MF and TTD policies and restraints in 2005

I know the issue of the slack rule etc was discussed to death early in the season, but my question is if what happened was a solution for this season only, or should we expect the same in 2005? Does anyone know if any modifications are coming to rides or policies that will allow more people to ride or make rejections less subjective?

Danny's Crystal Ball says to expect Cedar Point to sell the Double Wide Luxury Pass* for guests who can't fit into MF and TTD or those who can't stand/have some phobia to sit with other people where you will be paying for two admissions/two seats on every ride. Modifications will be made to certain cars to accomodate the new "loveseat style" seats.

+Danny, or not
*Gravy Buffet included

My understanding was that it was just a policy change this year on both rides, but no physical change to either restraints. I believe MF had its seatbelts re-routed, but that was before this year.

There's no way anyone here could know unless they were senior managers at the park.

It was a cover-your-ass directive from Intamin following the accidents, imposed on the park because state law allows Intamin to make that kind of decision. It didn't make the rides any safer. In some ways I feel bad for the park for having to put up with it, but on the other hand, they handled it very poorly.

Dealing with saftey is big with Cedar Fair, especially their best park Cedar Point. I think most of the major rules will still be implemented into 2005. I completely agree with Jeff above. I might be able to see slight changes.

LOL +Danny!

Thanks for the laugh this morning. :)

As stated it's tough to say, without sitting in on some meetings...

BUT: I DEFINTELY see CP making some MAJOR changes to some parts of the trains in the off season. CP probably would have loved to taken off all the trains and modified them when this all came down, but imagine what would have happened if the "BIG" rides went down for 1 month +.

CP did a quick, safe, fix IMO. I see them pulling off the seats and redoing the seats, and lap bars for 2005. I'm assuming Intamin should already have a fail safe fix by now (assuming with all the engineers they have.) The question is how much will it cost, and should Intamin fix it?

I think they should, since most car manufacturer's fix their cars after they see a common problem.

I see lower tilted back bottoms seats, and an angle coming into the T bar design. Much like TTD, only though a little more noticable. Possible lower the seats about 4in.

Again it's tough to say, but CP wants as many people to ride the rides as possible.

Now if we can only get them to fix The Mine Ride...

Dude, they had no choice. They didn't "fix" anything or make anything "safe."

Why would anything be changed for next season?

They made modifications to a ride because of an incident, why would they possibly go back?

Hmm, OTSR's anyone.

One note: The change (at least if made prior to the season beginning) was not enforced right away. TheRealCP and I rode MF on opening day with no problems. But since then, she hasn't been able to buckle the belt on the test seat and therefore has not ridden.

So...either they made the change after opening day, OR they've made the test seat belts much smaller to prevent any problems with discretion on the part of the operators.

Retro-fitting is the big question here. Looking at the Kingda Ka video though, it seems that the OTSRs are going to be the new restraint system on these types of Intamin rides. But will the ride also include the smallish seatbelt as well?

Here's hoping on riding MF on Friday :)

I hope that retrofitting (if that happens) does not mean the installation of Storm Runner-style restraints. Those are among the most uncomfortable OTSR's I have had the (dis)pleasure of experiencing lately.

To put it bluntly, if they were to put the Storm Runner restraints on Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster, they might as well just rip those two rides out completely.

That said, I think such drastic measures are unlikely for either ride.

I would like to see them put Dragster lap bars onto Millennium Force, and I would like to see them conduct an engineering analysis on both rides, tell Intamin where to shove their directives, and perhaps update Millennium Force to the Dragster/Goliath/Expedition GeForce style seat. The new seat and lap bar design solves most of the problems that exist with the older style seat and lap bar. Admit that (a) there is a problem with the original, pre-Millennium Force seat design, and (b) that the specific problem has been solved with the redesign, and (c) get over it already.

All Intamin hypercoaster trains are not created equal. It's time someone other than me stood up and said that.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Good point Dave...now the question is why aren't they created equal? Seems to me that A LOT of changes have been made in a small amount of time. You would think they would pick one design and keep relatively close with it? To many things seem to keep happening for this to be a small overlooked problem or unforseen (of different ride designs no less.) You would think the engineers would take a look at the problem. Fix it and that's that. The trains seem to work, but the seats (or belts, or lapbars etc) seem not too. One would think they would just ripp out the seats and start from scratch again. I'm not talking a quick fix for next year either. I'm talking about "let's design something that we can use next year, and the years down ther road. Something reliable." Instead, they just try to keep it looking relatively the same. I don't understand why. Though the biggest change has of course been the horse collars. Seems like another "quick fix" instead of hiring and paying the righ engineers for the job.

I presonaly like the Goliath design :)

*** Edited 10/12/2004 11:01:12 PM UTC by RollerCoasterGod***

What I don't understand...

Intamin *must* know that the Superman trains and the Millennium Force trains are not the same. They must have made those changes (the seat position is different, the floor design is different, just for starters...) for a reason. Looking at photos of Expedition GeForce is even more enlightening, as photos show two completely different seat designs on one ride. Some photos show a Millennium Force-type train with a filler panel at the forward edge of the seat, some photos show a Dragster-type train with a deeper seat bench and an angled lap bar. Again, those changes were made for a reason, and those changes were incorporated into later rides (Goliath, Dragster).

So, knowing that the car design, specifically as regards rider containment, was changed in a manner which should solve the problems that appeared on the original Superman rides, why are the newer rides with the corrected seating being treated as though they have the same problems as the earlier rides? And perhaps just as important...why have the earlier rides not been updated? More specifically, why does Millennium Force still have the old-style lap bars?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Anyone know the findings about the hydro accident this summer with a thin rider? I wonder if that could affect the decision? *** Edited 10/13/2004 3:35:45 AM UTC by RavenTTD***

Ok...when i returned my Season Pass i was asked why and i told them the reason, ans that being b/c of the restraints since i'm a bigger person and last year i was snug. i still hadn't received my refund so i called and talked to the operator and she said that they would resend my check, but thats beside the point. but she did state that there are goin to be changes made within the next year to accomodate larger people on the coasters.

So according to an operator at CP, they are going to do at least something to accomodate the larger riders? I'm not knocking what you were told CPBoy, not one bit. I'm just kinda wondering how much a telephone operator at CP knows about the mechanical re-engineering of a major attraction at the park. Hell, who knows? Knowing CP they might have even those folks "in-the-know" of some minor (or major depending on how you look at it) future plans such as this!

I'm equally surprised to hear of someone else, besides myself, that returned their season pass for that reason. Actually it was a combination of reasons: one being that I live over 400 miles from the park and could not fathom driving all that way and not being able to ride my favorite coaster because of this new "policy".

Perhaps we should be looking at the changes that Intamin and Knott's made to Xcelerator.

-Simply put, an indicator on the lapbar to tell at what point it is far enough down to hold a rider in.

-Bigger sidebars on the trains

Two very simple adjustments that satisfied KBF and California state officials... Neither take anything away from the ride or its capacity.