Browntggrr

Couple of things: - Initially reading the title of this topic, I had NO IDEA what to expect. Seriously though: I have heard that the safety specs for European rides are nowhere near the US, but I find it disturbing that the ride would be allowed to engage w/o all the operators in a "safe zone". Rough translation of story:

Wow, you just like to believe anything you want huh? Nevermind facts, or practicle conclusions, sound reasoning, or that a ride that has been around before you were born actually may be operating the way it was intended to operate. Especially since the brakes you constantly whine about were in place 5 years before you were even around. Nevermind that Beast has been one of the best liked wooden coasters ever, or that the 2 big parks you have actually been to in your life have consistantly been the some of the most popular seasonal parks in the World. Yeah, what the hell do they know? Do you honestly believe that in the intrests of making more money, the parks will basically do anything? So if the brakes you have been whining about made that much of a negative difference of people walking through the gates, the park would have removed them over 20 years ago? Next you are going to tell us that no matter what, because you read it somewhere else, the earth is flat. http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/ Remember, just as you heard on the web that Beast is a great ride trimless, hear you can read about how the earth is flat! So I really want to know, why do you believe that enthusiasts like yourself are more important than the "grannies" you have described? And to clear some things up, it is no longer called "Beastie", yet, "Fairly Odd Coaster". And if you read the park's description: What a shock! It has nothing to do with maintnance, and everything to do with the parks target audience- FAMILIES!

^ Now that is good to know!

While I do understand what you are saying, some people need to understand that a park is not there for their own personal pleasure. If parks would actually allow trims to be removed so that the force of the ride can always be felt, a majority of the people would hate the ride. For instance: you just came back from CP and experienced Magnum. The trims in the pretzel slow down the train enough so when you come to the bunny hops, the lap bar does not kill your thighs (more than it already does). For an enthusiast, we know where to lift up on the lap bar or know how to sit, for a non-enthusiast all they will remember is the pain the ride caused. That is not the type of experience the parks want people to remember. If those people remember a bad ride experience, they very well could spend their money at another park. And less revenue for a park directly effects people like you and me either by higher ticket prices OR less fantastic trill rides (ironically the same thrill rides and enthusiast whines about). There are enough enthusiast events to satisfy the hard-core fans. It is just that the enthusiast needs to remember that operating a park is a business, and if the majority of the guests are not happy, the park does not make money. And then we all lose out.

While that amount is very excessive, It really is not a shock that a suit has been filed. Quite honestly, if I was paying $250 to $520 a night for a room at GWL, and something they did (or didn't) do got my family sick, I would hope that GWL would compensate me so that a suit would not have to be filed. And what I mean by compensation is along the lines of the current stay being taken care of along with another weekend. While some people may consider that excessive, the way I look at it is: my first vacation to the lodge was ruined by getting sick, I believe I deserve another opportunity.

From how the calander reads, it appears like the park will be cleared and then re-opened. http://www.visitkingsisland.com/mediakit/calendar.html Which does bring up some intresting questions: - will guests be allowed to leave HH and then re-enter later in the night? There has been talk in the past that the park would not allow people to do that. - will the computers allow a season pass to be scanned twice? I personally have had issues with that at CP after taking a shower at Hotel Breakers to get the grimy water ride "stuff" off of me which led to the hand stamp also washing off. - what kind of security presence will be at the park on Saturday nights? Please don't take my comment the wrong way, but having the park be open to 1:00am and combining that with a large group of teens at Halloween seems like it could be a potential issue.

^ So you really have no other experiences with other parks besides a CF park? Or for that matter no other big parks besides KI or CP. Of course you would believe that KI is the trim brake capital. I had the same belief once when it came down to theme parks. Until I was 15, KI was the best park in the World. Then I expanded my experience and went to BGE and found that I was dead wrong. When it comes to trims, how do you know that it is the park that insists on the brake? Have you ever considered that it could be the manufactorer that determined the need? What about older people that cannot handle the forces some coasters have? Sure Gemini at CP may have trims, but there are many other coasters at CP that will give you the thill you are looking for. Gemini is a big coaster for most people, and gives enough of a thrill to please the majority. You have to remember, coasters are there for everyone's enjoyment, not just the enthusiast. If you want the enthusiast experience, go during an event. When the park is open to everyone, expect brakes so that the majority of people can ride. Beast was a great coaster in 1979, even with the trims. And just like with the trims today, it is still a great coaster. If you don't like it, stay home. CF wants the majority of people to enjoy the park, not just the whining minority that can't get over themselves or their ideals.

