Twisted Colossus - Can Six Flags Magic Mountain get it together?

It's Six Flags. One of, if not the most, mismanaged amusement park chains. Did you REALLY expect anything different out of them? They can't even race American Eagle right most of the time and its a simple racer lol. When this was a regular racing coaster, how often did they actually race it?

I never expected that this ride to meet its full potential most of the time because of the way Six Flags operates. They are definitely not about full quality experiences. Just big rides. This ride has dueling elements, and that's half the thrill of the ride IMO.

Does this only have 3 trains? For some reason I thought it could run 4. So they basically cut capacity in half with the remodel of this ride. Although its not like they ever operated it recently at full capacity anyhow.

For the record, Cedar Fair "rushes" their guests with a 30 minute countdown on Banshee & Fury, and that seems to work well. It means a better guest experience as lines continually move. Cedar Fair is better at racing their racing coasters, but sometimes they don't.

As far as racing/dueling aspect, Hershey leads the way in my experience with Lightning Racer. Every time I have been there, they run both sides in sync even with lines are light. I have seen them close rows, but not sides.

I've yet to see someone being 'rushed' on Fury and I've been to the park at least 10 times since it opened. Granted people are making announcements encouraging people to move, but no one is being rushed.

And for the record, no one was rushing me onto TC. The ops were rushing themselves to get the trains out, and the only' yelling' I saw was to remind people to fasten seat belts but to allow the ops to lower the restraints.

There's a difference between getting people situated efficiently and rushing them. Boarding a roller coaster train with some sense of urgency is not an absurd expectation. Disney does it, Universal does it, many Cedar Fair parks do it (I have never seen a crew move the way Fury's did yesterday). It's not an unsafe practice.

What sirloindude said.

When a crew is really busting to get people seated and going but doing it in a safe, efficient manner, to me it adds to the experience / atmosphere and also keeps the line moving faster. No rushing needed.

I'm particularly thinking about the fun and energetic crews at Cedar Point in the mid-90's (Magnum's especially! So fun!) and riding Phoenix in the evening at Knoebels.

PS Referencing mid-90's CP will fulfill my month's quota for nostalgia posts and grumpy-old-man posts. It won't happen again. For 30 days at least.

Phoenix = "get in" "get out".

super7* said:
It's Six Flags. One of, if not the most, mismanaged amusement park chains. Did you REALLY expect anything different out of them? They can't even race American Eagle right most of the time and its a simple racer, lol.

As annoyed as I often am at Six Flags, they actually do a great job of racing the Eagle and it's been that way for at least a decade. Meanwhile, the only racer I've ridden that made absolutely no effort to race the two sides was...wait for it...Thunder Road. I don't know if that was SOP or what, but even when they could have easily had a race had they waited 10 seconds or so they chose to just dispatch it anyway. But I suppose that doesn't fit the narrative.

I get that you're not a fan of Six Flags and all, but if we're going to chain bash, could we at least be accurate while we're doing it?

John Knotts said:
I observed the ops and leads working their BUSTS off to get trains out in time to duel.

Interesting... Was it a Hooters Ride Pride day?

Wasn't there a coaster recently that didn't actually stop the trains in the station, but instead they crawled through while guests loaded? I would think that would motivate (guests? riders? customers? What's the PC term these days?) to pick up the pace a little bit. I seem to remember it even being a RMC design...

Rip Ride Rockit used to not stop in the station not sure if that's still the case.

SFOT experimented with continuously moving during loading/unloading on New Texas Giant when it reopened after the accident and at the beginning of the 2014 season.

For those interested, here is a video of the continuous loading in action. As the description says, “it is unknown whether it actually resulted in quicker lines or more efficient loading.” Continuous loading is also standard operating procedure on many wild mouse coasters and Rip Ride Rockit (that was the case as of January), however, it looks pretty bizarre on a coaster with a longer train. Unlike Texas Giant, Rip Ride Rockit was built to run like this with a fairly long station and a moving conveyor walkway.

As for Twisted Colossus, I had pretty low expectations for it dueling consistently. The way the ride is designed it seems like it would need to operate around theoretical capacity, which is something any park would have trouble accomplishing. They should have kept the two stations and had a dual-loading setup like Storm Runner or Big Thunder Mountain. Of course, they would need double the employees to run it, but when the ride's newness wears off they could easily just staff one station like they do with Kingda Ka.

Couldn't the computer on TC hold the train on the second lift until the other train is next to it? Then each and every ride would be timed. It might mess with the flow of the ride, but it would make timing easier.

Then everyone would complain about stacking. Also, every time Fury has stopped on the lift for any reason, it makes the news with "OMG THE RIDE IS UNSAFE!"

I think there's a fine line here.

I agree that slowing the lift to match the 2 trains would lead to a better ride experience (racing the trains.) As long as the lift is moving, no matter how slowly, the riders will sense continuous motion, and they will sense that the ride is operating as intended.

But stopping the train completely mid ride, even for just 10 seconds, would kill the perceived momentum. All of a sudden, people will get the sense that something is wrong, even though nothing is. People on the ride will start asking what's wrong, camera phones will come out, etc.

My guess is that the operators are aware of this line, and there is a time window that they have to sync the lifts without stopping. My guess is that if that window of "lift catch-up" time has passed, they are instructed to keep the ride moving, and avoid stopping the midcourse lift for the above reasons.

My reply to GolithKills and Tek:

I am assuming that we are still talking about two-train operations here... I would hope that people in line would understand that in order to give them the racing effect, some stacking may be necessary. I would rather the ride race no matter what. I think a lot of people would. Not "everyone," but a lot.

And if the wait gets too long, then of course, add a third train and run the ride as intended (or at lease as advertised.)

-INRS :D

In reply to Tommytheduck, I like to find solutions to problems. How about a sign that points out why the ride is stopped or is moving so slowly up the lift hill?

"Please remain seated.

We are loading another train for you to race,

and it will be dispatched as soon as possible."

"In the meantime, please enjoy these messages from Coca-Cola, Mars Chocolate, Cold Stone, Dasani, Discover Card, and Red Gold Ketchup."

LK, and RCMAC, One of those is a great idea. The other one... well, it is SixFlags...

^But which is which? ;~P

And don't forget Got 2B Glued hair gel!