El Toro_Ryan

I can't post anything at the moment but once the season is over, I have a few pics of Toro's and Ka's panels. Plus lots of infield pics/ testing videos of Toro I took during various track walks.

While at first I was really surprised to hear this it actually does make perfect sense. Between the fast dispatches / lack of seatbelts / incredible reliability and the fact that it can run in every type of weather I guess it makes sense. I'm sure it'll pad it's numbers a ton during Holiday in the Park. By the way, are you working that event? No, but I'm working through the end of Fright Fest! I may return next year as a supervisor too. I'm thinking about it. Lol

I think the park does this occasionally during Fright Fest if enough staffing is on hand. It's not that common here. But I believe Superman had 4 ops on the train for a majority of the summer this year. Not sure if they've been keeping up with that lately. I think all the rides in the park would benefit from having 4 on the train besides maybe Skull Mountain. That ride has the second best numbers in the park behind Nitro. El Toro comes in third.

Aside from the first few years Medusa opened, the operations on Medusa were generally worse than than they are now. They used to never run all three trains and they would stack for minutes at a time with just two trains. But when the ride opened in 1999, they had a stellar crew. 4 people on the train and they would dispatch as a train was clearing the dive loop.

I've been wondering the same thing, too. To me it seems like a way to cut down on maintenance costs. GADV pretty much always insists on running all available units on our coasters. Ka is usually the first ride to cut down on the number of trains it runs because it needs a higher amount of staffing to be efficient but most of the other rides just keep running all their trains even if they aren't necessary. It's not really a policy but just a general guideline we all follow. But if a supervisor wants to have a train pulled off, they can have that done. It just doesn't happen that often. And I believe running less trains saves on maintenance costs. Running all your trains means each train is running the course inducing more wear and tear on each train.

Yup! KK is my home ride but I also work Zumi and Toro a lot. Come say what's up! I'm the curly-headed kid. I think I was at Zumi the day all you guys were there. Yeahhhh, Bizarro honestly needs one of the best crews in the park if they don't want to double stack their trains. I sometimes worked it last year and the window to not stack the third train is much shorter than on other B&M's because of the slow-moving floors. But until the ride gets more popular, I doubt GADV will give it the crew it deserves. I've always thought Bizarro deserved a spot on the boardwalk because a lot of the GP have no idea it exists and it's a much better ride than Superman or GL in my opinion.

Haha I'm glad to hear about Toro's crew! They've been winning crew of the day at the park the last few days we've been open. I can see why now. And Ka's maintenance crew usually reassembles the 4th train back together for fright fest either to act as a spare train or to swap out another train so they can begin maintenance on that one. As for us running two trains instead of three.. why do more when you can do less?... Nah jk our staffing hasn't allowed us to run three trains lately but hopefully by fright fest, we will be back to running all three pretty consistently.

Aww man, you guys got lucky. Whenever I get the last train of the night on Kingda Ka (which actually happens a lot lol ) I always start a "one more ride!" chant but the ops never do it . And to think I was deciding whether or not it was worth it to go that to Gadv that day Lol yeah we like to let people go again randomly during the day sometimes. At Kingda Ka, we play a game called lucky train where if every rider on a train is screaming in excitement after we ask them how was their ride, they get to go again. But at the end of the night, it's actually very hard to let the last train on Ka go again. Basically the two trains in front of the last one have been dispatched empty to allow the last train to park in the station and unload. But in order for us to launch the empty trains over the tower, we need to utilize a launch boost feature or else the trains will roll back. But maintenance is the only personnel in the park allowed to access this feature so unless a maintenance member is already up in the operator booth (which is rare haha) we aren't able to send that last train twice. For the other rides, if you have a cool supervisor working, they'll let you go twice. haha

I've found a few weaves before while cleaning Ka's restricted areas before and from first hand experience, those things are gross to find. Lol I'm sure the people who lost them would love to get them back but man those things are disgusting after they've been outside for awhile. On a related note, we generally hunt for phones, wallets, and keys as our top priority. Most other things aren't considered as important and this includes weaves.

I haven't heard anything about a blown lift motor and I saw the ride running today as I was walking out of work.

