Top Thrill Dragster Incident

[jsus]

CP is finally starting to tease project 2024.  Specifically, the first deliveries of steel to the staging yard next to Cedar Point's Express Hotel, THFKA Breakers Express.  Surely it's just a coincidence that they posted this right at 4:20p, with a checkered flag...

See drone footage taken from off CP property (thus respecting park rules):

[WoodVengeance]

You can see racing flags among the new parts. This likely indicates that the ride is going to keep its racing theme.

[jsus]

4 minutes ago, WoodVengeance said:

You can see racing flags among the new parts. This likely indicates that the ride is going to keep its racing theme.

Those are likely the ones from atop the station.  There are also red benches in that staging area that appear to match the ones that were outside TTD's station.

[SonofBaconator]

It’s curious that they’re sticking with a racing theme

[jsus]

1 minute ago, SonofBaconator said:

It’s curious that they’re sticking with a racing theme

Especially since race cars generally don't drive in reverse at high speeds, even though racecar backwards is still racecar...

[silver2005]

Pfft, have none of you seen the obviously practical and accurate racing of the F&F franchise?  

[jsus]

7 minutes ago, silver2005 said:

Pfft, have none of you seen the obviously practical and accurate racing of the F&F franchise?  

Must've missed the one where they went like 80+ mph in reverse, straight back, then up a tower, before stopping, falling, and mashing the throttle again.   

[jsus]

3 containers showed up in NYC for Cedar Point Park, LLC, early yesterday from Genoa, Italy, which is the same port where some of the steel removed from Dragster was shipped.  Today, we get reports of steel showing up at the CPXH-adjacent staging lot, including what very clearly appears to be the start of the support structure that will be built atop the 3 new footings in the lagoon.

All 3 are described as "machinery for amusement rides", though this appears to actually refer to the steel we've seen.

''

https://www.importgenius.com/importers/cedar-point-park-llc

 

[SonofBaconator]

So many people are getting triggered over Zamperla and I’m loving it

[WoodVengeance]

36 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

So many people are getting triggered over Zamperla and I’m loving it

Yep, it's Orion all over again but for Cedar Point.

[Orion742]

8 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:

So many people are getting triggered over Zamperla and I’m loving it

Honestly I am excited to see what Zamperla can do. ( If it is indeed Zamperla ) The lightning trains look awesome. If this is successful it will be huge for Zamperla and Cedar Fair. 

[SonofBaconator]

It’s all about chances. Cedar Fair gave Intamin plenty of chances to show their reliability and they failed to do so: Maverick and I305 had to be redesigned after their initial layouts were constructed, Shoot the Rapids was removed after its accident, TTD’s accident was a PR nightmare for the park. It seems like it was one thing after another. It’s a shame because Intamin produces fun rides but they’re maintenance nightmares when you get down to it. I haven’t heard anything negative about Pantheon or Velocicoaster so maybe they figured it out but nevertheless, they left some scars on Cedar Fair. 
 

Who knows, Zamperla might end up the same way but we don’t know until the product is finished. We saw Cedar Fair take a chance on RMC and their additions have been prone to maintenance issues ever since; I believe the original Wonder Woman raptor is undergoing some changes but I could be wrong.

These are interesting times in the roller coaster world.

[Kenban]

I think part of the problem is people have some extremely weird ideas of what changes are happening.  I know I was hopeful the ride would be extended so something could be done with the speed beyond just hitting the brakes, but the lack of any additional construction means that is unlikely.  But I keep seeing people thinking the ride will be taller than Kingda Ka, or faster than Formula Rossa, and frankly I never thought anything like this would be reasonable.  Cedar Fair likely just wants a safe, and reliable ride, and is not concerned with breaking records.  I am expecting TTD with a new station, a switch to get onto the launch track, a spike to get some initial speed then a long launch to get just enough speed to clear the top hat, hit the brakes same as before and a slightly longer slow speed section to get to the new station.  That’s it basically the same ride with just a backwards launch up a spike to get some speed.

