SOB_TOM

Why the hell not? Sign me up. I live close to Ryan.

Better believe they did.

At the same time, two things are happening: 1) The guests dont know that the power went out parkwide. It instilled a confidence of an isolated incident. 2) "Its doing it again," implies that the operator has experience on dealing with the problem, therfor reassuring guests in the manner of "Oh, hes taken care of this before. We are safe."

Back on topic please. Just think for a while on this one, and I bet an answer will easily come.

I cant tell you what is wrong with the on board audio, because the park wont let me. However, I will tell you its not an easy problem. The guys are working on it, and it will be fixed when its fixed. Thats about all I can say.

Its still up for debate. I was just referring to the previous seasons. Thumb through some of the other posts about the IJ trains. Im tired of reposting the same response to the same nonsense. I will just repeat on thing I said on the other posts: If you can do it faster and better, then why arent you working at the park in our animation department?

And yes, Winterfest took away a lot of time from winter maintenance. Everything got pushed back 6 weeks, and with how short off season is, that is a lot of time.

How Tech Services handles stuff: What happens is that the park will start hiring seasonal work starting Jan. 31. Thats when a lot of the off-season maintenance occurs, especially since my department comes in at the end of construction. We then keep a schedule to have about a week to spare to "touch up" things around the park. Then the park opens, and we keep things running until after the park closes. Then we take in a lot of the speakers to be rebuilt and to make sure they work. The seasonals are let go for the year around mid-Nov. For Nov-Jan, we have a small full time staff that takes care of a lot of the off-season things. Typically, this is about the time that full timers celebrate the holidays (from what I hear, its interesting to celebrate the Fourth of July with snow on the ground.) It really depends on what department as for when the seasonal staff is hired and let go. To get a full time slot, you pretty much have to get it by attrition. Wait for someone do get fired/quit to have a slot open, and then its extremely competitive.

Just as long as one of those beer carts makes it way to my shop at least once an hour.

Anyone else connect the dots on the IJST thing and realize that the fishtailing effect IS the turn by Dodgems!? Also, I work with the guys who take care of the theming. They always bust their butts trying to keep things working as best as they can. I know what problems they are having out there, and they are not easy "plug wire into slot A" problems. The problems are more in depth than that, and the guys wont take the ride down to fix the audio in the cars (cause thats about what it would take.) So unless you can come up with a fix, fix it before the guys fix it, and then make it work 100% of the time, I suggest you lay off of the guys and let them do their magic. Not to rip on those who deserve it, but I doubt that you can do half of the crap that Animation does on a routine basis.

Any news on wether you had to stay in the hotel for the waterpark, or do they have a separate admission for the waterpark?

You hit the nail right on the head. People will not trust SOB anymore. Therefor, making any mention of how popular it was before and after isnt really going to come into the factor. The only way a normal guest will trust that ride again is by seeing it run with people on it for a long time. Only then will the popularity come back. Plus, think how much CF just spent on the Paramount parks. Believe it or not, they are probabily pinching pennies right now. Yes, yes I know they make billions a year, however one purchase of $1.24 billion will drain ya for a year. Thats why I believe its more of an economical problem.

#1: Why would they need new trains if the track is the problem? As far as I know, the park has released no information that the trains were even damaged, let alone needing to be replaced because they were the chief problems. #2 Knowing what I know of current methods of taking down tall buildings while keeping collateral damage down to 0 is that common techniques could not be used to take SOB down. A wrecking ball would get wrapped up in the supports. Bulldozers could be used to take down the lower to the ground sections, however they wouldnt even dent the major hills. And burning it would ruin my marshmellows with toxic fumes. My personal opinion is that the park will look into reconstruction costs of the ride compared to demolition costs. Whichever is cheaper (and remember, common demolition techniques would not work here) is the course CF will take.

All gates are pnuematic. They have electric sensors that if the gates are shaken hard enough, they will actually trip the sensor, therefor breaking the ride. Its like this on ALL rides that have auto gates.

The green zones have been around for awhile on select coasters. Green zone: Safety zone to where the operator stands in whenever the train/ride is in motion. Yellow zone: Normally a trip/fall hazard marker, or used to show where the operator stands between queue rails. Well used to I guess. Also used to mark breaker clearance areas to keep clear. For example, 36" in front of breaker panels must be left clear, so 36" away from the panel they draw a yellow box.

And we could all wear emblemed fanny packs with out user names and avatars on them.

Read the fine print around the park. Some restaraunts they call "attractions."

Ok, lets face it. PKI will no longer be staffing all of the rides/attractions anymore. There is no way that the park can stay staffed with 18+ year olds paying what they do.

Oh God, People who are born in `92 can drive now? I feel old.....

I saw some plush in emporium.....

The park technically never lost power. We just lost a phase of the power. So instead of being 3-phase, we were 2-phase. In plain English, We had power, but not enough consistent power (think of waves, and have three waves that go up and down right after each other, and then take one out. Same thing with 3-phase power.) to actually run anything. Please direct all questions to my PM box. I know I just lost half of you on the explaination, so I will dig up some old notes I have from Tech School.

Picard, The ride is safe. Things DO happen when you are working with wood. Have you ever done that? Its called a freak accident, Act of God (I have read that phrase in many a contract. I think its funny,) an imbalance of energies in the Rosebowl causing the circular pattern of the bowl to shatter due to no point of the energy to release, whatever you want to call it. Will this happen again to SOB? Most likely not. Will the state release the ride to the park without making sure that the ride can support the stresses of the car? You better believe it. Will the maintenance crews allow people on the ride if they find problems in their start up? Duh, of course not. Ive said it before, and I will say it again. Wood does not show signs of fatigue like metal does. Metal will form fatigue cracks, which are easily seen during an open. Wood can break at any time. Have you not seen tree limbs fall from a tree due to just a small breeze? If you do, you will notice that there are not hairline cracks on the outside of the wood, but there are on the inside. You cant x-ray the wood or put a small amount of current through it and see if it conducts. You just dont know about it. PKI replaces huge sections of wood every year on that ride, just to make sure accidents like this dont happen. Did it? Yes, but the ride is properly maintained. I will say right now that once the facts are set straight to this woman, she will lose the suit.

Well, as for the mike levels, we are told what to set them at, we do, and then pretty much not touch em the rest of the year unless there are guest complaints, then we are told by the Games higher ups to turn em down.

ST:TE has always been listed as a Paramount "park." But personally I like the term "little brother to Paramount Parks."

Interpreter, I was at SFKK earlier this year while returning from Holiwood Nights and Rumblefest, and I was disappointed beyond belief. I heard that guest service picked up, and that the park was cleaner, but the only guest service we had all day came from a lady in a drink stand that we stopped by on the way out. I saw no major improvement at all at that park. Of course, coming back from HW and BB, both extremely nice parks for their size, it really didnt surprise me. I was spoiled beyond belief. Understand people, that the whole "save the parks" thing is East Coast. The land out West is very profitable, and people arent as interested in theme parks, especially since it seems theres one on each street corner. I dont think that Six Flags will ever completely get back on track. The old SF went on a buying spree in the 90's, spread too wide, and now they cant keep up with it all. Yes, selling the parks is a good financial idea, but unless they make bigger gains on guest services, cleanliness, and most important, the quality of all their rides, not just a select few, SF will never return to the old days.