Raptor Didn't Make It ?!?

Word is that raptor stalled in the cobra roll this morning during testing. Can anyone confirm / disprove this? Pics ?

Confirmed. I took these earlier today.

http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/Cedar_Point/IMGP0033.JPG

http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/Cedar_Point/IMGP0035.JPG

At least it was not at the top of the cobra roll.

That would suck to have to get it down from up there.

Last year someone had sent an empty train out of the station during some cold/windy weather. The train got stopped half way up the lift to prevent it from valleying in the course. Then employees who were leaving after their shift were called over to fill the train so that it would make it back to the station. Loading a train on the lift was something I'm sure I'll never do again.

Right before we crested someone made a remark to the whole train about how we were employees and that we should be treating this like a test ride by refraining from hoopin' & hollarin'. Of course we squealed like a bunch of kids. Ah memories...

It's not the first, nor the last time Raptor will valley. The turn into the midcourse is taken slow enough that the wrong gust of wind can blow it backwards.

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Hamster Boy said:
At least it was not at the top of the cobra roll.

That would suck to have to get it down from up there.

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As opposed to where it actually did valley, where it has more vertical track to climb in either direction to get going.

They may just take it off for the season from there.

^ I may be wrong, but I thought the only coasters that had their trains removed from the track by disassembling the trains were shuttle coaster. With Raptor's transfer track, I doubt the wheel assembly is designed to just come apart.

For clarification, it didn't valley IN the cobra roll, it valleyed after the cobra roll. I bet it took a look time to come to rest, cause that climb to the MCBR is so long and gradual.

Were there riders on it when it valleyed?

This is why Raptor is closed on windy days.

I think that this is where Raptor always valleys when it does. I witnessed a rollback in the exact same spot while eating at what was once called the Boathouse restaraunt which is now Famous Dave's. We had a window seat and watched a massive storm blow through while we were eating. Afterward, they started sending out test trains and one of them made it almost to the mid-course but didn't. It proceeded to roll back and took a LONG time to come to rest. Raptor was down the rest of that day. We were staying at Sandcastle that weekend so I drove over at 1:00AM and it was still on the track with no activity going on at all. When the park opened the next morning it was back up and running.

Tom *** Edited 10/30/2006 4:18:06 PM UTC by LdScotsman***

As far as I know, this only happened one other time, and it was the reason for not running it when wind gusts to a certain speed from a very particular direction. The climb from the cobra roll up to the mid-course is very long, and if it's cold and empty, it crawls into the last part of the turn, which in this case points due west, where the gusts were coming from.

Dragster had roll backs constantly all weekend. I counted five or six and I wasn't really going out of my way to watch it.

Jeff, I'm a bit anal but I think when you are coming out of the cobra roll you are pointing due east...so the wind would have been blowing east to west to stop the train. That is not a normal weather pattern (west to east is typical in that part of the counrty) which would explain why this is a rare occurrence.

You're right... but you make a turn a full 270 degrees, and the end of that turn you're pointing west before you pull into the mid-course. See pictures

I was eating pizza on a bench looking at Raptor in the evening last night, and I thought it was weird that it was closed. I thought it was pretty reliable... Then I see this post this morning... To bad I didn't notice last night, that woulda been cool to see in person.

That is the spot it valleyed once before. It takes a strong gust of wind to make it do that (about 50 mph if I remember correctly). We had days where we had to open late because of wind gusts. An empty train would barely make it into the mid-course (winds from the west).

I never saw the valley, but we did have to hit the ride stop once because it was blowing backward out of the block. We restarted when the wind died, and it rolled very slowly out.

Fun stuff. Many of the CP rides can valley in strong winds.

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SFoGswim said:
With Raptor's transfer track, I doubt the wheel assembly is designed to just come apart.

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I'm betting that it would come apart. I guess their actions will depend on if it's easier to get the train back to station or just take it off from there. We'll probably never know. ;)

Well, based on what I saw, it doesn't seem like a very accessible location to remove a train. But, I wasn't really thinking about that scenerio at the time, so I could be wrong.

I was around the first time it valleyed and, if memory serves, they used a small crane to "tow" the train to the top of the brake run and then gave it a push to get it to complete the circuit.

In other words...it is a time consuming endeavor.

Wildcat is another one that is wind prone. Ever notice the panels on the railings along the dip after the lift? Those are apparently there because a stiff breeze off the bay will blow the car back. I don't think it ran Saturday either.