Ride Closures

I have been reading trip reports lately, and may people have had woes about ride closures. We all know that rides always have the chance of breaking down, but hy is it that at certain parks they just don't break down that often? I constantly hear about ride closures at SFWoA, but barely ever at CP. I mean, what is the exact cause that makes rides break down more often at certain parks?

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Shivering Timbers- for the love of Michigan's Adventure, just ride it.

Lack of maintenance.

I don not know about other parks, but I was at CP last summer riding Gemini with my dad, and we were stopped on the break block for about 20 minutes, they fixed the ride and we continued. On our way out of the station, an op was handing out golden tickets which said "front of the line to every ride except MF." So we headed to Raptor and got right on. What I am saying is that CP does have breakdowns, but they compensate those who are affected by them. Other parks may not compensate it's riders. I have heard of people getting free shirts and merchandise at parks for the parks mistake. Actually, at CP yesterday the Gemini was broke down twice when I tried to ride.

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ZEPPELIN RULES

You have to keep in mind that coasters are BIG machines. They have yet to build the perfect machine,one that doesn't break down or requires some kind of maintenance. Now Cedar Point is one of the few parks (that I've had experience with) outside of Disney and Universal that operates with three shifts of maintenance. This is mainly because they have a longer operating day than a lot of the smaller parks do,not to mention larger attendence. Most parks have their main crews arrive early in the morning to do the heavy work,and have a skelton crew in the late afternoon and evening to look after things until closing. Also remember a lot of small to midsize parks don't a have a large maintenance staff. It's not unusal to have only two or three mechanics,a carpenter and an electrician(maybe).

Cedat Point also has a relatively large number of mechanics on duty. A mechanic might have one coaster and a few flat rides as his total area of responsibility. This means when there is a breakdown, the mechanic is less likely to be tied up elsewhere.

I don't know why, but B:TR usually breaks down about 2-3 times a day (on the days I've been there), but I don't know why. Once I asked a ride op standing at the front of the line what was wrong, and he said it was technical problems...

Benjih1043, At SfStl our B:TR has sensors in the belt from the seat to the otsr and if someone opens the buckle while the ride is still on the lift hill it shuts down the ride and park policy is that they cant restart the ride until a supervisor "inspects" the ride to assure safety. I'm sure all of the Batmans are the same. This occurred twice while I was in line on one trip last year. The offenders were escorted from the park.
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Just a couple of G-force junkies!

I honestly feel that some parks get "bad" rides. In other words some rides will operate pretty consistently, while others are maintenance headaches. A ride may also be closed due to a part on order or modification.

Intamin Fan is correct. B&Ms for instance, are very reliable! Intamins well...mo comment. :-)


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"Happy Everything"

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Dutchman said:
They have yet to build the perfect machine,one that doesn't break down or requires some kind of maintenance

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How about a block of wood? :)
j/k

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Rollercoasters are the secret of life!

http://www.woodencoaster.com

The thing about CP is that right when a ride breaks down and it's not something the ride op's can handle, they call for a maintenance worker. The only time I've seen a ride at CP down for more then a hour or two was Magnum with it's broken chain, same with corkscrew. Rollbacks are a differnt story, those they can't just open the ride back up untill much later.

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MF Drops-22
SOB Rides-2

I must be really lucky. I have hardly ever run major rides that ar down.

Last year on opening weekend at Kennywood Banyern Curve and two other flat rides were down. Thunderbolt was down for most of the day, but opened at 5pm. Luckily we got in line and rode it before it went down again.

Our trip to Fla was kind of rough with down rides, but we made out okay...

At BGT Pheonix, Skyride, and Kumba were all down for anual maintenance. Luckily they did open Kumba late in the afternoon to at least give people a chance to ride. Scorpion was down for most of the day, but maintenace was working from the time we first encountered the ride until it opened around 2pm. Python went down for about 20 minutes with a problem with the chain lift but was up and running after that.

Sea World Orlando was a strange story. Kraken was closed the first day we were there. They were having a minor maintenace problem with it and also the high winds caused them to keep it closed. It reportedly opened around 2pm... we left at 1:30. But we got that "2nd day of fun" Free admittance (at least they were running that in March) and went back a few days later. Kraken was up and running, but then, while in line for about my 3rd ride it was down while two maintenace men checked a sensor that was acting up (preventive maintenance!).

Always had it lucky at my home park... Hersheypark never seems to have coasters that are down. The only down rides we have encountered since 1999 are the Conestoga (perpetually down) and Cyclopse last year (some of the "buckets / gondolas" were missing).



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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."

Has Incredible Hulk been broken down on anyone's visit to IOA?

Each park has different policies about closing rides -- Cedar Point actually lets the ride ops handle a lot of closures themselves, without haveing to wait for maintenance. If the ride "sets up" because of a problem loading/unloading guests, or illness, then the ride ops have to call the office and let them know but maintenance does not have to come check the ride and management doesn't either. The ride ops clear the problem and reopen the ride, usually in less than 5 minutes. Yes, there are a large number of mechanics on duty, and they do have smaller areas to cover letting them get to the rides more quickly if need be.

Another reason CP may not seem so bad with ride closures with some other parks is that if one coaster is closed, you still have 13 more to choose from!

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Po!nt of View: A different look at Roller Coasters.
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/index.html