If you had planned to ride S:ROS at SFA...

They re-opened Batwing saturday night? darn!

I don't see why they even shut it down in the first place because that ride is quite a distance away from S:ROS so you couldn't really see all that much from Batwing's queue.

My guess was that they shut Batwing down because it's connected to the same power grid as S:ROS & everything else in that section,I know that Krypton comet is on the same grid due to the fact that back in 00 the whole area was shutdown when they were replacing the broken lift chain.

We asked an employee about why they weren't running KC & that's exactly what he told us,so my guess is they shut off the power to all of the rides in the section while trying to figure out & remedy the problems on S:ROS saturday night.

About S:ROS's lift:my question was concerning the integrity & durability of the chain itself,keep in mind that they've already had to replace the chain 2 times so far because it snapped back in 00) & I'm not sure if they'd want to risk trying to put double the weight by pulling both trains at the same time knowing it could easily snap yet again.

What if they change the braking system on Superman to the one like TTD uses. And just make it a longer brake run. TTD moves alot faster than Superman so I am sure it could work.

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http://coastertrackrecord.tripod.com/

I was kinda thinking the same thing myself.

They could replace the current brakerun with a system similar to TTD's,however it would require a re-design of both the track & trains,TTD's brake system is somewhat the same as the hyper coaster brakes...just in reverse.

Instead of mounting the calipers to the track they're mounted to the underside of the cars & a retractable fin is mounted on the track,the problem with this set up is it could still fail just as the existing system did if the fins aren't in the "set" position.

Not only that but it would be rather expensive & time consuming for SFA,SFDL & SFNE to go through the process of taking the existing track for the brakerun off,replacing it with the TTD style brake fins & then having to order completely new trains from Intamin that are designed to work with that kind of set up.

We were lucky enough to have them fix the ride in less than a day & get it back in service for closing day,now the big problem remains over what steps they will take during the offseason to ensure that it never happens again.

Krypton Comet closed due to a completely unrelated problem. One of the seats light went out indicating that it was locked (the light is at the bottom of each seat). The ride was still running, but I wanted a maintenance man's opinion to be sure. This sometimes happens when big people sit in the seats and their weight is applied against the T-bar. But, usually the ride will shut itself down first. It turned out not to be a problem, and we locked the seat out just to be sure until Sunday. I swear, I know more about a Chaos than I ever wanted to know.
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Did anyone ever bother trying out the seats on the KMG Tango? And if so, were they male?

I Fan- Don't you just hate it when you've locked all of the bars, get back to the panel, turn the key, put your foot in the pedal, and find out one of those lights isn't on?
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I gained six pounds on a clear liquid diet :)

It could be worse,at least he wasn't working Iron eagle.

You know how the ops always tell people not to pull on the harness when it's being lowered into place? well I've been on it when there were times that they've had to check it upwards of 5 times because someone was pulling on their harness & each time that happens it needs to be re-set & closed all over again.

What was up with falling star? I just remembered that followiing the S:ROS incident it wasn't running.the lights were on but no employee's were at the ride at all.

Yes, I hated it when I would get to the panel and the start light wouldn't come on, but I became the "master" of troubleshooting in a hurry. I learned a bunch of tricks from maintenance also, resulting in less calls to base. We actually had two or three instances where we couldn't get people out of the seats using the manual seat release, or any of the normal tricks. Luckily, Chance has provided one more method of releasing people from their seats that involves going behind the seat and pressing buttons (I think). Then, another person has to push up the T-bar and the harnesses simultaneously. I got to lower the ride manually once myself also when it got stuck, the night of the S:ROS incident, since all maintenance were obviously occupied.
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Did anyone ever bother trying out the seats on the KMG Tango? And if so, were they male?

Interestingly enough I only saw the ride get stuck just once & that was earlier in the day while I was in line for Penguin's blizzard river.

I guess it must've jammed up on you again sometime after the S:ROS incident.

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Intamin Fan said:
Luckily, the crew had not been following protocol as to dispatching trains, which is to wait for the other train to return before dispatching the train in the station.

