Anyone go on MF?

I only rode it over 300 times last year but who cares? :)

Right now the speed is getting back, it looked like it was running good today the whole 5 minutes it was up. It's about 4 or 5 seconds off it's normal time which isn't too bad considering it's still May. It takes forever to warm up in the morning. With the nylon wheels it seemed to run real good in the morning. It feels a bit "sloppy" would be the best way to describe it as people have mentioned. The biggest problem right now is not the ride itself but the operation of it.

Today for example it was down for most of the morning and went down again when I left. For four straight days is was not up in the morning ,almost like in 2000 when it opened at noon.

The big thing is yellow train has not been in operation yet. This coupled with numerous breakdowns this makes waits almost unbearable, and the park is near empty. One day they were only running 1 train. Yesterday and today were about the best days in a while to cycle it in case they were afraid of a rollback. This leads me to believe it's not the train valleying they are afraid of, but it the system is screwed up so it can't run three. Trains have stopped on the lift and I know it was not for block testing (there were people on it!).

It still a good ride so I would still ride it, It's just wish it would work more and the other train would run. :(

*** This post was edited by Joe E. on 5/16/2002. ***


Jeff said:
"On opening day I thought it was running like it did when it opened, which makes sense because they were using all steel wheels,


Is there steel on steel contact between the rail and wheel? If so its really loud now huh?
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You're so contagious, you turn ma pages!

I think he meant all steel as in all of that type. The wheels they were using have a steel core probably withsome type of polyurethane covering. The nylon wheels are just solid all the way though with no steel center.

Ah, so the wheels are really polyurethane? I was wondering about the "steel wheels." I had never heard of anything but "poly" and "nylon."

The poly ones are hellaquiet. Not to mention hellaslow. :(

I hope they change back to nylon soon!

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Fiesta Fest Weakest Link contestant wannabe.

Joe, you and I could pretty much write a book about how MF has been running. We saw the best and worst of MF last year didn't we? ;)

I've only ridden it 3 times this year, I have been avoiding it lately. Monday I got in line with the it starting at the ramp thinking there was two train operation like it has been this year, but it turned out to be ONE train operation! All of the wheels on the train are the same except for the back and front. Last year I think CP found the right combination of wheels, making a great ride! I hope it gets better this year!

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Force Laps: 427
Wicked Twists: 37
VertiGo Shots: 32

scoaster:

In cold weather the grease thickens up in the wheel bearings. This increases the friction of the bearings and slows the trains.

Best-57 sec
Worst-69.9 sec (you remember that Greg :))
Average-60-62 sec
Right now-64/65 sec

I am a true coaster Dork for logging this stuff! :)

with those numbers can u tell how about how much slpwer it is going?

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bigger is better

It still going 93 MPH, it just completes the course a little slower.

I forget where, but J-man calculated the average speed of MF sometime here. THe POV was used and that clocked at 65 sec I think. That came out to an average of 55 MPH with that.

The POV is about how its running right now. You can see and hear how quiet and slow it is from that.

I remember the 69.9 day! Wasn't that the day WildCat rolled back? Oh wait, it rolled back twice! :)

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Force Laps: 424
Wicked Twists: ???
VertiGo Shots: 32

I'm just curious how you time it Joe. It is fairly easy to time Magnum's trains because its easy to tell when it's completely off the chain. Magnum's trains are timed officially from the time the train is off the chain to the time the front of the train hits the safty brakes (about 1 full car out of the tunnel) and is typically around 60 seconds or just under. 57 seconds would be a "fast" ride on Magnum, while anything over 62 is considered too slow to the point where we have to have the trims adjusted by maintenance. Is there an easy method to determinine when MF is "off the lift"? Since its so curvey up there, I'd think it'd be difficult to get consistant timings. 69.6 seconds on MF must've been incredibly slow! The slowest I ever clocked Magnum was 67 seconds on a windy morning with an empty train (no trims of course) and it barely made it out of the third tunnel.

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-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

The 69.9 was from the ride computer. The ops were considering shutting it down since the shutdown time is when it gets slower than 70. Close but no cigar!. The MF crew has it easy, they have the computer tell them the time so they don't have to mess with stopwatches like Magnum :).

It's not anywhere near exact, but here it is the way I do it.

I start is when the back car crest the hill. From the line it's easy because you look at it almost straight on and when you no longer see the train that means it's around there and I start. Really its about cars 6/7 at the very top when it actually comes off the catchwagon (since the catchwagon is on car 5) but those would be impossible to count or pick up every time. The train is moving so fast at that point I don't think 2 or 3 cars should make much of a difference. This is the most consistent way I think since I have that visual que which is always there.

The brakes are easy, soon as the front comes in and the roar starts is when I stop. After timing a few trains they are around the same so I think it's fairly constant. Still it's not accurate or anything but it gets the general idea.

I am a giga dork I know.

I rode millie 52x last year and then 4x on opening day yes it's running a lil slower but its still early in the season. Btw the fastest millie ever got up to was 99 mph.
No Joe, I am the dork who was timing Magnum's dispatch interval (lift crest to lift crest) from the Soak City lot last year when I came back early from a split to make sure the crew was doing well. ;) I knew that Millie's computer kept a timing, but I was just curious how you did it.

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-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

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