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The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread


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I have to agree with the above about the operations of Full Throttle. They have been among the best in the park.

 

Still not sure why Tatsu continues to be so hard for the park to figure out to operate. Or they just keep it that way because they know it pisses us off (because we are THAT important).

 

Sad that the ride is running one train, I'll give them a pass for a few days, maybe a week but more than that with no visible work being done would not be good. It also wouldn't be surprising.

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I'm usually one of the first people to bash the park whenever I get a chance however in this instance I'll have to defend them on the 1 train ops on FT. It's hard to "stock" parts for a ride when 1 - It's new and 2 - You don't know what particular parts will wear quickly.

Spare wheels? Yes

Restraint assembly components? Yes

Extra LSMs? Yes.

Some random part that shouldn't have failed so early in its life cycle? No

 

Also something to keep in mind is that maybe SFMM was proactive and did purchase extra parts but said parts are back ordered from Premier and/or their supplier.

 

I worked @ KBF as a lead in the Ride Operations department and when Pony Express was being built, I was talking to a Zamperla engineer and was asking about their Roto-Shake (Hammerhead) rides and all the downtime issues as Knott's had repeated motor and gearbox failures with theirs. His response was "Yea, it is unfortunate when those things happen but sometimes components that are not expected to fail do, and when we have them in stock we can ship 1 to a park without hassle but sometimes it has to be manufactured by a company that manufactures parts for different industries and not just the amusement industry. If their manufacturing schedule doesn't allot time for that particular part to be made for another 2 months then that's 2 months of downtime for the attraction awaiting said part."

 

We all know that SFMM will have 1 train ops on FT 10 months out of the year but in this particular scenario I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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Obviously things like this happen and there's nothing you can do about it, but you would think that they could think about these things, and have three trains. They don't need to run three trains ever, but just have an extra one that can be used in case one of the other two break. So maybe this time it was something that they didn't have the part to fix or takes more than a day to fix, then that's when they need a third train, because then they can still have smooth operations with two trains.

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Does it really make that much of a difference if they run multiple trains anyway? Running more trains won't improve capacity when they all just stack on the brake runs anyway.

 

If there's one train operation, there will be a good amount of time waiting for the train to come back. If there was a second train, that time could've been used for loading guests and improving the capacity. So, for Full Throttle, it does matter.

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I was more or less kidding. I meant more of the difference between 2 and 3 operation as opposed to 1 and 2. Full Throttle would most definitely be running both trains if the one wasn't broken, which without any information you can't really blame SFMM for. As for the one train operation on other coasters- that's another story entirely!

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I was more or less kidding. I meant more of the difference between 2 and 3 operation as opposed to 1 and 2. YOLOcoaster would most definitely be running both trains if the one wasn't broken, which without any information you can't really blame SFMM for. As for the one train operation on other coasters- that's another story entirely!

 

It's not have a three trains operating at once, it's more having an extra train ready for when one of the two operating trains breaks.

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^I know, I'm not talking about Full Throttle. I'm talking about Scream, RR, and every other coaster that runs 3 trains. Why would Six Flags, or Cedar Fair for that matter, invest in a spare train for one coaster when they don't do that with any other coaster they've had. I'm sure Full Throttle will get its train repaired and running as quickly as possible. Then again- maybe not!

 

My point is that SFMM has a lot more room for improvement, and at least if they loaded trains more efficiently, it might not matter that RR had only 2 trains running instead of 3.

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A lot of factors go into a ride getting 2 or 3 trains. For the most part, parks don't order more trains than can run on a ride at any given time. So Batman has always had 2 trains. Scream has 3. Riddlers has 3, Tatsu has 3.

 

There are exceptions such as Ninja and I believe Viper that have more trains than they can run, or at least they did when those rides opened.

 

In the case of Full Throttle, it could never run more than 2 trains due to the layout of the ride, so that is most likely why it only has 2. In the case of Apocalypse, I'm pretty sure that can also only run 2 trains.

 

SFMM isn't the only park that does this. It's very rare these days that a park will order an "extra" train to have one available should something happen.

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^^My mistake!! I was referring to the last page when the discussion was about a bunch of different coasters.

 

^I assume Full Throttle is short enough that a 3 train operation would likely do nothing do improve capacity, let alone that the entire thing would have to be redesigned to run 3 trains at once. In fact, in some cases you get better capacity with 2 trains than 3. Mantis at CP has 3 trains, but only runs 2, because they found that capacity with 2 was actually better than with 3. I know some parks order spare trains in case one has a problem, but we're talking about Six Flags! That would never happen.

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^^^Viper inherited the 4th train from another park. I think only Ninja came with the extra train.

 

^^It would be a good investment if efficiency mattered to the park and its guests. But since neither really care, it's not worth the extra $1 million or whatever a train costs...

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So are there any concrete rumors on whatever's new for next year? Aren't the chain announcements coming in August, or am I incorrect on that? I know last year there was A LOT of speculation, this year it's meh. I guess no one's expecting much for next year after Full Throttle this year, but I still expect MM to be MM and add a coaster that they don't need.

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^^Viper inherited the blue and yellow trains from Shockwave at SFGAm for parts when it was taken down. I agree that for SFMM having spare trains only to be used if one breaks is a bad investment. They can't even seem to keep the ones they have in running condition! You hit the nail on the head. Having spare trains from a dismantled coaster is completely different than paying for brand new ones to be only spares.

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^ August 30th is the date for the chain-wide announcements. I think most people on this thread are at a consensus that Iron Horse Colossus will be in 2015. So 2014 will maybe be a flat or something at Hurricane Harbor?

 

It August 29th

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