El Toro_Ryan

I've never been too big a fan of inversions until I rode Wicked Cyclone. Never have I experienced so much hang time on a roller coaster before! So for RMC rides, I think their inversions absolutely make their rides better! For other companies, I can't say the same. There are few coasters with inversions that stand out to me. Most inversions just aren't crazy enough to me (excerpt RMC's because they are the holy grail of roller coasters!)

Until now! This gap is wild!! Them RMC boyz done messed up this time!!

This. I couldn't agree more. We should contact GADV and Hershey immediately about interchanging the lapbars. Intamins are the Honda Civics of coasters. Their parts are so easily exchangeable that even the GP could swap parts! Maybe we could swap Skyrush's cable lift with Skull Mountain's tire drive lift hill too while we're at it.

Everland can't run T Express if the weather is lower than -2 and I know from personal experience once the temperatures get low in the winter, it can be very hit and miss on the visits if it's even running, even when it's above that amount if it's windy or wet. They normally just take it down for its yearly rehab January-February because the temperature just doesn't get high enough to run it at all so they use that time to get the work done since Everland is a 365 day park. I'm kind of curious if El Toro is not as smooth when the cars are empty, when I've used the single-rider line I've sometimes ended up in a "single-rider dump" and though it's nothing to complain about at all, it always seems a bit more shaky in an empty car. A "single-rider dump" being the times they've been running all 3 trains they have to constantly load so fast and dispatch that the grouper already has the next trains peoples lined up so by the time single seats are spotted the gates have already shut again so they dump you in an empty car in the middle when there's a big empty spot where a group has gone for the front or back and the grouper didn't have time to get people to those gates so they fill up the seats with the 2-3 people in the single rider line. You still need a reservation ticket (T Express doesn't always open its standby line) so there's normally only 1 or 2 in the single rider line. It's a shame since they dispatch so many cars there's always a lot of empty seats but I guess they don't want people flooding the single rider line when it's sold out. it could also just be because the ride runs almost 300 days a year for the last 7 years but I was just curious if El Toro could be like that since I remember when I first arrived riding an empty car and not finding it too rattly. The front half of Toro's train is generally always smooth, whether the train is full or empty. It's very similar to when the ride first opened. The back half is more rattly. But it's noticeably smoother with a full train here than an empty one. Toro has large gap between the upstop wheels and the track so the train tends to bounce more when it's empty because I guess less weight is holding it down. Car 6 row 2 is the best row on the ride tho. Smooth as glass with all the speed of the back. And that's interesting about T-Express. I guess it works in the park's favor that they can just perform rehab during the coldest part of the season. Toro has the most difficulty in the beginning of the season where it's trying to break in all its brand new parts while it's only 40 degrees out. Towards the end of the year when everything is broken in, it does much better in the cold. If you don't mind me asking, does T Express also encounter the same issues Toro does with people not fitting in the ride? I thought that might be more of an American issue. Lol

Oh absolutely. El Toro desperately needs cold weather wheels but I don't believe Intamin provides those for the plug n' plays. Does anyone know if the other Intamin woodies are so weather sensitive? Hell, El Toro evens slows down dramatically during summer nights where it sits quiet between park operating days. Then it gains it's speed back during morning test runs.

Based on your posts I guess you work at the park? I'm not questioning you but this number doesn't even seem close to being right. The midways were very crowded last night even during shows... So let's say there were 500 people in the theater at a time (seems close to being right, when we went they just about filled it), coaster trains were generally full even if it was re-rides so Nitro would have about 72 people on it at a time, Batman 32, Green Lantern 32, Superman 32, Skull Mountain 56 (2 trains) and Dark Knight was filling it's pre-show last night so let's say that's 30 people. So just if we count people on the coasters and I'm the theater at any given time that's above 750... So that would mean at any given time half the people in the park (assuming they were all there at the same time and nobody left) was sitting in coaster trains or in the theater. Maybe you take a few off because each coaster will have some empty seas for groups of 1/2/3 that's don't even out but not many. Plus Skull Mountain and Batman had full station waits for most of the day and at one point Nitro's line was back to the old hot dog cart so that's about a 20 minute wait or more. Now how can that number explain crowded midways, long food lines everywhere, long lines for most of the flats, the people on the flats, the people in the stores, the long line to meet Santa. The Mrs. Clause show that was almost always just about filled... Again I'm not questioning you but that number doesn't add up. Not even close... I mean look at the pictures on the last page (and a report of an hour wait to see Santa around 4 which is the same time Nitro's line was at it's longest point). Nitro ran well... Earlier in the day it was a little sluggish but as it kept running it really sped up. The greeter said they plan to keep switching between warm weather and cold weather wheels as needed for the event too (maybe Ryan can shed some light on how that works). Last night the mid course was even kicking on which it doesn't do when the ride really crawls. 1500 people equates to super light crowds. Maybe that person meant 15,000 as that sounds much more fitting to the crowds you guys were describing. Anything above 25,000 people is when the park begins to get very congested but 15,000 is usually crowded midways but not too bad lines. As for Nitro switching back and forth between the warm and cold weather wheels, I'm going to assume the ride will primarily run the cold weather wheels and maybe if there's a fluke warm weather weekend, they'll swap a few cold for warm weather wheels. The biggest issues the rides have in the cold are warming them up in the mornings so the cold weather wheels would make more sense.

