Straight talk on X's future: the real deal

We'll see when Six Flags puts X back on site.

At least they still have it located on the park map.

Thanks Jeff... Sittin' here a million miles away it was incredibly difficult to separate the fact from the fiction. For a while there, I really was convinced I wouldn't get to ride it on my one trip out there this summer. Phew :)

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-FCR
I'd Rather Be Riding Roller Coasters

Yay! So it *might* be open for July-- This made my day.

Fate said:

I just returned from vacation and spent the last two days at Magic Mountain. The information I was given directly from six flags was that it was the computer and the ride would possibly be down for the rest of the month maybe longer. No rumors here this is just what I was told at the entrance to X. Needless to say I can’t wait to ride, I was looking forward to it on my trip down there.
.....great website

Well what do you expect the to tell you...Oh, yes X is closed because we were dumb enough to force arrow quickly through development. Then when the ride had problems, we decided to find a cheap, "quick fix" for X instead of asking arrow for help. And as of right now we are in the middle of a lawsuit.

Anyway, I am praying you are right Jeff, because I am going in the second week of July and am dying to get on it.

That is AWSOME NEWS, but why did they take all advertising away, and make it so X is only accessible from one or two sections of the website.

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Veck
Adrenaline Coaster Design - http://pumpingrct.topcities.com/

Coasterdummie, you're living up to your screenname. Thanks, Jeff. I woke up this morning with the thought that the rumors I read yesterday could not be as serious as they made it seem. Just can't imagine the dismantling of X. With all the technological competence we have in this country who could think that something like X couldn't be pulled off successfully. In fact, persistance and faith are what success is all about. To all of you naysayers....keep the faith! And for God's sake, enjoy the coasters and stop all this bashing. Personally, I never found a coaster I didn't like. Some I just like more than others.

coasterdummie said:
It was the "welds", wink, wink, nudge, nudge. from a third party no less....Not the engineering...

You'd be surprised at how many screwups in our society have been traced back to items that were outsourced, or given to "third parties" to manufacture.

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James Draeger
"Make it stop!"
"There goes the body buggy"

I'd love for it to be that simple, but are there really bad welds on all 3 trains and nobody discovered it until now? Come on, SFMM's maintenance can't be that bad. Why fix only one train and run the other one ("hey, the train has bad welds, but let's run it until we fix the other one.")? If they had bad welds, wouldn't they shut it down and fix the welds on ALL trains rather than fix them on one train and run the other one until they could get to it? The've only run one train for a while, so while they were working on one of the other trains, they would have discovered bad welds weeks ago and absolutely they would have inspected ALL the trains at that time.

I would really like for X to be open soon. I seriously doubt it will be open for the Con (or any time soon, for that matter), but I would still love to see it open any time this summer. Unfortunately, I just don't see it as being in the cards. I sure hope I'm wrong, though.

*** This post was edited by mrcoaster on 6/15/2002. ***

I am sure they can work out the problems with X, so that it can operate reliably. I am sure they will at least be able to get 2 trains to runs, hopefully 3. I am planning a trip out to Cali for the winter, but I want to make sure X and Xcellerator are running. Those are my 2 biggest reasons for wanting to go.

Mike E,

Since you seem to be an "expert" on coaster design, please tell us how many rides you have been involved with or helped engineer? here you are spouting nonsense about technical prowness and faith, but in reality you are an un-informed idiot. I know! maybe you can get a "Faith Based" prayer group together and "heal" X with your grandiose intuitive powers!

I'm happy to hear that X will PROBABLY not be closed for two much longer, but I'm still bummed that my chances of riding it when I make my trip to LA on the 24th of this month are slim to none. Anyone think they will at least have one train running by then??? I sure hope so! X was the MAIN reason I planned this trip to LA. I guess I still have Xcelerator if X is closed since Xcelerator is the second MAIN reason I'm going to LA, but who even knows if it will even be open by then! It figures all this would happen and with my luck the day we leave LA we will drive by MM and see X flying down that drop with screaming passengers, but like Tina said, "There is nothing you can do about it."

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Six Flags Marine World..... Wild Life AND Wild Rides!

*** This post was edited by Marine World Freak on 6/15/2002. ***

xcelerator is on schedule for a thursday evening opening. the ride hasn't been delayed for more than 2 weeks. the ride seems to be testing perfectly now that they have fixed the sensor and has been tested thousands of times.

Jeff, I did also hear the problems with welds, but I dont think those problems are limited to the trains. In october, the train problems were causing problems with the support welds also.I would bet there will be some support welds touched up as well.

I spoke to one of my engineersabout the problem they still believe that there is something on the trains that needs to be redesigned to prevent these weld problems from resurfacing. Also, since X has been removed from SFMM's main advertising campaigns, I would think that it would mean the downtime would be more long term than the 2 weeks mentioned. If it is expected to be up and working in 2 weeks, they really wouldnt have needed to make those major advertising and website changes. That would be like Knotts pushing back the opening of XC 2 weeks and totally removing it from their ads and their website's front page. Most advertising takes a good 4-8 weeks to see real numbers from anyways...

Chris

*hoping X is running the first week of July for his and Coker's trip!

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WCUSA-The World's largest theme park is coming!
Theme parks will NEVER be the same!

coasterdummie said:

Mike E,
Since you seem to be an "expert" on coaster design, please tell us how many rides you have been involved with or helped engineer? here you are spouting nonsense about technical prowness and faith, but in reality you are an un-informed idiot. I know! maybe you can get a "Faith Based" prayer group together and "heal" X with your grandiose intuitive powers!

Here's a question coasterdummie: What rides have YOU been involved with or helped engineer? The only person here who is acting as if they know everything about coasters is you.

Chris Godsey said:

If it is expected to be up and working in 2 weeks, they really wouldnt have needed to make those major advertising and website changes.

I think this is key folks. SFMM might have X open in "two weeks or so," but chances are that they still expect the ride to have problems and/or further downtime. There's no point in promoting a new attraction unless you're sure you can keep it open.

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Rich Genthner / PTC99

CoasterKrazy,

I worked on the chassis redesign for Desperado(garys) and suspended vehicle (canadas wonderland), did the pheumatics for the braking, and auto-restraint release the RAT at Tibi Garden, designed the chassis for the Mad Mouse, was chief mechanical designer on the Arrowbatic vehicle, designed ths station, transfer track, storage tracks, readybrake section, booster sections and station mechanical components for the X

coasterdummie said:

CoasterKrazy,
I worked on the chassis redesign for Desperado(garys) and suspended vehicle (canadas wonderland), did the pheumatics for the braking, and auto-restraint release the RAT at Tibi Garden, designed the chassis for the Mad Mouse, was chief mechanical designer on the Arrowbatic vehicle, designed ths station, transfer track, storage tracks, readybrake section, booster sections and station mechanical components for the X

So do you work for Arrow Dynamics or do you work for another company?

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

Worked for Arrow for 10 years up until last nov.

Ok, I vote for Jeff to put a profile on your info page (as in listing places worked). How about it? I mean, after discussions with C-Dummie on this topic, I now know what he has been involved in during his tenure with Arrow. He has great knowledge, but is a little edgy when people call him on it. : ) #1- Jeff, I'm kidding about the info page, and #2- let's not get in a flame war over this. X has it's problems like any prototype, but I'm sure it will be handled professionally, unlike our last few posts.

They will get it worked out and have a winning RC in LA.

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There's nothing like a woodie...