Can anyone fill me in on what is going on with Rip Ride's capcaity? It is absolutely ridiculous to run a coaster like that with just 2 trains. I visited yesterday, and with just a few hundred people in the line the wait was 45 mins. Is there any chance of things being improved?
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Rip Ride capacity problems
- Thread starter ptaylor
- Start date
monorail_silver
Member
They run it with a minumum of 3 trains now a days, nothing less.
crazydaveh
Active Member
You might have just caught it at a weird time. The average standby line has been about 25 min the past few weeks (minus holidays).
Matpez
Well-Known Member
It was designed to work with a moving platform load system. They don't use it for (insert any number of internet rumors here). Without it, they have to wait for each train, that holds only 12 riders, to come to the end of the load station, then stop it and unload/reload. This is completely opposite of how it was designed to work. If it was working as designed, there would always be 2 to 3 slowly moving forward loading/unloading trains inside the station with 2 to 4 more trains out on the track (hence all the brake runs).
jonnyc
Well-Known Member
Do you think they will get it working how it was designed?
Matpez
Well-Known Member
Here is the problem as I see it. Empty trains on windy days have valleyed twice. They have since added a device to help with this, but not really solve it. So, any possibility of valleying after the non inverting loop (where it has happened twice) means that with full 7 train/moving platform operation an e-stop is guaranteed to mean getting riders stuck and needing to be evacuated from the 90 degree, straight up lift hill. The original design would have allowed the car on the lift to lower back into the station, but during construction a late decision was made that changed from two lift chains to anti-rollbacks. Now the danger is greatly increased because the car will have to be brought up to the top to be emptied, also meaning that it absolutely can not ever pass that point because if it did it would collide with the valleyed train.
Changing the lift design from 2 lift chains to one with anti-rollbacks was, in my opinion, the reason we may now never see that platform move.
I should note, plenty of internet hearsay claims that the ride has been tested many times overnight with the platform, but that still doesn't mean they are going to be willing to risk it with trains full of guests anytime soon.
protiius
Member
that sounds like a real shame...i would love to see this ride operate to its full potential in the near future...fingers crossed
It's a real problem. In it's current state it will be an absolute nightmare come the summer months. Standing on the platform seeing the train slowly creep along the walkway is painful to watch. It's a good coaster but the capacity is going to really let it down.
Thanks for the details Matpez.
Thanks for the details Matpez.
What exactly has gone wrong with this attraction? At first I heard of problems with it valleying and now it is only running at half or less capacity. What gives?
monorail_silver
Member
Mat pretty much summed it up with the difficulties this attraction has faced so far. When you design a new system it takes time for the kinks to be worked out. However, no one expected it to take this long to figure them out. On the valleying point, coasters valley from time to time. I know at Rockit the problem is going by the twister building and the soundstage to the left of twister, which creates a sort of wind tunnel effect when it's too windy.
Matpez
Well-Known Member
Just stopped by there tonight on the way home king and can at least report there were very smoothly running 4 trains today. Still however, that is 48 people total on the ride at a time, or the equivalent of running Hulk with 1 and a half cars.
I can also confirm there are at least 5 trains on site, as 4 were on the track and at least 1 was visible in storage.
Still no moving platform. :brick:
king and can at least report there were very smoothly running 4 trains today. Still however, that is 48 people total on the ride at a time, or the equivalent of running Hulk with 1 and a half cars.I can also confirm there are at least 5 trains on site, as 4 were on the track and at least 1 was visible in storage.
Still no moving platform. :brick:
Matpez
Well-Known Member
Rip Ride Rockit used the moving platform loading today with 4 trains. Reports were that they stopped a few times and overall were just trying to get used to it with guests.
-Crappy cell phone video (not mine) http://bit.ly/d6Bahd http://bit.ly/dj2pud
-Crappy cell phone video (not mine) http://bit.ly/d6Bahd http://bit.ly/dj2pud
hack2112
Active Member
Skip
Well-Known Member
This is FANTASTIC news. I feared they'd never get the damn thing working. How were the wait times and how fast was the queue moving (ignoring the sporadic, expected downtimes)?
Hopefully this means Express will be up and running within a couple weeks, that way I can finally be able to ride it as much as I'd love to.
hack2112
Active Member
One of the reasons they made the load continuous like this was because they are using the same technology for HP. So the faster they get the kinks worked out on this, the faster they can get HP up and running.This is FANTASTIC news. I feared they'd never get the damn thing working. How were the wait times and how fast was the queue moving (ignoring the sporadic, expected downtimes)?
Hopefully this means Express will be up and running within a couple weeks, that way I can finally be able to ride it as much as I'd love to.
So it's family fun for everyone!
jonnyc
Well-Known Member
Great news. Hopefully they will iron out all the problems and have it in full working order when I arrive in July
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NemoRocks78
Seized
Tried the moving platform today. What a great invention! :lol: You load way at the back of the platform now, so there's much more time to choose a song and all. Things were still running a bit slow as they weren't loading rows 3 and 6 on any train. I just attributed it to working out the new loading procedure and all, but who knows. When they get things going smoothly this'll definitely be a great help.
crazydaveh
Active Member
I tried the moving platform on Friday as well. Yes, no more rush to get the secret songs, but the line was slower due to 3 and 6 staying empty. Hopefully they'll get that thing up and running before HP opens, or things will be very bad at both parks!