Lol good! This park needs more space/slides/etc. to handle the crowds it gets. It's wayyy too common for this place to reach capacity literally an hour after it opens for the day.

^All I'll say is that if you want a job working with coasters, come on down to the employment center!!

The SpongeBob ride was classic tho! This might have been mentioned but I honestly don't enjoy Skyrush. The layout is amazing and the forces are absolutely insane. But the lapbars are just so uncomfortable with all the crazy airtime. It's one of the few rides where I'm happy to hit the brake run.

Hey, that was me at Toro's entrance! haha I remember you guys being the last two of the night. Sorry if the situation in the station after was hectic. Things usually aren't that bad because the front row usually does listen and disperses to other rows when we ask them to. And yeah, closing the ride's about 10 minutes early is very normal during fright fest even if there aren't long lines. From a worker's perspective, being at the park from 10 AM dealing with countless numbers of rude guests and lots of other things can be very very aggravating and draining. It becomes important that we go home too, because if it's a Friday or Saturday night especially, most of us we'll have to be back at the park at 10 AM again to repeat. Trust me, we want to give you guys the best time possible but sometimes, there's only so much we can do. haha

I believe it's open to the public but I can definitely get further confirmation later.

That's correct. The park is open November 6th to 8th from 11-7.

I'd be curious to know Nitros numbers this year for comparison. Also how many of that million on Bizarro were during Fright Fest (I know you prob don't know this Ryan just sorta wondering out loud). I think Nitro hit one million in early August. They're probably around like 1.4 or 1.5 million riders now if I had to guess. I haven't checked the stats in a few weeks. Bizarro actually hit one million earlier in October so they might hit around 1.1 million for the year. Maybe slightly more or less tho depending on how they're doing hourly.

I think Bizarro averages around 750-820 riders per hour and yeah, by running all year with lots of uptime the numbers add up. But bizarro doesn't always hit a million. Some years, they're worse than others. And yeah, the superman crew this year was on point. I know over the summer, they were staffed well (3 or 4 people on the train) and were rolling trains and pulling in 900s or 1000s for the hour. And nerd out all you want. Haha The skyway hasn't hit a million this year or nor did it last year. I don't believe we run ours at as high a capacity as Cedar Point. Although it can have the highest potential capacity in the park if both sides are running and it's fully staffed. I know in 2013 it gave out over a million when both sides were consistently running. This hasn't been the case this year or last year. Some more fun facts, technically Kingda Ka pulled in the best numbers when compared to its target throughput for this year (which is rather low now due to Zumanjaro but I was shocked when I found out.) And we typically give out 9,000 to 10,000 riders a day on El Toro on a regular operating day.

This sorta random but shouts out to the Superman crew! They hit a million riders this year for the first time since the ride opened in 2003. Bizarro recently hit a million as well. I don't think it works on everyone's phone yet. The official roll out for wait times is supposed to be next year.

The two rides have an interlock that is always turned on when both rides are running with riders. This links the two computer systems so that only one of the rides can occupy the tower at a time. But this can be turned off by maintenance when one of the rides is testing. In this case, Ka was testing for a majority of yesterday so maintenance just turned off the interlock so that they could continuously test Ka without any interruption. If you were one of the lucky Zumanjaro riders who had a Ka train whizzing over the tower during your ride, I commend you. haha Also, here's a pic of Ka's lit up q-line. It's a miracle!

I have no pictures but I can also confirm lights have finally been added to Kingda Ka's q-line! For those of you who don't know, that line has been pitch black at night for years.