I don't believe trains need to be propelled into LSM's. I think most coasters with LSMs roll into their launches cause the system is capable of accelerating an already moving train and for whatever design purposes, companies go with this method either for efficiency of just because they can. lol The new rides Premier have been making like Superman Ultimate Flight at Discovery Kingdom and Tempesto at Busch Gardens rely solely on LSMs to move and launch. Also if I'm not mistaken, 1 in that picture is the mechanism that unlocks and locks the trains and two looks like some sort of start to the LSM system.

Im going to have to disagree with you there. I worked El Toro last year and it speeds up considerably during the day. Even in the middle of summer, morning test runs are still oddly slow and then it improves from there. The advantage of hitting Toro early in the day means you can ride it over and over but if you do this, definitely ride Toro later in the day as it does run much faster. Also I would personally start of at Kingda Ka and then Zumanjaro as these two rides have some of the most downtime in the park. I work both rides this year and they both go down frequently. Ka tends to run fine in the morning for the first few hours and then generally once it breaks down, it will continuously go down for the rest of the day. Plus the ride generally launches faster in the morning After this it doesn't really matter what order you go in but I would head towards El Toro if it's not busy yet so you can get a few rides in, or even hit up the safari! But keep in the mind the ride can take up to two hours to complete so just factor that into the rest of your day. After that, it doesn't matter too much how you tackle the rest of the park but I would save Green Lantern and Superman until later in the day because the crowds generally seem to go to those two rides first upon arriving. I would save Namtab until later as well. Also if the park isn't too busy, the lines generally turn into walk ons by like 9 so you'll be able to marathon some rides. I would pick El Toro if I were you haha The park is huge but it's easily doable in one day. Hope you enjoy it! Also come say hi to me at Kingda Ka if you get a chance, I'll be there the 7th from 12 to 8!

I totally agree with you! haha Wicked Cyclone was amazing but it felt more cute to me than Fury did. Fury flat out amazed me as a whole and the ride crew was highly efficient. They were super motivated to get high numbers and the operator was acting like their coach hyping the crew up saying things like, "Alright, let's dispatch this train in 15 seconds" as the riders sat down or "let's dispatch 46 trains this hour" at the start of a new hour. More ride crews should be like them and I'm absolutely going to take this strategy to my job at Great Adventure. I'm going to agree with you here too. I've never gotten the whole bandwagon that Millennium is forceless. I've always felt pretty heavy G's at the bottom of the first drop into the first overbank. Plus I think Millennium offers some of the best floater airtime around. I know coaster enthusiasts rave about super intense rides with insane positive G's but in my opinion, that's not the most important thing to a good coaster and not every coaster should be super positive G heavy. Positive G's are tiring on my body to be honest.

Wow... I never thought I would hear this from someone who really "gets" El Toro like myself. I even have El Toro above I-305, Maverick, etc. It seems Fury 325 is legit, and perhaps B&M really is getting their swagger back. Oh they absolutely are. Fury beats all those rides in my opinion.

I got to ride Fury on Monday for the first time and OMFG I was blown away!! I was expecting just a bigger Intimidator but man was I wrong! My first ride was in the front seat and that first drop lasts forever! And then the rest of the ride is flawless! Fantastic pacing, good positive G's, best airtime on a B&M by far, and an absolutely fantastic layout! I've been obsessed with El Toro since it opened but I think Fury topped Toro for me. I've ridden most of the coasters up and down the east coast from Florida to Massachusetts as well as Cedar Point's collection and it's definitely my new favorite ride! I'm glad B&M can still build such powerful rides. I thought their golden days were over along with many of you. lol Also a quick shout out to Fast Lane! I got to ride Fury 9 times in one day a long with the rest of the coasters and most of the slides in the waterpark.

I know El Toro is so that's pretty much all you need lol I'm not sure what else will be open. Bizarro might because they usually do Toro and Bizarro together but don't hold me to that haha. I also rode Namtab for the first time yesterday and managed to do it 9 times within about 40 minutes including a few times where I got 3 or 4 rides without having to leave the station at all. It's probably been mentioned but I find it way less nauseating backwards than forwards. Usually when it runs forwards, I can only ride it about three times max and then I'm done for the day. But going backwards, I think I could have easily marathoned it for another 9 rides.

