Dollywood Discussion Thread

[bluestreak]

Sounds like this engineer and the dippin dots guy are the same person.

[CaptainUnknown]

He went back to edit but still missed 3 instances of "lighting rod"

 

 

[LukeFlynn]

Pete is probably citing the FULL days it was down, it's not uncommon for it to open and then close 5 hours before the park.

 

I am not going to give that FB comment much attention, I'm sure all maintenance people are under strict NDAs with HFE that prevent them from disclosing as many details as that. I've never heard of a ride having water pumped through the track... I'm not even sure how that would work, even though LR is launched, I doubt it experiences very different forces than the other RMC toppers after it's crested the lift hill..

 

The trains use the same setup for launching and braking, so I highly doubt they are going to re-engineer the trains for a non-LSM launch.

 

I do see them abandoning Velocity's LSM technology, however.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Going to be at Dollywood in 2 weeks. Hoping that Lightning Rod is open at least 1 of the 3 days we'll be there!

[RollerManic]

Delete

[DILinator]

"Chain based launch system"

 

 

My response exactly!

[Henry M]

Is drop line a forceful drop, or a OK drop ride? My experience of fun time drop towers have been very good, but Hangover my be a one off.

[LukeFlynn]

Is drop line a forceful drop, or a OK drop ride? My experience of fun time drop towers have been very good, but Hangover my be a one off.

 

Drop Line is really fun! I would consider it fairly forceful.

[LukeFlynn]

As much as I hate to admit it, I think LR has once again fallen into the unreliable category. It's going on 4-5 days since it's been open... this is how it was acting back in late 2016. "TC" for half the day until they finally just admit it's not going to open.

[roflstomper]

I understand it's an incredibly complex machine and they would have it 100 percent if they could but it's really frustrating for someone who lives 17 hours away and will only visit there once a decade. Was going to head down to Dollywood last year but "cancelled" when LR was never open (yes I know it's an all time park without it but still). Was planning to go sometime this summer. Now I'm really questioning it again.

[southpuddle]

I'm in the same boat. Never been to Dollywood. Planning to go mid June this year. Canceled last year because of reliability issues with the new star attraction.

[DoinItForTheFame]

I'll go ahead and join in the cancel club.

 

We too were going to go last season, but cancelled due to LR issues. No biggie, we rescheduled for this year. Now I'm wondering if we are going to even get to experience it this year.

[Philrad71]

Does anyone know if these closings are mostly related to the launched lift or just general mechanical problems with the ride overall?

 

Just curious if they have ever came out and said why it is down so frequently or if anyone that works there knows.

[dstephe9]

Various people say various things

 

Pete Himself said the launch was fine this winter.. he said most of the issues had to do with the trains themselves and that Dollywood planned to rewire and work on them during the off season

 

We have also heard others say the launch works fine but we have had some say it doesn't..

 

From general observations from a lot of folks, it looks like the ride "trips" something causing a failure to launch or even leave the station..

 

Again though, no one official has said anything other than what Pete said at the coaster event this winter.. with that being said, we have had others from the park say things that dispute what Pete says

 

Pete is the parks media guy who post on these forums from time to time

 

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Tapatalk

[Philrad71]

^ Interesting.

 

I wondered that about the "trip" during launch because the ride undoubtedly has tons of limit/proximity switches (like TTD and KK). If just one of those switches doesn't properly function or even gets a small piece of debris on it, it's going to throw a fault and shut down.

[Jccoasterfan]

Well Dollywood closes in 45 minutes and guess what just finally opened not too long ago.. Yup. LR currently has a 45 minute wait.

 

I'll be at the park next Saturday and I'm really looking forward to Drop Line! Hoping for a lap or two on LR but it won't mess up my trip if it ends up being closed. Fingers crossed though.

