Problem With the X Single Rider Line

[coasterguy4]

A month ago I went to SFMM. I went through X's single rider line and got on in ten minutes. Later in the day my friend and I wanted to ride again, but when we tried to get in the single rider line a guy said it was closed because of people going in the single rider line and then switching into the regular line so they could be with there friends and cut the line. It wasn't very useful with a 3 hour line. I mean seriously, just because of some guys swtiching lines you don't close the single rider line so all of the people following the rules have to wait so long, for no reason.

[Wes]

It's Magic Mountain, what do you expect?

[ginzo]

This roughly translates into "because we can't enforce our rules we're going to throw away capacity on a high wait time ride". Awesome.

[almightyfire]

When I was 16 and that was 27 yrs ago I used to work at Six Flags on a coaster and it was policy not to let any train out of the station with not one empty seat. When we finished loading the train we had to go to each row of our section and ask how many and if it was one we had to holler "IS ANYBODY RIDING ALONE". Someone always was, so no train left any station in the park without a full load. Back then coasters only had one seat and it had to be 2 bodies in the seat because you would slide from left to right and the biggest person had to enter the seat first. That policy would still work nowadays. The line moves faster and i see too many trains in parks leaving the station with 2 to 6 empty seats that is a shame, all they have to do is holler "IS ANYONE RIDING ALONE". Also we got in trouble if there were 2 trains in the station and we had seat belts, bars and lap bar belts we had to load in 30 secs and we humped and always got it done. If the operations dept or a supervisor looked up and didnt see a train on the track we got written up. That meant that we were moving too slow and we didnt skimp on safety either.

[SpartanTS]

almighty, that's a very good point. I can think of many instances when a coaster train had multiple empty seats, and yet the train leaves.

[robbalvey]

A month ago I went to SFMM. I went through X's single rider line and got on in ten minutes. Later in the day my friend and I wanted to ride again, but when we tried to get in the single rider line a guy said it was closed because of people going in the single rider line and then switching into the regular line so they could be with there friends and cut the line. It wasn't very useful with a 3 hour line. I mean seriously, just because of some guys swtiching lines you don't close the single rider line so all of the people following the rules have to wait so long, for no reason.

Interesting. I've been going to SFMM about 3 or 4 times a week to walk KidTums around in the evening and I've seen the single rider lines open every time I'm there.

 

--Robb

[coasterboy25]

I went last week to six flags callfornia and they had the single rider line open. Of course when i went, the lines were like a 5 minute wait. I did notice however that later on in the day, they had security over there passing out paper that said we had to stay in line, ext. I'm not sure why they did this because at that point of the day , it was still like a 20 people in the station.

[sfmman2000]

When I was 16 and that was 27 yrs ago I used to work at Six Flags on a coaster and it was policy not to let any train out of the station with not one empty seat. When we finished loading the train we had to go to each row of our section and ask how many and if it was one we had to holler "IS ANYBODY RIDING ALONE". Someone always was, so no train left any station in the park without a full load. Back then coasters only had one seat and it had to be 2 bodies in the seat because you would slide from left to right and the biggest person had to enter the seat first. That policy would still work nowadays. The line moves faster and i see too many trains in parks leaving the station with 2 to 6 empty seats that is a shame, all they have to do is holler "IS ANYONE RIDING ALONE". Also we got in trouble if there were 2 trains in the station and we had seat belts, bars and lap bar belts we had to load in 30 secs and we humped and always got it done. If the operations dept or a supervisor looked up and didn't see a train on the track we got written up. That meant that we were moving too slow and we didn't skimp on safety either.

 

Those are some good points. Although, looking for singles riders for more than 5 seconds or so, lowers capacity greatly. At a park I used to work at, they did a whole comparison in the ride guide, that if you were to look for single riders, or get the train out as quick as possible- which is faster? Sending the train out as quick as possible had the highest hourly capacity. If you look for single riders every ride, for an excessive time (more than 5 seconds) your wasting time when you could have already sent the train. Times that excessive time looking for single riders by 20, and thats about a full train of extra people that could have already been on.

