As in, from someone you know?
Cedar Point | Top Thrill 2 | Triple Launch Renovation | 2024
- Thread starter Wazzupnerds
- Start date
As in, from someone you know?
RcTmix
Mega Poster
Not really a surprise, but the live webcam has been moved off of Top Thrill 2.
FWIW I was fortunate enough to get one ride on TT2 last Friday and thought it was fantastic! Far exceeded my expectations. Not quite a world beater, but better than the original and somewhere in my top 15. It really is a shame more folks won't get to experience it for awhile.
FWIW I was fortunate enough to get one ride on TT2 last Friday and thought it was fantastic! Far exceeded my expectations. Not quite a world beater, but better than the original and somewhere in my top 15. It really is a shame more folks won't get to experience it for awhile.
TPoseOnTantrum
Giga Poster
Someone with a good track record and was okay explaining it to other group chats. Not the kind of "insider" who had me convinced this time last year that Zamperla was totally definitely not involved with the project. Lord imagine if that had been the case.
Like any good bit of inside info tho it's still all hearsay until something official emerges to back it up. Or in this case where other sources at the park were able to lend credence to that claim. With the info public and multiple accounts backing it up, it's worth sharing.
I guess for now it's a rare Cedar Point rare credit?
To just pump the brakes a little here, the original season... and second... were also pretty ridiculous.
There's anything but certainty that Intamin would have charted a fairer course. Understand there's an (unfortunate) laundry list of Intamin projects gone awry, especially at Cedar Point (Maverick barrel roll removal, Shoot the Rapids boat flip, MF and TTD lift cable snaps, etc.). Maybe it is, just hard, to do these high speed, high heights type of project?
That is, unless anyone wants to take the over on Falcon's Flight opening on time/facing no LSM glitch.
Sticky_T_Wicky
Mega Poster
To just pump the brakes a little here, the original season... and second... were also pretty ridiculous.
There's anything but certainty that Intamin would have charted a fairer course. Understand there's an (unfortunate) laundry list of Intamin projects gone awry, especially at Cedar Point (Maverick barrel roll removal, Shoot the Rapids boat flip, MF and TTD lift cable snaps, etc.). Maybe it is, just hard, to do these high speed, high heights type of project?
That is, unless anyone wants to take the over on Falcon's Fury opening on time/facing no LSM glitch.
It is hard to do these high speed, high heights projects but Intamin has proven it can done right with Red Force that opened 7 years ago. Zamperla hasn't even proven it can do a coaster at half the scale of TT2s speed or height. The fact that Cedar Fair chose Zamperla almost certainly had to do with it being the cheapest option. If Cedar Fair wanted its best chance at a reliable and thrilling coaster, they would have chosen Intamin which has demonstrated that their engineering can do it. If CF did not choose Intamin due history well... we are going to get a really good idea of if and how bad Cedar Fair screwed up with the opening of Falcon's Flight.
Cool, so you're the taker on my Falcon's Flight bet?
My driving point is: Intamin's reputation is anything but stellar, especially with high speed launch systems. Even Red Force is dropped down to seemingly frequent one-train operation due to train ride system error.
There is no one, defacto "winner" in building these machines. A cruise through record-holding height and speed coasters reveals litany of broken trains, redesigned launch systems, and excessive opening season downtime. Well except for Leviathan - that apparent did alright.
CanobieFan
Strata Poster
It is true,
Coasterhub on Instagram has footage of it as his story https://www.instagram.com/stories/coasterhub/3368889081167017807/?igsh=ZjlubzNia2l1amJn
EDIT: Added the Instagram link - Hyde
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A fundamental question: For whatever damage and remediation is needed - does the park have ability and spare parts to limp a single-train-style-operation along, or is the challenge of the problem greater/genuinely requires re-engineering with inability to operate under current conditions?
We just don't know, but there could be that scenario where, given sufficient spare parts (e.g. bogies), you could still operate with anticipation to replace parts at an accelerated rate. Some roller coasters face significant wheel wear rate, for instance, which can be as easy as replacing wheels to experiment/find the right balance of wheel material and design.
To the "wait they were testing!?" moment - I do expect that to be some honest test fires of the ride to try to pinpoint the issue. If we are indeed facing chassis and bogie issues, one way to solve is an accelerated wear test, so you can further stress and see where the issue is.
I must admit that this sort of thing makes me rather curious about Falcon's Flight.There's anything but certainty that Intamin would have charted a fairer course. Understand there's an (unfortunate) laundry list of Intamin projects gone awry, especially at Cedar Point (Maverick barrel roll removal, Shoot the Rapids boat flip, MF and TTD lift cable snaps, etc.). Maybe it is, just hard, to do these high speed, high heights type of project?
That is, unless anyone wants to take the over on Falcon's Flight opening on time/facing no LSM glitch.
Consider, for a moment, a rollercoaster as a system of components that have to work together for operation to be possible. Some components need to work flawlessly, others within tolerances, and yet others can technically fail without closing the coaster down, due to built-in redundancies. But for a lot of components, being out of tolerance means the coaster isn't operating until a fix can be carried out. A fault in any one of those components shuts down the ride.
Of course, the uptime of any given component can be very high. It's not unreasonable that the odds of any individual component working at any given time is something like 99.9%. But when you consider all the components that need to work together for the coaster to work, those odds have to be multiplied together.