[jonskinny12]

I'll be at Dollywood in 3 1/2 weeks for 2 1/2 days. It's part of a larger trip so it's not getting cancelled, although I may spend a little more time at Carowinds if Lightning Rod continues to have major problems. Hopefully I can get lucky and hit it on a couple good days, but I'm sure either way I'll have fun there.

[Dollywoodlover20]

So far Lightning Rod has been open all day. Started off with a 75 min wait now it's down to 45. Daredevil Falls was the only thing closed on the app, and is still closed.

[LukeFlynn]

Was up and down all morning, now CD.

[boldikus]

I love that I know that I can always come here and find out that Lightning Rod was running and not running at some point today.

[TrippinBillie]

I've noticed the app isn't exactly real time on the LR front. Said it was open when I was in line and it was literally not working last week.

[LukeFlynn]

Pretty consistent with wait times, but they take forever to update the operational status. I waited for a good half hour on Wild Eagle for them to do some cleaning up.. and it said less than 15 minutes the whole time.

 

We've had a lot of melancholic talk of LR lately (justified, but still).... here's some photos I took last week of Tennessee Tornado!

 

 

All photos shot with Nikon D700 + Nikkor 80-200 2.8 AF-D (two-ringed). Straight out of camera raw conversions with a bit of color correction.

[beenagins87]

Pretty consistent with wait times, but they take forever to update the operational status. I waited for a good half hour on Wild Eagle for them to do some cleaning up.. and it said less than 15 minutes the whole time.

 

We've had a lot of melancholic talk of LR lately (justified, but still).... here's some photos I took last week of Tennessee Tornado!

 

[attachment=0]20170510-TT-LHF-21-TPR.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]20170510-TT-LHF-54-TPR.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]20170510-TT-LHF-57-TPR.jpg[/attachment]

 

All photos shot with Nikon D700 + Nikkor 80-200 2.8 AF-D (two-ringed). Straight out of camera raw conversions with a bit of color correction.

 

Those are some really amazing pics.. I think TN Tornado is highly underrated, the only thing I don't like about it, is the constant one train ops, it's ok on slow days, but it seems even on busy days it's only one train.

[LukeFlynn]

Pretty consistent with wait times, but they take forever to update the operational status. I waited for a good half hour on Wild Eagle for them to do some cleaning up.. and it said less than 15 minutes the whole time.

 

We've had a lot of melancholic talk of LR lately (justified, but still).... here's some photos I took last week of Tennessee Tornado!

 

[attachment=0]20170510-TT-LHF-21-TPR.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]20170510-TT-LHF-54-TPR.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]20170510-TT-LHF-57-TPR.jpg[/attachment]

 

All photos shot with Nikon D700 + Nikkor 80-200 2.8 AF-D (two-ringed). Straight out of camera raw conversions with a bit of color correction.

 

Those are some really amazing pics.. I think TN Tornado is highly underrated, the only thing I don't like about it, is the constant one train ops, it's ok on slow days, but it seems even on busy days it's only one train.

 

Thanks!

 

I agree, I usually see them up it to two trains on Saturdays or very busy days in the week. I've witnessed it twice this season so far. Part of the problem is staffing, they allocate 4 platform ride ops. Two of them are in charge of checking the restraints of the first 3-4 cars, while the other two are for the back of the train. They have to do this to avoid stacking trains, which causes problems with overheating the friction brakes so I've heard from various personnel at the park. Also, if you do happen to get stacked you SLAM the brakes really bad if a train is in the station because they actually have to bring you to a full stop. They also slow down the chain lift in two-train operation to give the ride ops an extra 30 seconds to check and dispatch. They work extremely hard to avoid stacking, it happens maybe once per 45 mins... it's an art form to watch the 'Tornado crew on busy days. The last few days of the 2016 season they brought a bunch of the LR ride ops up (since it was down) to have enough people.

[coasterbill]

Every time I visit Dollywood I leave singing that ride's praises. Everything about Tennessee Tornado is fantastic, the lift and turnaround that uses the terrain, the tunneled first drop and the snappy but ridiculously smooth inversions.