Zamperla is not going to build the launch, it’s likely being done by InTraSys.  Most of the track and it appears all the really high speed sections will be the original track just modified to add a new launch system and different brake layout.  Zamperla is building trains, a station, a spike, some track to tie it all together, and a new control system.  It’s common to outsource track switches so I would not be surprised if they are not responsible for that.  Does Zamperla do their own control systems, those are also frequently outsourced.

It’s still a complicated project but I think people are really overthinking this.

[SonofBaconator]

29 minutes ago, Kenban said:

But I keep seeing people thinking the ride will be taller than Kingda Ka, or faster than Formula Rossa, and frankly I never thought anything like this would be reasonable.

IIRC, you need goggles to ride Formula Rosa which I don’t think CF would want to bother with. In addition, to break the 149 mph record, you’d need a lot more track to burn off that speed. In terms of height, the spike could be record breaking but I’m not certain of its practicality going from a spike that’s higher than the top hat.
 

I think the thing that Cedar Fair wants to sell with this renovated ride is the constant rollback. In theory you’d get 3 rides in one: the constant rollback of Superman at Magic Mountain, the vertical spike that sends you down face first, again similar to Superman, then a full circuit high speed run like the original TTD. 

[BeeastFarmer]

1 hour ago, SonofBaconator said:

 We saw Cedar Fair take a chance on RMC and their additions have been prone to maintenance issues ever since; I believe the original Wonder Woman raptor is undergoing some changes but I could be wrong.

These are interesting times in the roller coaster world.

WW is closed for the time being, they are working on the track and the station and phase one. Phase 2 will be new trains. As far as the single rail at California's Great America, it will be interesting to see if it's relocated or scrapped when the park closes. I have heard that both of these coasters have lots of welds which would make it difficult to relocate.

[TombRaiderFTW]

1 hour ago, SonofBaconator said:

IIRC, you need goggles to ride Formula Rosa which I don’t think CF would want to bother with.

Formula Rossa is in a desert. You wear goggles because of sand.

I would be shocked if the max height or speed of Top Thrill Dragster increases at this point. I would imagine that you don't just tack on 30 mph to a ride's speed without reprofiling the climb up. And that part is already being painted.

[silver2005]

One thing I've been curious on if the rear spike is true is what kind of launch set up will make it go backwards.  Will it be a faster launch and just have the spike go entirely by gravity or will we see LSM's on the spike for a slower backwards launch?  I can't imagine you'd want to do a backwards launch that's too forceful regardless of restraints.  

If there's a spike, I also guess it won't surpass 250 ft.  

[SonofBaconator]

5 minutes ago, silver2005 said:

If there's a spike, I also guess it won't surpass 250 ft

I wouldn’t be so sure. If you’re going backwards from 410ish feet, you’re going to need some height to burn off that speed, unless they plan on slowing down the trains on the rollbacks or not having the initial launch reach the top hat at all and go halfway up.

[Kenban]

4 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

I wouldn’t be so sure. If you’re going backwards from 410ish feet, you’re going to need some height to burn off that speed, unless they plan on slowing down the trains on the rollbacks or not having the initial launch reach the top hat at all and go halfway up.

The LSM launch fins act as their own magnetic brakes.  The train would not even make it to the spike.

[silver2005]

If you're dropping from 200+ ft, you're gonna be getting the train near 70 mph which means the remaining LSM's going forward only have to add 50-ish mph.   Heck, I'd settle for it only doing 50 mph going forward at the bottom of the spike to give the forward launch some more umph.  

[Tr0y]

2 hours ago, Kenban said:

I think part of the problem is people have some extremely weird ideas of what changes are happening.  I know I was hopeful the ride would be extended so something could be done with the speed beyond just hitting the brakes, but the lack of any additional construction means that is unlikely.  But I keep seeing people thinking the ride will be taller than Kingda Ka, or faster than Formula Rossa, and frankly I never thought anything like this would be reasonable.  Cedar Fair likely just wants a safe, and reliable ride, and is not concerned with breaking records. 

