently (2000 or so...) to the point where just about any ride at Cedar Point does better in THC than pretty much any ride at Kings Island except Banshee.

Quite frankly, the easiest way for Cedar Point to improve capacity would be to not buy any more rides from Intamin.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Agreed about the Intamins. Gatekeeper does quite nicely numbers wise. I wasn't thinking about the catwalk being there on Gatekeeper - that is definitely why they don't need the gate. Of course, making the mistake of walking onto a catwalk is a bit more understandable than walking off a cliff. :) Are people really that dumb?

Yes!

If the gate was clutched, what about a locking failure and then it breaks away when someone is holding on to it causing them to fall? I agree with the way the Banshee gate works, leave it down until the train is fully parked eliminating any danger of the gate pinning someone and causing injury. IMHO, saving 10 seconds is not worth the potential risk to riders.