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Firehawk Dual Loading Station


notredame0608
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I heard that Firehawk was going to have something called a dual or double loading station? Whats that all about? :blink:

The line breaks in to two parts right before it goes up to the station. One train loads on each side. They have a crew on each side, and it is supposed to cut down on stacking. The track in front and behind the station flips over to allow the train in or out of the station. Pretty interesting concept.

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Here's a link to a pic of Firehawk in it's previous location.

http://rcdb.com/ig920.htm?picture=9

The pic shows the former dual loading station from afar. One could assume that the new station at KI will be a duplicate, or similar. BTW, it's actually pretty cool to see the track flip.

Here's another link to a pic of what's left of the X-Flight (soon to be Firehawk) dual loading station.

http://www.geaugalaketoday.com/XF_Removal_3-7-07_6.htm

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The only dual-station ride I have been on is The MUMMY @ Universal Orlando. It is very efficient, and the way it was set up, they had a fast pass lane combined with the regular line on one of the station sides, which worked out great as well- both lines seemed to move at a pretty constant rate.

I hope KI does a similar thing for Firehawk like they did for IJ:ST on its first year, and have a "speed lane" open every day in the summer to reduce the line.

If Firehawk is like the Mummy, it will also have the option to close half of the station when the ride isn't as busy.

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Would Dragster at Cedar Point be considered a dual-loading station since it loads two trains at once, or is it in its own category since they leave at the same time?

I would say that Dragster would be catergorized differently, since both loading areas maintain their course on the same track (if train #1 doesn't dispatch, train #2 doesn't have an alternate route around it...) Of course, the end goal is still the same...to get the trains loaded faster. Dragster ups the ante even more in that regard by having the unloading area away from the loading area.

Another good example of a dual loading station would be "Mr. Freeze" at SFOT. It also has a pretty cool mechanism where track portion the train is sitting on slides from the loading station into place on the main track.

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Big Thunder Mountain, Test Track and Dinosaur all at Disney parks in Orlando have dual loading stations as well. Although Test Track and Dinosaur don't need track switches the cars are actually driving themselves based on signals from the main computer.

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Good hopefully if it does have a new dual loading station then it will cut down on wait time and bring the hourly capacity up. But if one side breaks down does that mean that the whole thing is broken down or just that one side?

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The past several times I have been to Geauga Lake, the ride kept getting stuck on the lift hill. I do not know whether I was just there on bad days, or if there actually is/was a problem with the ride. From the time maintenance arrived, it would take a good 20 minutes to reopen the coaster.

If Firehawk is like the Mummy, it will also have the option to close half of the station when the ride isn't as busy.

I never actually saw both sides running at the same time... at GL, when I went, there was hardly a line at all...needless to say, they can use one side at a time if they please. :)

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This isn't Geauga Lake.

No, but it's Cedar Fair! -Hauntguy

Both of you are exactly right...scary, two posts that are nearly opposites are both right!

Bottom line we arent Geauga Lake, and we all know that in the past KI has been much better off in all areas than Geauga Lake, but as far as being Cedar Fair is concerned CP seems to run alright, but Geagua didnt. The thing we have to remember is KI has a good history to build off of, Geagua Lake did not with SF and all, so they were constantly in a rebuilding term especially now. I hope that under CF's stewardship plus the prosperity that KI has had in the past that Kings Island Comes out better than ever before...and that Firehawk has a short line! haha

In the end, we wont know until she opens!

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Well, if Cedar Fair can keep up with putting a lot of rides in each year then you would be better off in not having long lines. Cedar Fair just needs to keep up with the amount of people we have around the area that go, if they can do that then the lines wont be that long ;)

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No difference, It's just they have 2 load stations instead of one.

Thats sweet. Hopefully the wait won't be as long then.

At GL x-flight had some long lines with 2 stations running

That dosen't mean a thing. When I rode Batwing, one side had problems so they switched to just one station adding another hour to the wait.

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