Oh no they were brutal. The guy at the panel wouldn't even open the gates until the train dropped off the lift and was somewhere over by Mind Eraser and then would cause massive delays by yelling at people for leaving loose articles on the platform. Then the train would be ready to dispatch but the seat checkers wouldn't be paying attention and he's have to yell their names and point to their positions like he had just decided hitting interval was a priority. Then at the end of the night he was yelling at this kid to leave (another employee, probably against the child labor law clock as a few ops were talking about that) and as soon as the kid left one of the higher ups came over and stood behind the panel and for the rest of the night this guy was acting like he was a Gatekeeper op or something who was obsessed with capacity. He looked like an NFL quarterback pointing and barking orders at everyone else to hurry up and get in position so they could get the trains out even though all day he couldn't possibly be bothered to even open the damn air gates. Yeah I've noticed Bizarro's crew is either very on point or extremely slow. Earlier this year, I witnessed the crew being very sluggish and you could sense their lack of concern. The ride went down for technical difficulties so they put everyone on the ride back in line. The crew then sent an empty train with a child still standing on the platform. They noticed she was there after they had already dispatched the train. That's like a HUGE safety violation. I almost wanted to say something about it a higher up but didn't feel like ratting out the crew. But on other days, they'll have trains ready to dispatch well before the system allows them to dispatch. And yeah, opening the air gates as soon as the train parks is major towards getting great numbers. That's just one of many things you have to do though, like paying attention lmao.

^Lol about the Bizarro crew. Were they actually being slow or were guests with large jackets creating issues not fitting on the ride? Yesterday at Toro, we were kicking almost one person off per train because of their larger size combined with wearing heavier jackets. I don't think we did above like 25 dispatches in an hour all night. (Which is bad haha)

Wow! That looks amazing! And it looks like they didn't paint where the running wheels will be running this time around. I know RMC had issues with Wicked Cyclone where they wanted the paint to wear off where the wheels ran.

I've been working at the park for two years and seeing Kevin nearly everyday was always a highlight. He was really an awesome guy who always was about having a good time and making people laugh. He knew almost every employee at the park practically and he is deeply missed. RIP Kevin. If you haven't seen his videos, check them out here! He has LOTS of them and he has videos lined up to upload until February. https://www.youtube.com/user/themeparkmaniacs

WC definitely has a great first drop but it's moved on to the steel category thanks to the awesome RMC conversion! And I'm going to jump on the El Toro bandwagon as well. That first drop in the back seat is my favorite first drop on any coaster.

Yes especially the rear outer seats, I kept re-checking my restraint during the ride. It's that wild! Same! Sky rush was one of the few rides I actually thought I was gonna fly out on. I loved the airtime but I absolutely despised the restraints. The fact that they release for a second on the brake run is hilarious and super helpful.

I can breakdown a few buttons on the console: -5 Blue buttons on top row are block resets but during normal operation they light up solid if a train is present in that particular block. -E-Stop upper left corner (Pretty obvious) -Red indicator on green portion of panel is the "Trouble" light. -2 green buttons on bottom of green portion of panel are dispatch buttons -Black non-illuminated push button in green section is the launch spiel -3-position key switch on red section is main ride power. Position 1: Off 2: On 3: E-Stop Reset (Key can't be left in this position) Ryan, Please correct me if I'm wrong. Yup! You're correct. But the two green buttons are referred to as launch buttons. Lol and wow, i've never seen that old picture of Ka's panel. They've since added launch boost functions that are in the bottom right, and a key that switches the ride from normal mode (two stations, 4 trains) or the mode they use now (3 trains, one load platform). Motor-Drive warm up is what I believe maintenance uses during their morning checks to check the lift cable and catch car. And GADV operators are not allowed to add or remove coaster trains either.

I can breakdown a few buttons on the console: -5 Blue buttons on top row are block resets but during normal operation they light up solid if a train is present in that particular block. -E-Stop upper left corner (Pretty obvious) -Red indicator on green portion of panel is the "Trouble" light. -2 green buttons on bottom of green portion of panel are dispatch buttons -Black non-illuminated push button in green section is the launch spiel -3-position key switch on red section is main ride power. Position 1: Off 2: On 3: E-Stop Reset (Key can't be left in this position) Ryan, Please correct me if I'm wrong. Yup! You're correct. But the two green buttons are referred to as launch buttons. Lol and wow, i've never seen that old picture of Ka's panel. They've since added launch boost functions that are in the bottom right, and a key that switches the ride from normal mode (two stations, 4 trains) or the mode they use now (3 trains, one load platform).