Riders stuck at top of Perilous Plunge

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G'day. I visited Knott's for the first time ever today. It exceeded my expectations, I thought it was small park with not that much themeing. How wrong was I! Obiously there aren't that many pics of the WW area.

Anyway I rode Xcelerator first thing. Wow! The downwards twist is sure something. Can only imagine what CP#16 will be like. :) Then again twice. Rode all of the other major rides once each. Ghostrider is excellent and that is something coming from a steel fan. ;)

Returned to Xcelerator in the arvo to marathon it out only to find out it was having problems.

Damn, gotta go.

Sorry, thought I would include a short TR to lead up. Will add more when I get a chance.

Ok, the only car on Plunge stopped just before the drop at 4:30pm. The engineers working on Xcelerator left promptly to check that out. They had to evacuate the riders which took until closing time at 7pm to complete.

Is this common for the Plunge?

Later.

Wow, you're a long way from home. Welcome to the States!

Jim

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My K'Nex Coasters
Coming to Wyandot Lake in 2003: Hi-Striker's Revenge

Cedar Fair never has any of their rides working well. They must buy lemons (aka Intamins). Perilous Plunge unfortuneately has killed a rider in the past, so now it's not surprising that this would happen. Wicked Twister has major structural problems, they had to run it slow for long periods as they welded additional components on to it in the wee hours of the night. Cedar Point had a tower fall over for a ride that has since been removed. Millennium Force had its lift cable snap before a major event for that coaster... they did have it up and running rather fast though, but it was a pretty major failure, as the lift cable was supposed to be a major innovation. They never seem to have minor problems, only big ones, especially for such a small chain.

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It's Giant, it's Inverted, it's a Boomerang, Beeyatch!

LMAO! BB you've gotta know what's coming after that post. Don't mess with Cedar Fair. ;)

Anyway, glad you enjoyed Knott's Taipan, I had a rather nice visit to Knott's myself this past week which I'll also write about soon.

As for Perilous Plunge, that is a bit unusual, but I'd hate to be stuck *anywhere* on that ride with those nasty restraints plastered to me. Frankly, that ride has lost all appeal for me. It just isn't worth the trouble for me to ever ride it again.

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Superman:The Escape(1997-2002) May he one day fly again.

Boomerang Beeyatch, I think you need to check your facts before spilling BS everywhere. Of the four problems you mentioned, only *one* could have been CF's fault. Additionally, one of those was not Intamin at all (which you obviously point out as, apparently, being a problematic company).

WT's problems, though existant, are extremely exaggerated. The ride seems *rarely* down (certainly hardly more than any regular impulse) and the problem is being addressed.

CP was misinfirmed about how to care for their S&S Absolutely Insane. That's *very* obviously S&S's fault, *not* CP's.

MF's cable snap is an extremely common occurrance. Chain snaps happen in all parks and chains. CP knew MF's cable was going to snap, but decided to run the ride *as long as possible* in order to avoid downtime. That's respectable if you ask me.

-Nate (who says that if you're going to bash CP/CF, at least back it up by justifiable facts)

I have a question: Why did it take almost 4 hours in order to evacuate the riders on Perilous Plunge?

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Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it.

Are there breaks that stopped the ride or how do you think it might have gotten stuck? Does anyone know?

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Good Times!! Good Times!!
CCI Lives On!!!!
-Patrick

Boomerang Beeyatch said:
Cedar Fair never has any of their rides working well.

Yep, Other parks do so well. Look at my trip to SFAW - 4 coasters down all day. SFMM all this summer - X down Deja Vu troubelsome, Flashback down every day. Paramount - Volcano, Hypersonic, SOB, Stealth are nowhere near prefect.

I could go on and on, but put some thoughts into your posts instead of going out of your way to bash CF while ignoring others. I'd like to see one other corporate park that could touch CP's 96%.....

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- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

It wouldn't. First of all, a ride op or two would come up the steps, and inform the riders that they are going to be evacuated, and allow them to loosen their shoulder straps (a ride op even goes up onto Ghostrider's lift when it stops for 3 minutes) for their comfort (someone would ask if they didn't tell). Maintance or operation managers (the guys who wear suits) would come and help, and file a report. They'd plug in the modified truck start professional truck battery charger to the back of the boat (is this how it works on the river plunges cause all that juice and the water don't sound safe), and get the riders out in 30 minutes. Xcelerator can be evacuated in 5 minutes once they declare an emergency evacuation. WHat probably happened was the chain snapped or the computer was being "too" safe (most likely the latter), and its probably operating today :calls Knotts: and finds out only the grand slammer is closed.

yeah, I guess MF's elevator lift cable snap is pretty common. I hear about elevator cables snapping all the time on the news!

