Top Thrill 2 faces extended closure for modification

Wheel design and wheel composition were pretty much figured out over the years from early Shockwave days at SFGAm when they were literally melting until TTD/I305 days. Even original Corkscrew wheels changed over time from a rubber-like material that split and cracked to a hard compound today.

Time to focus on what else is unique/different/new about these trains.

I'm sure that wheel problem is why they were never able to split the ride into Shock and Wave and send it to two other parks.

Chris R:

it happens in the realm of where people track(road racing) their car

But that’s doing something (road racing) for which the wheels were not specifically designed, in an uncontrolled and unpredictable environment.

Exactly none of that is true in this case.

Say what? A racing wheel isn't designed to race?

It's still stock unless you are spending a lot more on it than I think. And you still have an uncontrollable and unpredictable environment, which is Not This. The track is known, as are the speeds and the center of mass of the train with a range of riders. It is not hard to compute the forces on the wheel, and as mentioned above, there is a margin of error added to that. I'm not 100% sure our undergraduate Mechanical Engineering majors could do it, but I'm also not 100% sure they couldn't.

Sharpel007:

Also it’s bananas to me how quickly opening parks, without everything new being done has spread…

They discovered after the delays related to the pandemic that they can open attractions late. It might actually increase attendance. People are eager to come at the start of the season then they come back when the attraction is open.

It does take away from the park quality slightly to have an active construction site at the start of the season. And it’s like everything else that’s negative for the customers, once one park gets away with it they all do it.

As far as the Tt2 goes, It’s not surprising that there’s problems. Zamperla has never really built any good non-kiddy coaster and most of their flat rides are equally as janky.. It would be surprising if they can do something of the scale without issues.

Does anyone know if Red Force at Port Aventura has had any major problems? I honestly thought that Pantheon would be down a lot with its new tech (the switch track) but it’s been running every time I’ve been to BW and haven’t heard any reports of extended down time for it.

super7*:

As far as the Tt2 goes, It’s not surprising that there’s problems. Zamperla has never really built any good non-kiddy coaster and most of their flat rides are equally as janky.. It would be surprising if they can do something of the scale without issues.

Zamperla has built plenty of good non-kiddie coasters – quite a few custom spinning mice for example – and their extreme rides have been improving over the last few years. TT2 is a leap, yes, but so was the original TTD when Intamin built it.

Over the years there have been many examples of Cedar Point not having new rides and attractions completed by opening day which weren’t related to any pandemic, supply shortages or nefarious plots to make guests return. Mill Race, Mine Ride, Avalanche Run, Maverick, and Windseeker come to mind as some that opened somewhere into their premier seasons. Then there were those that missed the mark by not providing full capacity or operating schedules. Mean Streak and Millennium Force ran with a reduced number of trains for a time causing horrendously long wait times and we’re all familiar with TTD’s lifelong struggle of trying to keep running on a regular basis. maXair has suffered with defects that have made it unavailable, sometimes for an entire season. Some of these delays have been attributed to new technology, vendor problems, sensor issues, construction issues, design problems, or weather. Maverick and TTD had the advantage of a construction period that included the entire previous season and for whatever reason still missed the mark.
So to suggest that there’s a sudden failure on Cedar Point’s part in having rides ready for opening day just isn’t fair or accurate, and it happens throughout the industry, not just at CP.

If memory serves, Steel. Vengeance also opened incapable of running all of its trains, but I don't remember why.

I think there was a collision in station fairly early in its lifespan, causing it to run one train until modifications could be made.

We need a downdetector.com for roller coasters.

ApolloAndy:

I think there was a collision in station fairly early in its lifespan, causing it to run one train until modifications could be made.

On opening day to the public, to my recollection.

We need a downdetector.com for roller coasters.

queue-times.com is kind of amazing. They scrape the waiting time APIs that the major chains use for their apps and provide live waiting times as well as historical statistics.

That was my recollection on Steel Vengeance.

https://www.wkyc.com/articl...-550971350

I'm surprised that parks haven't blocked third-party API scraping. Then again, I know something about how sophisticated their vendors are. (Not very.)

SV trains were heavier than what the original braking system could manage and were not always fully stopping at the end of the ride. Until that could be addressed the park could only run one train. Then, the mid-course brakes had to be addressed in order for 2 trains to be out on the course at the same time, it is why the first season there was always a train in the station and a train waiting in the holding brakes outside the station. Today, if ops are running really well, you can see a train going down the first drop as a train is on the bunny hops headed for the brake run.

^ That’s not true at all. They redid the brakes when they converted the ride. The ride ran multiple trains for media day and I believe all three for opening day. They didn’t go down to one train operation until two trains had a fender bender in the station on opening day.

Jeff:

I'm surprised that parks haven't blocked third-party API scraping. Then again, I know something about how sophisticated their vendors are. (Not very.)

What, you don't think Accesso is the gold standard for e-commerce and virtual queueing solutions? Heck, they're so good at what they do, they could handle MIS management* for your entire park.......

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

*In college we had a professor who taught Management, and Management Information Systems. The nameplate on his door indicated that his field was MIS Management. Oddly enough I don't think he read that the same way everyone else did.

--DCAjr.

Accesso is junk. A lot of parks think so too, but they don't have a lot of great alternatives. But the API scraping at the very least is beat with some simple IP blocking, or if you have to go deep, app attestation (which requires a third party to implement and give money to).

Maybe they figure it's not worth the effort. The number of people who are going to make an informed decision as to whether to visit a park by referencing a site such as queue-times has got to be minimal.