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This astounds me. Why is this the standard protocol? Aside from being able to avoid incidents like this one, wouldn't it allow for greater capacity if ops didn't have to wait until the first train hit the brakes to dispatch the next train?

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-Mike
Say hello to all the apples on the ground--
They were once in your eyes but you sneezed them out while sleeping -MJK
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Jeff M, thank you for responding, and I apologize if I came off harsh.

I am all too aware of the changes John made (and god knows I even fought him on a few of them). My point was that the drivers were not following the current procedures, and that coupled with the braking caused the issue. Had they brought the train to a full or near stop in the transfer/safeties, as was required at the time, the issue would never had occured. Prior to that occuring, you are correct, trains could be, and often were, brought in full speed with no issues except the occasional over-parking.

I was thinking that perhaps they should consider replacing the drop down calipers with LSM's (think S:TE here) that way the braking system would become truly failsafe.

If such a system could be installed then there would be no problem "setting" the brakes as there are no moving parts & no supply lines to rupture,the only draw back might be if there were a loss of power.

Another option would be for the park to redesign the layout & add a 2nd brake run seperated by a section of track,or just extend the layout a bit past the station.

I was thinking of something along the lines of MF's final overbanked turn,it would not only add extra length to the overall ride but it would also bleed off alot of the excess speed the train has when entering the existing brake run which is just too short.

LSM's require pretty complicated control in order to be useful. Just look at all the work that went into getting S:TE to function. That's just one more thing to fail.

Redesigning the layout also seems like a lot of work for something that really HAS to work in the first place. It's not like the brakes are a feature that they can just play around with. They are one of the most mission critical components and they better be as close to 100% as humanly possible, regardless of how fast the train is coming in.

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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"It's not a Toomer" - Arnold Schwartzenkoph
"Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know." -Jeff

Why do we need to do anything with the brakes or the coaster? Why take out a bunny hop or add a different type of brake? It seems like if you start messing around with stuff you are asking to introduce new problems and then what if that design is flawed. You learn from this lesson and improve it you dont' start redesigning everything on the coaster.

None of us actually knows what happened that night. Everyone is assuming the train sped through the station at 75 mph. What's to say the car just didn't coast through the station and start climbing the lift hill again?

How about this then...instead of fooling around with the brakes,or the layout why not just remove the ride & replace it with a B&M hyper?

They could also improve the overall layout in the process because right now it's only saving grace happens to be that 3rd airtime hill,the rest of the layout is completely boring IMO.

If they were to replace the ride they'd kill 2 birds with one stone...1.we'd finally get a B&M.2 we'd get an improved layout...one that could easily rival or even upstage SFNE's S:ROS.

BFSFA.....are you saying you'd trade an Intamin RoS for a B&M hyper....man, I gotta play you a game of Monopoly sometime, we can even trade properties if ya like....;)
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Mistakes were made, others are to blame...

YAY B&M VS. INTAMIN HYPER TIME!

;)

Joe "B&M, please" C.

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"It's no party at the park, either."

BFSFA has long had a fetish for a B&M Coaster at SFA. However, I think he will be completely at odds with just about everyone else that has visited this park if he thinks that S:ROS should be removed. First time I have EVER heard a comment like that from anyone. If SFI tried to remove S:ROS from SFA they would need a army.

Maybe they'll remove it just to spite you. ;) It is their coaster....

-Apollo "I chose my handle long before I rode an Intamin hyper" Andy

Besides, "S:RoS SFNE" Andy just doesn't have the same ring.

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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"It's not a Toomer" - Arnold Schwartzenkoph
"Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know." -Jeff
*** This post was edited by ApolloAndy 11/6/2003 6:37:46 PM ***

The only B&M Hyper that could possibly rival Intamin is Nitro {{IMHO}}. And the only reason I give Nitro the nod is for sentimental reasons. Other than that Intamin kix ass!!!!

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Lyrically, I'm supposed to represent
I'm not only a client, I'm the playa president!

i have not kept up with RC stuff for like a long time. What happened wiht SROS?(busy in college)