The moral is, IMO, to send the train out as quickly as possible. Having an extra one or two riders won't greatly increase your capacity, it will lower it. On the other hand, if it's a safety issue...

[Rob.Lloyd]

That's the one think I hate is to see a Train with empty seat and your stuck in the Q for Two hours.

Alton Towers have single ride Lines on some of there rides but most of the time the ride OP just ignore you and send the train out with empty seats

[ginzo]

Those are some good points. Although, looking for singles riders for more than 5 seconds or so, lowers capacity greatly. At a park I used to work at, they did a whole comparison in the ride guide, that if you were to look for single riders, or get the train out as quick as possible- which is faster? Sending the train out as quick as possible had the highest hourly capacity. If you look for single riders every ride, for an excessive time (more than 5 seconds) your wasting time when you could have already sent the train. Times that excessive time looking for single riders by 20, and thats about a full train of extra people that could have already been on.

The moral is, IMO, to send the train out as quickly as possible. Having an extra one or two riders won't greatly increase your capacity, it will lower it. On the other hand, if it's a safety issue...

 

Yeah, it's absolutely true that dispatching a train is better for capacity than spending a long time trying to fill a few empty seats. However, I could see some idiot ops using this as an excuse to send out half empty trains.

 

The best crew I've seen this year by far is Griffon's crew. They really cranked out those odd-shaped trains, and filled empty seats using the single rider line. Seeing full trains dispatched that quickly is an awesome spectacle.

[Canobie Fan]

The best crew I've seen this year by far is Griffon's crew. They really cranked out those odd-shaped trains, and filled empty seats using the single rider line. Seeing full trains dispatched that quickly is an awesome spectacle.

But even Griffon fails sometimes..

 

Like how they open and close the sololine at random times... Me and SFNE2005 used the line got right on.. Went to get back in it. Found it closed, We asked when it would reopen and were told "we dont know" so we walk away and get to where the bridge over the first drop is... And hear them say "the line is now open"

 

Also more than once we saw 1,2 even 3 seats go riderless when the solo line had at least 15 people in it!

I think it got to the point where we saw 3 trains in a row go with the 3rd row edge seat go riderless

[pvcoasterguy]

^ Griffon's crew was awful both days I went in June. First of all, they were only running two trains with a wait of 45+ minutes, no single rider line existed/was open, and there was no grouper. Ride ops checking restraints were horrendously slow and seemed more concerned with their conversation than anything else.

 

It was a bad Six Flags park quality, and on their new star attraction? It was majorly disappointing.

[almightyfire]

I understand that if u spend too much time looking for single riders it would slow the train down but if u read all of my statement you would have seen that we didnt have computerized trains we had manual ones where we had to do everything and belts to check and there is no eexcuse for stacking if all that is required is running and touching the lapbars or even having to push them down further. The single rider line is a good idea but not really efficient because people are going to start getting in it with their party and not necessarily making it a big issue to ride on the same car or train. The ride ops DO NOT HUSTLE like we did in the 70's. We had 4 times the responsibility and we did it in 30 secs because while the train was leaving the station we went to every row in our section and talked to each pair or guest who was waiting in line to ride and possibly the ones behind them. One thing I do see is that we always had 3 to 4 people loading trains one downstairs at then entrance of the cue and upstairs as u enter the last que house. I went to SFFT earlier this summer and on the coasters there was only one person to load and one to dispatch the train and to load that is a big reason why also but no excuse. Another point we didnt have gates we had chains that we had to open and close at each train departure and arrival. Now u mean to tell me that a simple checking making sure that the lapbars have clicked should take longer than all of the stuff I told you we had to do?

[EagleFan344]

The last 2 days the only coasters that had the SRL were Ninja and Riddler's Revenge.