Definitely Grizzly at Kings Dominion during the third turn around. I always felt like I could easily stretch my arm out and drag my hand along that solid wooden wall. And same for Phoenix. I know that during the last turn on the brake run, I can slap all the poles from the right side of the train. Oh and Thunderhawk at Dorney for sure. Some of the clearances on the turns freak me out. haha

Definitely Grizzly at Kings Dominion during the third turn around. I always felt like I could easily stretch my arm out and drag my hand along that solid wooden wall. And same for Phoenix. I know that during the last turn on the brake run, I can slap all the poles from the right side of the train.

As of 10 days ago the blue train was running much better. I've heard mixed things since then. And yes they still group. When I went and had platinum FP, they let me go front row each time. If you request a different row than front they will likely let you pick your seat. Also, if you can hold out, I'd give WC a little time to warm up so you get the best 1st impression possible. Go for Bizarro first. Either go for front row or 2nd if you don't feel like waiting...I find it to be a more powerful and obviously smoother ride in the front. Have fun! Awesome! Thanks man! I'm also hoping to get on Goliath for the first time too.

I'm finally going to the park tomorrow to ride WC. Is it still true that the blue train runs faster than the orange train? Also is the park still assigning seats?

It's probably been mentioned already but definitely Green Lantern at GADV. Most of the public and a lot of enthusiasts have nothing but complaints about that ride but I've always found it really enjoyable.

I don't think you can safely say that lol. I know maintenance replaces wheels at Ka much more frequently than at the other rides at GADV and I've seen them do wheel swaps several times. Ka's rattle comes from the design of the trains rather than the wheels. It's had a rattle since the ride's initial opening day. And I've always found Ka to be more intense than Dragster in terms of it's launch and the overall ride but I think I prefer Dragster cause of it's setting, lapbars, and overall smoothness. Plus Dragster doesn't have the brake on the drop like Ka does so you can really feel the whip going down the drop into the spiral. I wouldn't be surprised if Ka does -1G at the top hat. I usually always get good airtime unless the train creeps over the tower. Same thing with Dragster.

Bizarro has anti-rollbacks but they only engage when the train is moving very slowly or comes to a stop. I'm pretty sure the rollbacks are held up by a magnet force that is created when the train is in motion while traveling up the lift.

Maybe the partial loading of trains is just something Cedar Point has adopted over the years to try and cut down on roll backs at the start of the day. Top Thrill Dragster has a "Launch Boost" button, however I have rarely seen it used, and it is only used when the trains are empty during early morning test runs, or during empty test runs after a break down. (At least this is how it use to be done, it may have changed over the years.) I wonder if Kingda Ka's programming is a little different because of the brake at the top of the tower? Does the brake prevent Kingda Ka from getting over speeds??? If so maybe this explains why each ride is loaded, and ran a little differently? No, Kingda Ka still gets overspeed errors all the time even with the break. My guess is the partial loading is just a Cedar Point thing too.haha Does anyone know anything more?

they open it with just the front rows and progressively move back to full trains once it's warmed up. It reduces the chance of a rollback if all the weight is at the front. If Dragster's PLC is anything like Xcelerator's, it takes the average weight of every 5 launches to determine how much power is needed to get the train up to the 79.5mph that is required for a train to clear the top hat. I remember back when I worked Xcelerator a short shot was guaranteed if you completely filled a train early in the morning. Same was to be said at the end of the day. We had to slowly close off 1 row at a time for the last 10 trains or so of the day to prevent a "Catch car overtravel" fault when you sent the 1st empty train to bring the last train of guests back into the station. Top Thrill Dragsters computer uses the speed that the previous train crest the tower to determine the speed needed to launch the next train to get it to clear at a similar speed. That's why in the morning the progressively load the trains to keep the weight variance small enough that it doesn't cause a roll back, or over speed. Interesting. I work Kingda Ka and it uses the same method Top Thrill Dragster does to determine the launch speed but we don't have to load just the front rows in the morning. We actually can't run the ride if more than 6 seats are empty at any given time. The launch is calibrated to launch full trains over the tower pretty consistently but we can't launch empty trains with a regular launch. We have to press a launch boost button for an empty train or else it rolls back. I think the boosted trains launch about 3 or 4 mph faster than the regularly launched trains do. Do Dragster and Xcelerator have launch boosts as well or no?