Cedar Point's Wildcat Gets Painted!

Gee, Maybe Mantis will get new trains so it will become the high capasity ride it was ment to be and also be able to turn that daym brake off.

Chuck, refering to sitdown or floorless trains.

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Charles Nungester.
Is it about coasters or friends? I say both!

Uhm, the added seatbelts are mainly ther reason why Mantis loading times are so long...

the problem with red paint is that the color is known to be "fugitive", which means it is NOT permanent in any way. yellow is also a fugitive color. light alone can make the colors fade. add in weather and age and you have a real problem.

did you ever notice that in old Renaissance-period paintings there is very little red or yellow? that's because artists back then KNEW of the properties of certain chemical compounds that make up different pigments. until newer, more permanent pigments were found, they either took the risk of losing the color or they just avoided it.

why current paint manufacturers don't keep this in mind is beyond me. MF is now more of a purple color and who knows WHAT the red onthe new ride will look like in a few years.

can't WAIT to see Mantis restored to it's former glory!!

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Thanks for SAVING THE WHIZZER!! it couldn't happen to a better ride...

Knotts when on a rampage with painting when Xcelerator was being constructed too. They painted Monte, made Sky Cabin a US flag, and gave the barf colors to PP (which needs a new paintjob just 9 months later). Must be a CP thing.

Where is the red paint on demon?

I think if the Mantis ops were like the Riddler's Revenge ops, they could put the 3rd train on and actually raise capacity. (the RR ops don't give a crap if you sat down, you weren't s'posed to so they send you anywayz)

Mad for Intamin said:

There is also a rumor that it may be getting new cars as well. (referring to Wildcat)

Why would they put new cars on WC?

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Magnum is Red,
Millenium Force is Blue.
I love Wicked Twister
And Raptor too.

I have no Idea why they would put new cars on Wildcat as I see no reason for them. That is what leads me to believe that that rumor is untrue. I was hoping that maybe someone else would shed some light on the "new train" situation.

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HI TIM!

Colonel, it's visable near the final break run.

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Never Has Gravity Been So Uplifting.

They're just refinishing the cars, putting seat dividers in and a headrest and....well, you know it's a CP thing to do...

Whats all this talk about purple and pink paint on Mantis because it looked red when I was there in July. Also about the purple looking track on MF I always thought it was purple but my friend and I noticed it looked purple in some light and blue in other places that didn't recieve as much light.

By the way why is Mantis only running 2 trains when it has 3. According to everyone the 3rd train wasn't used all season and considering it had a 1 1/2 hr wait when we were there on a weekday we can only imagine the weekend line and the 3rd train would greatly increase capacity which CP loves anyway. They were also stacking trains which I heard isn't uncommon for Mantis either. They were the only ride crew who wasn't on the ball and every other ride crew was friendly and on the ball exept MF's crew who were very nasty to us and that actually ruined the ride for us.

*** This post was edited by medusafanatic on 10/13/2002. ***

Well, if Mantis was consistently stacking, then I think there might have been a valid reason to pull a train off. But, seriously, there is no reason Mantis should stack. I remember very smooth three train operation from four years ago. What's happened? And don't say seatbelts. it takes all of half a second to reach down and click a seatbelt. It's an operation people perform every day. Shoulder harnesses should (and, in my experience, do) cause a lot more trouble than seatbelts.

Oh, and thank God Mantis is getting a new paint job! I've never really liked its color scheme, but the pink with fading blue and yellow just looked awful. It would be nice if they painted it colors more appropriate for a mantis (I'm thinking some sort of brown-green combination, here), but you can't get everything.

Off topic: Does anyone know why, exactly, CP decided not to call the ride Banshee? I mean, come on. How many people actually even know what a Banshee is, much less would be offended for some reason? If we can name coasters Demon, Vampire, Goliath, Phantom, Nemises, or Medusa, why not Banshee?

It appears that the guests cannot load into Mantis properly, even with a ride op consistently repeating instructions. They even count down to when the restraints are going to lock, and still have to unlock rows to get guests situated properly. Whether the seatbelts make a difference is hard to say, it loading times definitely got slower after the seatbelts were installed. Even if they ran 3 trains, there would be continuous stacking.

As for the name change, I believe there was a bit of furor over naming the ride after a screaming ghost that appears when people are going to die. Since CP already had buttons, t-shirts, and lots of printed material with the Banshee logo on it, I doubt the decision to rename the ride was taken lightly.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

Just for reference, what does stacking trains mean (I'm only 15)?

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Cedar Point: America's Rockin' Roller Coast!

Stacking trains is when all the trains are stacked up outside the station waiting for the train in front to move. Take a look at Raptor. Usually you come out of the final helix and coast right into the station. Mantis has a tendancy to stop you outside the station while they wait for the other train to clear the station. When Mantis ran 3 trains it always "hard stopped", which is always uncomfortable, in that 1st set of brakes and would wait for the other 2 trains to dispatch.

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HI TIM!

So, as of this past weekend, how does ol' WC look?

white with maroon primer track.

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HI TIM!

I heard that the ride is going to be maroon track with bright yellow supports....

But thats only what the ride op said on Sunday. We will see in May.

I agree with the loading probelm of mantis not being completely the ops. Everytime i've ridden it in the last two years, it always takes forever and its because some stupid people either don't stand up straight or what have you and they have to unlock that row. It usually isn't just one row, its multiple and they have to do it a few times or the ride controller isn't paying attention to unlock the row needed.

On a side note to that, someone mentioned switching to floorless or sitdown train instead of stand-up. Would they be able to do that? I think that would be cool if they switched to floorless trains instead and it sure would speed the load unload process a whole lot. Don't get me wrong the stand up rides are great, but the line for that ride is always forever long because the two trains that they are running are still stacking.

'Ello for those that came into the subject for the Wildcat's new paint job forum...;) And yes Mantis needs painted BADLY!!

I here are two pics of Wildcat's new paint job:

http://ohiothemeparks.homestead.com/ConstuctionCP7.html

Enjoy that purple color :)