What was going on with the Skyride...?!

I was at the park on Sunday. Not a great day to be in the park; the way they are handling rain these days is horrific. The rain showers were barely enough to get the ground wet, and lasted just long enough for them to shut the coasters down, with enough time between them to bring the coasters back up, so it seems most of the afternoon was spent shutting down and restarting coasters instead of operating them.

But at one point, I took a ride on the Skyride, from the middle of the park up to the front gate. I think they were running the maximum load of cars on the thing. I can't quite put my finger on what was different, but the crew in that station (sorry, I didn't go the other way so I don't know how it was at the other end) was moving people through that ride faster and more smoothly than I have seen in a long time. I think what got my attention was that I entered the car not down at the red or yellow "X" as usual, but right in front of the entrance gate. In a gondola by myself, I instinctively leaned forward to straighten the gondola out so that the cars would bump together more cleanly in the station, but...it didn't happen. Instead, I just rolled right on down the track and onto the cable.

I don't really know what was different. But somehow, it seemed that Skyride was running a larger-than-usual load of cars, the ride was running more efficiently than usual, and the crew was making it look absolutely effortless. I know that's one of the more difficult rides in the park to operate, but Sunday it didn't matter. Sky Ride was running, I swear, the way that Blue Streak used to (before 1994). I hope someone from that crew, or better yet their boss, reads PointBuzz. It was a job well done, done even better than usual. :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I have noticed it too. Every 10 seconds a new gondala was ready for dispatch. They make sure that they don't bump either. Very good crew this year. If only Magnums crew was like that this year.

Magnum's crew has made sure that the trains don't bump this year as well. By that standard they're doing just as well ;)

Actually it's probably maintenance that has kept the trains from bumping. Those trains slow down in the safeties quite nicely now (pretty much stop dead if they aren't fully loaded) even after a trimless ride. They should have listened in 2007 when they were being told repeatedly that the trains were overshooting the safeties. Then we could have avoided this ridiculousness with the rain policies.

Well there was a guy tightrope walking on the cables, and.........oh wait, you aren't talking about that.

Good to hear. :) Because back in June, they were loading people at a very slow pace. It was almost a waste of time to wait in line for the Skyride. By the time you were on it, you could have walked to the other side of the park.

The last time I rode Magnum was in June as well, and the crew was doing a great job then. I believe they were the fastest crew the 2 days I was there.

I have video of the tightrope guy. :)

Over on Magnum I watched them set the ride up twice in ten minutes. To their credit, someone had grabbed the key and was running down the catwalk before the third train hit the safety brake, so the shutdown was really brief.

I also noticed that Gemini was doing a better than usual job of getting trains out on time, until I got my ride. Of course my train had to come to a brain-jarring, back wrenching, tooth smashing e-stop on the back brake. Unlike newer coasters, Gemini is NOT supposed to stop on that back brake, and with only two pair running there really is no reason for it.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:
To their credit, someone had grabbed the key and was running down the catwalk before the third train hit the safety brake...

I'm not so sure that's a good thing, it means they're used to doing it. :)

And I know one of the ATL's from Sky Ride reads/posts here occasionally, so I'm sure they will see your comment.

Dave, thank you for your genorisity to compliment Skyide. I'm one of the team leaders of the ride, and the crew and I strive to get people as quickly as possible while doing our jobs completely safe and in-check. We were running our max, which sends out cabins ever 9.5 seconds. If you have ever noticed the stations in a closer look, the station by Corkscrew is much longer than the one in the front of the park. When we load the the Corkscrew station, it's almost hard to load people in front of the gate rather than the X's we have.

Also, to the person that said we had a slow loading problem back in June, I can only say that it was a possible chance of us running less than our maximum amount of cabins, or dealing with food/basketballs/etc. Basketballs are an insane problem for us at SkyRide despite there being 4 signs warning people about them, but unfortunately, they don't listen. I apologize your wait wasn't quicker than what you had wanted it to be. Atleast you still get a good view of the park rather than walking! :)

But all in all, thank you guys for the compliments, and I'll make sure my crew will hear about this.

We rode the Sky Ride in both directions yesterday. Our load and unload was very quick, no wait what so ever. Great job guys!