top thrill top trouble

It appears that the cable for Top Trouble Dragster has snapped tonight continuing a chain of troubles for the ride.

Anyone else hear or see this?......

------------------
ALL NEW COASTER SITE!
www.coasterinsomniacs.com

BFD. A cable broke. It was inevitable. The ride has been running very well and capacity gets higher every day. The "chain of troubles" doesn't exist. It has been quite the opposite in the last week.

If they didn't break something, I bet they open tomorrow.

------------------
Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

It was an experience to see.

------------------
CBClub member #30 and #364 (renewal)

A "chain of troubles"?

Sure, the ride has "problems", but ones that any coaster of this size can expect.

I read a while back about S:RoS @ SFA having problems with its chain in the first few weeks of operation. After the chain breaking 2 times, they replaced it with a larger one. If problems continue with the cable, just adding a stronger cable could be the solution.
------------------
G-Forces: The only positive addiction out there!
CoasterCount: 42

Jeff said:
BFD. A cable broke. It was inevitable. The ride has been running very well and capacity gets higher every day. The "chain of troubles" doesn't exist. It has been quite the opposite in the last week.
If they didn't break something, I bet they open tomorrow.

Whoa there. You're acting as if it was your mom he was talking about. Chill out, if it isn't a big deal, then don't reply as if it were.

Really? May I be the first to ask when it will be open again?

------------------
LeWiS

As soon as they get the new cable, they will get up and running again. Once they opened today, the crew had awesome dispatch times.

------------------
CBClub member #30 and #364 (renewal)

Did Xcelerator's cable ever snap? Did parts of Xcelerator's trains fall off during operation? But then again, was Xcelerator's opening on time? No! This kinda crap happens intially, and it's only a matter of time before the kinks are smoothed out.
------------------
Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003(Find Me, Win a prize!)

A park doesn't install a cable on a premier coaster that you EXPECT to only have a shelf life of less than a month when you're not even running close to full capacity and have only been running full capacity TRAINS less than a few weeks.

This may not be a big deal to you, but for people who are already a little on the fence about making a trip EXCLUSIVELY for this coaster, it is. I wish the skeleton humping the fence was enough, but sadly.... no.

------------------
I'm not an enthusiast. I just play one on message boards.

Homey G, it works the same way with computers. You're stupid to be the first one on your block with the newest computer. Why? Well the first release will always have some sort of problem, and of course in a little while, someone will come out with the fix, or even a better product. You will be wasting your time going to Cedar Point now if all you want to do is ride TTD. Wait until a coaster is scheduled to have been open for months, just like you would wait for the newest operating system to get better and come down in price.

------------------
Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003(Find Me, Win a prize!)
*** This post was edited by Zero-G 5/26/2003 11:03:05 PM ***

First of all, I'm not stupid. ;)

Second of all, I'm in town for SRM. I'm kinda in the area, but TTD IS the only reason I'd have a desire to revisit CP after going last Oct. The line MAY usually be around 3 hours, but I'm adding in the 3+ hour drive to it.

IF it's gonna run, I'll be there. If it's gonna be all WT on me, forget it.

------------------
I'm not an enthusiast. I just play one on message boards.

Well it took less then a week to replace Millie's cable.

Unless they have another cable sitting around i woudl expect this to take abotu as long.

------------------
God bless Intamin, Company that I love. Stand beside her, and ride her, from the opening to the closing of the day.

I'm sure it won't just be as simple as just replacing the cable. They are going to want to test it and figure out why it broke in the first place. Plus it could've damaged some other components like that launch sled, or some of the breaks on the launch track. Bottom line, the cable should've lasted a heck of a lot longer than it did. Xcel was the prototype you would've thought these type problems would've came up on it first, but I guess not.
------------------
"This time I think ... I think it's ... it's going to work!" - Dr.Bruce Banner

Millie had serious damage when the cable snapped and it still only took a week.

------------------
God bless Intamin, Company that I love. Stand beside her, and ride her, from the opening to the closing of the day.

Great just great. I am praying they get this weekend to ride this insane machine and it may not be open great. What next?

------------------
BMCOASTER

bmcoaster@wi.rr.com

IoA - yes, Xcel is a prototype, but its not on the same scale which makes it unreliable. Saying that just cause Xcel works TTD should work flawlessly is just bad logic. You're basing TTD's operation on what boils down to a mathematical operation. Saying ok, let's add 150% to the ride, so we'll factor in these things and yea it should work! But any mathematical equation, no matter how good, no matter how researched is flawed. No math can account for as many variables go into something like this. That cable could have snapped because an air bubble got between the fibers when it was created and it just now created enough stress on the surrounding cables to snap them. It could have been a stray piece of gravel that hit at just the right angle with just the right speed that snapped it. Yes TTD and Xcel are the same ride style, but unless they are the exact same height and exact same speed, saying one should work (or one's parts) because the other's work doesn't make sense.

...to a certain extent.

We don't reinvent the wheel every time we need to make something roll.

A snapped cable isn't really a big issue where I'm concerned. Consistantly snapping the cable, however, would be more indicative of a design flaw.

Cedar Fair has confidence that they bought two well-engineered products from Intamin and that neither ride is a safety risk. Particularly, the tire incident seems indicative of something that nobody really thought to think about. I mean, really, it's a decoration that serves no purpose. So, I'm sure they just factored its weight and dimension into the design and probably didn't give a second thought to rotational inertia and things. I'll forgive them and I'm thankful that no one was hurt. It happens. Because that happened, and because the cable snapped, we shouldn't be expecting to learn next that they forgot to use *bolts* or something while putting the ride together.

------------------
--Maddie--

Consider this:

If you have a critical component with a particular service life, that component will usually fail almost immediately after being put into service, or it will last until (or beyond) the end of its service life. Assuming, of course, that nothing else causes trouble. So if a tow cable was faulty and going to fail, it makes sense it would fail early in the life of the ride.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jeff said:
BFD. A cable broke. It was inevitable.

Yes, Jeff, it is a "BFD." The ride has been operating how long now? Less than 3 months (that's less than an operating season) and the cable has snapped already. That's a pretty damn short life span for a cable. Yes, I know the forces the cable is subjected to, but losing the cable so quickly sure doesn't seem like a tiny little problem that will be fixed overnight.

Yes, the cable will eventually break. Chains need to be replaced on lift hills, brake fins and calipers need replaced, wheels need retooled and resurfaced, and launch/lift cables need replaced. The cable does not have an infinate lifespan. This finite lifespan of such a short time really sucks.

Stop and think about the big picture. Yes, the ride is huge, and yes, it's a pretty new ride system. Problems are supposed to happen, but when a ride is thrown together over the course of a winter like the one we just had things are going to go wrong more frequently than they should.

Something, somewhere, had to be functioning improperly to cause the cable to break so soon. Whether it was a faulty cable as Rideman suggested, small piece of debris on the launch sled track, a bad pully, or whatnot, something went wrong. Yes, it was inevitable, but to happen so soon is not a good thing.

------------------
- John
*** This post was edited by Michael Darling 5/27/2003 1:02:03 AM ***