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"Never before have I wanted to take a picture *here*."
On Monday, Top Thrill Dragster went down again, this time shedding bits of drive cable, hurling a train of riders through a cloud of debris, and making the news headlines. Again. So naturally, I figured this weekend would be a good time to visit the park and see what kind of chaos was going on at Dragster.
So the day started in the usual way, and as I was sitting in Magnum's station waiting for my first ride of the day, I got my answer. With a roar, a train flew up the tower across from me and sailed over the top. A fully loaded train, loaded with paying customers. I guess that means Dragster is open again.
I went over and looked at Dragster. A few years ago when Corkscrew snapped its lift chain, within a week, welding crews had gone around the park and attached bar stock and angle iron to the chain guides on ALL of the coasters in the park to insure that if any chain broke, it couldn't snap back and hit the train. I wondered if I would see any similar sort of rapid response to the Dragster incident. I figured there might be a new guard around the sheaves at the end of the launch track to further contain the haul ropes, should anything go wrong. But there was no such obvious change to the ride. Apparently the park replaced the two haul ropes that had not been replaced a month ago, and the ride was back in business.
Apparently that isn't all they did.
Another notable change on Dragster is that the drive system is now resetting much faster. The train launches, the mechanism stops, then the system starts rewinding before the train even gets to the top of the tower. There is no longer a fifteen-second delay before the system starts resetting. The result was a significant reduction in the launch interval, with trains going at a fairly regular 60-second interval. That, in turn, suggests an hourly capacity of more than 1,000 PPH, which is the best that ride has ever done. Dragster is finally getting to the point where the ride has to wait for the crew instead of the other way around.
Unfortunately, there are some other rides in the park that are waiting far too long for their crews this season. Over on Gemini, something is badly broken. The ride was running four trains, as it has most of the season, since two of its trains are now parked in the Mean Streak infield. While waiting for the ride, I couldn't see what the problem was, but something was going very wrong in the station. A pair of trains would leave, then the other pair of trains...which were already sitting on the safety brake uptrack of the station...would be slowly brought in, unloaded, reloaded and checked, then would sit. I never figured out what they were waiting for, or if the checks were just taking that long on one side or the other, but the trains would consistently sit in the station until well after the other pair returned, then would finally pull out. That means first of all that every ride was ending with the bone-jarring, tooth-chipping, never-supposed-to-happen block-stop on the safety brake just outside the station. Apparently this has been happening a lot, because the park has increased the pressure on the trim brake leading into the final helix in order to reduce the block stop a little bit.
But Gemini was designed to run not four trains, but six! It is supposed to dispatch a pair of trains every 60-75 seconds for a ride time of 2:38-2:53, with the trains never stopping except in the station. On this particular afternoon, the ride was running only four trains, and stacking them every single time. That means the dispatch interval was in excess of 2:40, not the 2,400 PPH you would expect for 4-train operation, but more like 1,300 PPH. That's why Gemini had a long line all day long. 8-(
Somehow I missed the Snoopy Rocks! On Ice show every time it played, even though I kind of planned to see it while I still could. Perhaps next time..... I did spend some time watching and listening to Wicked Twister, which was making some strange banging noises as the train slid through the LIMS, especially as it came through the brakes on the last pass. Not anything of any obvious concern, of course, just some unexpected noise from the train.
On the Frontier Trail, I bought a bag of kettle corn. Kettle corn is, of course, popcorn prepared in an open kettle with oil and a generous helping of sugar. The sugar melts and coats the popcorn, which is then salted and served in severely overpriced bags. The serving is the same price as at Kings Island ($3), but is a bit smaller. Also, I think the sugar was added a little late in the process, as some of my popcorn was coated with sugar crystals instead of the expected clear glaze. It was good, but I have had better.
Possibly the strangest thing I noticed on this visit were the new signs that have popped up all over the peninsula. At the entrance to each rest-room there is a new sign indicating that the use of any cameras or video equipment is officially prohibited in the rest-rooms. I'm not sure I want to know why these signs are necessary. I thought about taking a picture of the sign, but I don't want any trouble... 8-)
So there's a Cedar Point update. The ice show is finally going on, though I didn't see it; Dragster is running again; and peeping toms are officially required to put away their cameras in the rest rooms. You know I'll be back again before long, but next week I'll visit a different "CP"...
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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