Well considering it came from you, what else to you expect? How do you know that a park is killing a ride with a trim? What experiences do you have with the subject? Or are you just trying to give off second hand information and pass it off as your own again? You may want to clarify that. In your opinion, YOU don't have to go to other parks to see that KI and CP use trims more than others. But in reality, they use trims just like everyone else. You just have not been to enough parks to figure that out. So if you discover something in the future, I'll be the first to know. Well thanks, I appreciate that. But what I don't understand is the "I won't change my mind" part. Does that mean you are so closed minded that once you finally do get to other parks not associated with CF, you still won't change your mind on trims or that CF is the only chain that over uses trims? Since you have already admitted that CF has not added any trims to KI's coasters since the Paramount regime, and, given your limited experience with other parks, I am surprised that you have not figured out that if the two biggest parks under different ownership that you have been to use trims, other parks probably use them as well.

Actually it took about 5 minutes to find out you really have no basis of comparison for any opinion on trims. Everyone wants a coaster to go faster and have airtime, but it is the person who understands why a park will make a decision to have trims that is the true enthusiast. They know that the ride is there for everyone's enjoyment, not just their own enjoyment. And if you think I'm an arrogant jerk, given your limited view on things, I'll take that as being a really good guy. Thanks for the compliment!

*BUMP* Now that the 2008 season is in full swing, and most of us have had the opportunity to enjoy Racer, has anyone's opinion changed? Also, how often has Racer only been operating one side?

Just a guess.... The inside & outside queues for FoF. Take out the railings, and there is a rather large space to be used.

From you own mouth on another site: Those parks equal to a rather small amount of parks. And of those parks, only 4 really have large enough coasters to need trims. Hit some SF, Busch, Universal, and Disney parks to see why trims are used on coasters.

Go ahead and move on to other parks than the 14 you have been to. You don't like trims. Good. Move on. They have been on Beast for almost 30 years now and your constant, inexperienced whining is baseless due to have no first hand experience. You have no idea what kind of ride Beast will give trimless, but since YOU believe it would be good for the ride, and everyone else for that matter, the park should do it? Wow. You really need to get out more.

So you really have no idea about what kind of ride a trimless Beast will give. But you feel the need to question why the trims are there, and on top of that criticize a company and question their maintenance procedures(which only happens to be one of many reasons trims are necessary)? Based on second hand information? You need to seriously explore other parks than the 14 you have been to and form your own opinion. Not an opinion based upon some else's ideals. You need to expand your horizons and get to other parks to see that trims on larger coasters is not unique to only a small handful of parks. Never having a trimless ride, and then telling a company on how their coaster should operate is not only arrogant presumption, it is immature.

The better question is: Should people need to ride defensively?

^ With enough morphine, codeine, and percocet I'm sure you could beat any consecutive ride record that SoB may have.

Well, there is no reason to remove any brakes if they have always been there. And I would like to see the facts that trims are constantly being used in the coasters you mentioned. In all my trips to KI, I have not noticed anything different on any of the rides. And don't forget to give us your first hand opinion, and dates of the events, on the trimless rides on Beast. I am anxious to hear about them.

Are you kidding? You are just trying to split hairs to argue something that is pointless. They added brakes to the ride within the first 12 months of the rides' operation, and the brakes have since lasted almost 30 years later for a good reason, they are obviously necessary for most people. It is certainly not unique to Beast that modifications were made shortly after a new coaster is built. Are you going to try and argue that the inversion on Maverick did not need to be removed since some people rode it with the inversion? Technology back in '79 is nowhere near what it is today, so yeah, things were obviously changed since day one. And even in today's World, things are still changed early in the life of a coaster. So please tell me, what trimless ride experiences, and what events, do you have on Beast? I would love to hear your first hand opinion. And since we are now splitting hairs, I love your name "The Beast Rider" with the signature "Welcome to Cedar Fair, the trim brake capital of the world!" Did you know that CF has added no brakes to Beast? Just an FYI.