If TTD gets a spike it will inherently take worlds fastest multi launch coaster from Pantheon. It will also be the worlds tallest multi launch coaster. CP has to have record breakers in order to be a destination park. Those hotel rooms won’t fill themselves.

[SonofBaconator]

11 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

CP has to have record breakers in order to be a destination park

Maverick has entered the chat

[Tr0y]

1 minute ago, SonofBaconator said:

Maverick has entered the chat

But it did break a world record. 

[SonofBaconator]

Eh, they don’t need to break records. Take Valravn which debuted as the tallest, longest, fastest, and most inversion filled dive coaster at the time. Now you have Yukon Striker which took some records away from Valravn. People don’t ride Valravn or Yukon Striker because they break records, they mainly ride them because of the drop and inversions.

Breaking records is just a marketing ploy to generate exposure. I don’t think people rode Top Thrill Dragster any less because Kingda Ka broke its records. 

[MDMC01]

16 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

But it did break a world record. 

What world record did Maverick break? First Blitz Coaster?

[teenageninja]

Steepest drop I believe.

[Tr0y]

59 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

Eh, they don’t need to break records. Take Valravn which debuted as the tallest, longest, fastest, and most inversion filled dive coaster at the time. Now you have Yukon Striker which took some records away from Valravn. People don’t ride Valravn or Yukon Striker because they break records, they mainly ride them because of the drop and inversions.

Breaking records is just a marketing ploy to generate exposure. I don’t think people rode Top Thrill Dragster any less because Kingda Ka broke its records. 

Generates exposure which in turn draws people to the park. World breaking coasters is what CP is known for. They do lose records but with the next big coaster addition they end up just smashing a bunch more.

[SonofBaconator]

19 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

Generates exposure which in turn draws people to the park. World breaking coasters is what CP is known for. They do lose records but with the next big coaster addition they end up just smashing a bunch more.

That being said, if Cedar Point adds a coaster that doesn’t break records, that doesn’t mean that people won’t show up to ride it. I don’t think Wild Mouse breaks any records. Nevertheless every coaster technically can break a record if you’re creative with it.

Diamondback is the tallest coaster in the world to feature splashdown breaks and the only hyper coaster to feature it. Invertigo is the only ride of its kind in North America. Adventure Express is the longest and tallest mine ride in Ohio. I could go on.

[Tr0y]

45 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

That being said, if Cedar Point adds a coaster that doesn’t break records, that doesn’t mean that people won’t show up to ride it. I don’t think Wild Mouse breaks any records. Nevertheless every coaster technically can break a record if you’re creative with it.

Diamondback is the tallest coaster in the world to feature splashdown breaks and the only hyper coaster to feature it. Invertigo is the only ride of its kind in North America. Adventure Express is the longest and tallest mine ride in Ohio. I could go on.

Yup and they do get creative or simply just identify the coaster as they see fit. Example: RMC toppler track being considered wood. 300ft drop coasters now being categorized as giga coasters. 

Im not wanting to beat the dead horse tho so back on the topic about TTD. I don’t know why anyone is upset with Zamperla. If there is anything to be upset about it’s the putt putt course CP just added. That’s the real tragedy. 

[MDMC01]

17 hours ago, Tr0y said:

Im not wanting to beat the dead horse tho so back on the topic about TTD. I don’t know why anyone is upset with Zamperla. If there is anything to be upset about it’s the putt putt course CP just added. That’s the real tragedy. 

That’s actually pretty cool, IMO. Is this putt putt course in the main park?

Also, on a larger note, I see this a Cedar Point diversifying their offerings (as in, not just huge coasters) - I feel like this started with things like Vertical Impact and Forbidden Frontier (RIP) and it’s (likely) why the new beachfront building (forgot the name) was added.