In order for Falcon's Flight to operate, a whole bunch of components need to be working. There's a large and complex launch system (including a large and complex power supply), lots of brakes, a horde of sensors, miles of wiring, a central control system, several thousand meters of track, probably thousands of connection points between the track elements, the support structure, and the footers, and the trains are a whole interesting chapter by themselves. Such a large coaster has a lot of things that can go wrong, and the speeds involved means narrow tolerances and enormous load factors. Consider just the wear on wheels, for instance, compared to a smaller Intamin like the Mega-Lites (which are only a third as fast and a sixth as long).
In other words, there are lots of little risk factors that need to be multiplied together, and even if we're working with individual odds close to 1, the total product grows smaller and smaller. Say there are 20 components with a reliability of 99.9%, that gives a total downtime of approximately 2%. But if the reliability of the components, due to high stress, is 99.5% instead? 10% downtime. If there are 30 components instead? 14% downtime. Or if there are only 10 components, but they only exhibit 95% reliability? 40% downtime.
It seems likely that TT2 might have stumbled into that trap. Too many things that can go wrong, too high odds of something going wrong, and errors are expensive as heck to adrress. I've got a feeling that Intamin and Six Flags Qiddiya are going to get it so much worse. They are working against Murphy's Law here. They're building a coaster with a lot of things that can go wrong, and a relatively high likelihood of things going wrong. Subsequently, it must cost a fortune to maintain. I really don't see how they plan to recoup those costs by operating a theme park. TTD might have run at a loss for Cedar Point, TT2 might turn out even worse. Even that coaster seems to be skirting close to the limit of what is a reasonable level of operational risk for a park to manage. Falcon's Flight takes it to a whole new level. It will take enormous effort to make that thing run reliably - if that is at all possible. I really can't see it ever making its money back.
TPoseOnTantrum
Giga Poster
Well said, and my thoughts exactly. The sheer complexity of these types of large roller coaster projects feels a challenge for any manufacturer. There is an absolute "told you so" narrative evolved on social media amongst coaster enthusiasts for why Zamperla was the wrong choice over Intamin for the project; but this argument can only hold so much water when you consider against the whole of history - building large, fast roller coasters is hard. Not using this as apology/conjecture for Zamperla, but the honest truth that we've been here, before, with many Intamin projects too over the last 25 years.
I'll count this as forward progress, and seeing action on the track/moving on wheel bogie assembly.
With it being May 20th however, I do start to fear missing the July month. Only time will tell.
I’ll ask again. When do you guys think we might KNOW something in terms of what was wrong with the ride? I’m not asking for a reopen date I just wonder how and when the park will communicate.
And also that mean if at all they do. Maybe their statement will be the only one we get until opening? Good vibes everyone hope we get good news soon
And also that mean if at all they do. Maybe their statement will be the only one we get until opening? Good vibes everyone hope we get good news soon
I don’t expect them to ever go public with the specific issue. If it was a mechanical one (as it looks now), it would imply a safety risk and they wouldn’t go public. If it was an electrical issue, it would imply that they didn’t do enough testing and therefore compromise the rides safety - so they wouldn’t go public either.
Please keep in mind that I used IMPLY, not that it is that way. But GP would certainly feel more endangered if they get some reason to think about.
Right now, everything’s pointing towards the wheel assembly, which is indeed a serious issue - but it’s good that it was caught before anything could go wrong. Most things on a coaster a redundant, but a wheel assembly does not allow for redundancy. If it breaks, it breaks.
Please keep in mind that I used IMPLY, not that it is that way. But GP would certainly feel more endangered if they get some reason to think about.
Right now, everything’s pointing towards the wheel assembly, which is indeed a serious issue - but it’s good that it was caught before anything could go wrong. Most things on a coaster a redundant, but a wheel assembly does not allow for redundancy. If it breaks, it breaks.
To @Trax's point, the park will undoubtedly remain quiet until they confirm a reopening date. Even then, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a matter of quietly reopening the ride with little-to-no fanfare to minimize attention draw.
While I know enthusiasts like to paint a picture of "Cedar Point is worried about safety optics" - I can't emphasize enough how few regular park goers are aware Top Thrill Dragster had an accident. Don't believe all that you read in social media and toxic doomscroll - Cedar Point on the whole is doing fine with regular park goer optics and perceived safety; a quick tour of online news coverage is mostly neutral for Cedar Point (especially versus Kennywood which is facing a season-long closure of Steel Curtain with equally zero intel), and dare I say cautiously positive from a perspective of CP caught a snag early and is "do[ing] everything possible to reopen Top Thrill 2 as soon as we are confident we can deliver the ride experience that our guests deserve."
As a region we have a lived experience of Cedar Point building world record rides, that usually face cataclysmic downtime for repetitive seasons (let's not forget we've already gone 3 and a half season with an SBNO TTD). It's happened before, and we are sadly here again. I volunteer this not to apologize on Cedar Point's behalf - it's a damn shame we are in this spot, and the onus will stick with Cedar Point to get this ride back online; but do not discount the honest local perspective of "we've been here before, and we'll be glad when it's resolved."
CoasterRider73
Roller Poster
Understand everyone's comments and points. I am not a fan of Zamperla by any means. I'm really not a fan of Cedar Fair with the way they treat their smaller parks. But we all have to understand that when a park asks for a specific ride design that has never been done before it is going to create challenges. I am not an engineer, but remember the fact that commercial flight was not a true success at first and many people suffered. I appreciate that CP caught the issue before an incident happened. Was this caused by them going with the cheaper option and their ignorance to work with better manufactures which seems to always be the case because they are so stubborn? I get it that CP pushes the envelope allot, but what do you expect the manufactures to do? This indicates that there should have been more dummy test cycles before opening to the public, plain and simple.