TTD Rollback

I am waiting in line for Top Thrill Dragster and it broke down. They tested it and it rolled back. They tested it again and it barely made it over the hill. We don't know if we will get to ride it today, but we will stay in line. This sucks

-Kevin

I didn't even know CP was open today. I thought they didn't open until tomorrow. I feel bad for you man, I hope this summer isn't like how Xcelerator's summer was. I went to Knotts last year and had just one day to spend there, and Xcelerator was down the whole day. So I really hope they can sort these things out with these rides.

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"Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you've never known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and bitter. Wait. It's not love I'm describing. I'm thinking of a monorail" -Jack Handey

I don't know which was more facinating.. a first hand report that TTD had broken down, or the fact that you posted the report while queuing for the ride. :)

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Kevin Stone
NoLimits Roller Coaster Simulator
*** This post was edited by Phyter 5/3/2003 2:13:27 PM ***

really, last time when i was at cp you were not aloud to bring anything in the que lines you had to leave them with a non rider or put them in a locker? and i did not know that in the ques they have plugs and telephone jacks for guest to hook up and use the internet?? is this somthing new about ttd that i didnt know about?

Probably a Blackberry....

cool. Keep us posted. I'm watching the live webcam now.

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Love,
The Mole

He is probably using a cell or pda with wireless.

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GOCC member #335
DigitalThrills.net

Wow, truly incredible that we have that kind of technology today. Hope that it gets to working because CP is going to have a busy day tomorrow with the park opening to the public.

First, its back, I saw it operating all day, since this morning...hmmm

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Shaun Rajewski
CoasterLine
http://www.coasterline.com

PalmOS-based cell phones with web browsers have been around for years... I've got the old Kyocera 6035 that came out before they went to color screens on all of 'em. They're a bit too slow for me to go around posting to a ton of websites while waiting in line though... but they're good enough to run ssh on if you have to remotely reboot a server at work while in line, or out drinking, or whatever :)

Just as long as you've got it secured VERY well while on a ride like TTD.. having a smartphone flying out of your pocket at 120 mph is gonna seriously injure someone.

Isn't there new Notebook Processor Chip or something that lets you do everything wireless, including internet. I forget what its called, but its by Intel.
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Free Falls on Drop Zone: 5!
Batwing Flights: 7!
Superman: Ride of Steel Airtime-age: 10!

Any GPRS cell phone would work, AT&T Wireless has them. You can check and reply to POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts. It doesn't necisarilly have to be using PALM-OS. The GPRS also connects at a minimum 57.6 kb/s where PALM cannot come near that.

Centrino by Intel. Not wireless internet. Wireless computers. Less cables inside!

I'm just wonderin why he was in line for the ride today since the park dosn't open till tomorrow...

The park is open for a private event today.

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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

The Longaburger Basket Company had the park today for a buyout. They've done it for a few years straight.

They won't let you bring loose items into the queue, and they never allowed it for MF either. Complain all you want, it heads off stupidity long before people get to the platform. It's essential for rides with seperate load/unload stations because you can't stash things somewhere when you don't return to the same place.

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

What happened to Xcellerator last year @ Knotts?

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"I aint sayin' nothin!"

Xcel had the typcial Intamin stupidity downtime. Things like the electronic restraint release not alligning with the train and cracked piston haeds kept Xcelerator down for a good amount of the summer. Even on days that it WAS open, it had 2 or 3 hour long breakdowns almost every day.

i was there too kickn it with the lemonchill guy lol no seriosuly what is TTT safty system incase something happened and it didn't make it all the way and it went backwards?

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going down on me allready?

Regarding loose articles and what Jeff said about it being essential to keep them out of lines for rides with seperate load/unload stations...

Yes and no. Not the best example perhaps, but X has separate load & unloads and putting the lockers right in the middle takes care of that issue. And I am sure there are some other creative options as well (Like Volcano for instance).

It also depends on what a park (or in some cases each ride) considers a loose object. Some rides consider even fanny packs a "loose" item. IMHO, it's a little much to expect people to wait for 2 hours (maybe even more) without access to your stuff. In my case, I never ride with glasses. I always put them in my fanny pack before riding. If I am not allowed to bring even that in line, then that means I have to do without glasses the entire time, (not to mention anything else I might need) and I have a problem with that.

Also it's a major bummer when you can't bring a camera into a line as a lot of times that is where the best shots of the ride are from. I wish parks would take things like that into consideration when queues are designed. It seems like most of them are after-thoughts compared to the ride itself. Ironic, considering you usually spend more time in the queue then on the ride! :)

*** This post was edited by Coasterbuf 5/4/2003 2:03:02 AM ***

First to address the curiosity on my ability to post in line. I did have a cel phone with internet access and lots and lots of people had them in line.

I guess they were like hats, or secured glasses, if you can secure them under your shirt or back pocket you can take them on...or rather they won't force you to put them in a locker. We saw two women that had to get out of line to put their purses in lockers.

We also saw some people who had let members of their family cut into line...escorted out of the ride line and told they were to leave the park!

Anyway, onto the ride.

The wait turned out to be 4 hours long for a 1 and a half hour crowd wait time....in other words, if they were running normal the wait where we were would only have been 1 and a hlaf hours. It turned into 4 because they 'broke down' every 5 minutes. Seriously.

They even brought back some people who ahd already been strapped in and unloaded them to the platform. When they did run, it was 1 every 5 minutes or so.

We got pretty annoyed with the whole thing because they said indefinite amount of time everytime so we had no clue how long it may be....but we stayed in line.

Eventually we were rewarded by getting on the ride. Our mood before the ride = sour. Our mood after the ride = ecstatic!

It was worth the wait! It was incredible! The acceleration is amazing, the hill is so very far away but you get there reallly! fast and it feels great. The hill has a very very short 'air time' because of how fast it goes, but since it's throwing everything at you at once, you get a lot of sensation at once and then the twist down the hill comes really fast.

The rollback was probably because the 'problem' seemed to be the train wasn't going as fast as it should have been. It was really frustrating not knowing if we would actually get onto the ride no matter how long we waited.

I assume there will be a lot of bugs to work out today as well and hopefully they get solved before too long. It was also chilly yesterday but since it was Longaberger day, the lines for other things were short. We rode Raptor, Millenium, Wicked Twister, Mantis, and Magnum all in one hour and a half since everything was walk-on but Millenium and we had to ride in the first car on that one :)

I forgot to talk about the rollback.

First off, one of the safety features for the rollback is that when the train leaves the station, the magnets pop up in case it comes back down. It has magnet brakes (I think it has something else not sure) that are pretty powerful.

The crowd reaction for the rollback was interesting. We had not seen a train go for about 15 minutes, then the run one so it gets everyone's attention. Then...it gets to the top and COMES BACK DOWN! The crowd started gasping, nervous laughing, and I think I heard some young people yelling :) aka screaming....

After that, talk around us turned to rollbacks and life insurance policies. There was also a sign at the ramp for the station that said rollbacks occur and there is no need for concern. I wonder what the first people who ride a rollback will say or do...