KI has more operating days and more operating hours which equals less time to provide the maintenance needed to have a trimless ride. What I understand to be Beast's history: April 1979- Beast opens, with 4-bench trains and traditional lap bars. Mid 1979- Brakes added to first drop 1980- Brakes added to helix drop. Early 80's- 4-bench trains replaced with 3-bench trains, due to tracking problems. These trains featured traditional lap bars once again. Late 80's- Headrests added to trains. Early 90's- Ratcheting lap bars added. I believe the headrests were covered with a vinyl material in this year. Early 2002- Skid brakes replaced with magnetic brakes in every trim location, except for the first drop. Mid 2002- Magnetic brakes replaced skid brakes on first drop. 2004- Retracting seat belts added. What I question is: how can a person know what kind of forces, Beast in this discussion, a coaster has w/o trims since the ride has always had brakes magnetic or skid? The reason why I bring it up, is that smaller coasters (like Blue Streak at CP) does not have trim brakes on the ride at all. Yet larger coasters, ones that exert more force, have trims.

It doesn't go both ways. Just because you have a bigger budget does not mean you can justify leaving trims off a coaster. And if you really want to get technical, due to their location, Holiday World does not pay nearly as much money in taxes (property, payroll etc.) to their township and state compared to KI. Also, KI is not family owned like HW. If HW does not make a profit, the only people that need to be answered to is the family themselves, unlike KI where there is a board of directors and stock holders to report to. Back to the trims: HW has less stress on their coasters and longer times to repair them. Whereas at KI you can have 100 more maintenance workers and a bigger budget, but all those workers can't work on repairing the coaster at the same time, nor can all your maintenance needs be put into fixing a wood coaster while other rides sit idle. Bigger park equals bigger expenses, there is no arguement there. And if KI were to have a bigger budget to fix the rides w/o trims, that cost will directly effect ticket prices. Think about your comment that Voyage needed to have a trim added in 2007. Sure they fixed it for 2008 (if that is why they added a trim), but Voyage was not even a full two years old when the trim was added. If the same problem persists, year after year, you will see a trim there full time.

Thank you!!!!!! And even on Voyage, you come back in to the station and what does everyone do? Cheer. There certainly is no "oh that was too fast, you ought to slow it down." Just CHEER!!! Well if you want to compare the parks' coasters to each other, lets compare everything: Holiday World: Open May to October 120 total operating days 1192 operating hours 1,000,000 (approx.) guests/ year Kings Island Open April to November 127 operating days 1382 operating hours 3,000,000 (approx.) guests/ year KI has triple the guests, more operating days and more operating hours than Holiday World. Thus, they have less time to keep the coasters maintained than Holiday World and it is easy to assume that KI has many more guests ride their coaters than HW does just based on the amount of guests that go to each park. That equals more wear and tear on the coasters due to the additonal weight. I'm not really sure how cheering can be used as a barometer but, as far as cheering goes, every day on Beast people are always cheering.

^^^ Great point! It is because of physics that trims are on coasters. Not everyone can handle the forces that an untrimmed coasters gives, thus it will give a bad ride in some people's minds. Nor can the coaster handle the forces from a loaded train day-in, day-out. And we all know that the parks' focus is not for the enthusiast, but for everyone. Which is why during coaster events, parks will disengage brakes if possible. But realize that those ERT events are not too long, nor are the brakes off the whole time. And for all that believe trims are not there for preventative maintenance or think that the maintenance reason is not valid: watch Supercoasters on National Geographic Channel http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/epis...s-2619/Overview. There is a small, but intresting, piece on reprofiling a wood coaster. You can see the time and effort (which does equal expensive in today's World), that is put into the wood on a coaster. It is just not slapping some wood together and screwing in a metal track. The entire area that the metal track is put on is basically hand carved with sanders. Needless to say, it is obvious that reprofiling is not an easy, quick, or inexpensive task.

From Rideman: As you can see in his explanation, the brakes are able to be adjusted for each individual train. Since we both know that the brakes are not controlled by the operators, it is the PLC that determines how fast the train is running due to how heavy the train is. Perhaps in my previous post I was not clear in mentioning that while there is no way for the PLC to know how heavy a train is, yet, the weight of a train increases (or decreases) how fast the train is moving which then triggers how long the brakes are engaged.

And there is a reason for that. Magnum has a computer that determines how long the trims are to be engaged based upon the previous train's weight. The test trains of the day are empty or close to being empty, perhaps two or three employees. If the trims were 100% on with an empty train, the train could valley coming out of the pretzel given the right temperatures and wind off the lake. And as Gordon has previously mentioned, with skid brakes or mag brakes, there is no way to turn them off without removal.

So you were an employee of the park to experience the initial test runs of the day?