Back to the topic, it does seem odd that it would take such a long time to evacuate from the the top of the drop, as that entire trough has a catwalk. It is possible that the "modified truck start professional truck battery charger" (aka battery) wasn't charged and they had to have the maintenance staff disassemble the seats to unlock them.

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It's Giant, it's Inverted, it's a Boomerang, Beeyatch!

coasterdude318 said:
MF's cable snap is an extremely common occurrance. Chain snaps happen in all parks and chains. CP knew MF's cable was going to snap, but decided to run the ride *as long as possible* in order to avoid downtime. That's respectable if you ask me.
-Nate (who says that if you're going to bash CP/CF, at least back it up by justifiable facts)

I don't know, I mean chain snaps occur, but I wouldn't call it very common. Plus if you know something is going to break, run it until it breaks to avoid downtime, when it does break, you have downtime, so you are not getting anywhere. Also, I am a litle confused, how did CP know it was going to break, I mean there is always well it might snap, but how did CP know it was going to snap. (maybe missed out on something here)
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Welcome one and all, y'all come have a ball!
Things a bear-y fine, ridin' on the old Knott's bear-y line!

No, they could have borrowed Xcelerator's in that case. And the battery charger is always plugged in so its ready to be used.

coasterdude318 said:
MF's cable snap is an extremely common occurrance. Chain snaps happen in all parks and chains. CP knew MF's cable was going to snap, but decided to run the ride *as long as possible* in order to avoid downtime. That's respectable if you ask me.
-Nate (who says that if you're going to bash CP/CF, at least back it up by justifiable facts)

I don't know, I mean chain snaps occur, but I wouldn't call it very common. Plus if you know something is going to break, run it until it breaks to avoid downtime, when it does break, you have downtime, so you are not getting anywhere. Also, I am a litle confused, how did CP know it was going to break, I mean there is always well it might snap, but how did CP know it was going to snap. (maybe I missed out on something here)
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Welcome one and all, y'all come have a ball!
Things a bear-y fine, ridin' on the old Knott's bear-y line!

MilleniumForce6279, first of all since you obviously love that coaster, going by your name, maybe you should spell it right.

Next, is there really need to post that 3 times?

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My Games Section Rating Scale:
1/4-Sucks!
5/7-Average/good
8/9-Great!
10-Perfect (Kick the Sky/Lord Gonchar, lol)

I hate to jump in here...

My understanding is that Cedar Point knew that the Millennium Force lift cable was going to break.

I have not heard what the cause of the rope damage was, but the hoisting rope on Millennium Force had frayed. The park proceeded to (a) order a replacement rope (the original was supposed to last four years, not a little less than two); (b) consult with the wire rope manufacturer; (c) consult with Intamin. They evaluated the situation. This was the last week of the daily operation season, and they knew the ride would be down for two or three days to replace the hoisting rope. The choice was a tough one:

Option 1: Shut the ride down immediately, wait until the new hoisting rope arrives, then replace the rope.

Option 2: Continue operating the ride until either the day after Labor Day or until the cable breaks, whichever comes first.

The park considered the options, noted what would happen if the rope broke in operation, and, with the approval of both the ride manufacturer and the wire rope manufacturer, continued to operate the ride. The rope finally broke on Sunday morning, and the ride was up the following weekend. They lost two normal operating days. The special event scheduled that week would have been Force-less anyway because it would have been down for the scheduled rope replacement instead of for the unscheduled rope replacement.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

coasterdude318 said:

-Nate (who says that if you're going to bash CP/CF, at least back it up by justifiable facts)

So, people can bash Six Flags parks without justifiable facts?

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Rob

"Some people spend an entire LIFETIME wondering if they made a DIFFERENCE. The MARINES don't have that problem." -President Reagan 1985

I love how easily people can get off topic around here. ;)

people do it all the time, Alf is Cool

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http://www.houstonthrills.com - New Site Design!

What I tell ya? ;)

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Superman:The Escape(1997-2002) May he one day fly again.

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