Nice video! I was going to as if you could please link to my original video of Volcano for the partial clip you used of it in your description of that's all I ask. Thank you so much! Liked all the information though in this video though! Hope TT2 gets back up soon!

Great explanation and graphics. Same problem with MF. From what I remember, they would take a train out of service, and change the wheels. They had a crew of workers ready to go.

Cp is a great choice if you always want something to do cause their rides break down a ton! Lol

Love your content as a ride mechanic myself i totally can relate to people watch while taking a ride on my day off or just watching

Thank you so much for this video. I am home sick and this is the perfect video to just relax and vibe and deep dive into my special interest. Your voice is very relaxing.

This is a big thing for Zamperla, a big win. I'd like to think they are prepared for all the common issues you talked about. It would be really bad if they weren't. Between Cedar Point techs and Zamperla techs, they must know what's going to likely have issues. They seem to have found the issue very quickly and maybe they already thought it would be an issue and were ready to address it if it happened. Big contract like this and future big business depends on trust between these two companies. I'd be surprised if it is down for extended period of time.

THANK YOU for this!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 I am 55 years old now - married, 3 kids and a 7 year old gramdson - and still LOOOOVE riding the rails. (My roller coaster buddy gene pool is shrinking every year and it makes me so sad!) SFGA is my home park and ever since that 8th grade trip in 1983 I have been SO enthralled with coasters! ... and X-FLIGHT has become my favorite. I get the question all the time "WHY would you stand in line for [X amount of time] for a 1 to 3½ minute coaster ride?!" The answer? To WATCH the ride up close! (Duh!) It's all a part of the experience. I'm the weirdo looking through the passengers, between the trains (or up at them in the case of suspended coasters) at the all the cool stuff going on underneath to make this thing run! Soooo COOL!😎 The mechanics, the wheels, the braking systems, block sections, the ride ops flawlessly loading/unloading trains as smoothly as a ballet dance, (usually minus the expressions, but still...😅) watching the riders' faces (mostly pure joy) before and after a run, marveling at the physics, comparing restraint systems to other rides, talking with other enthusiasts in line...the list goes on and on. To those who love golf the same question of 'why do you love it?' could be posed and there would be a ton of answers that vary aside from swinging the club! This nerd truly enjoys your videos! Keep them coming!

Do you think that switch track could be beating the shit out of the wheels causing them to crack or whatever?

Thank you for the run down, I am looking forward to seeing what the outcome is - I am glad I did not plan for a trip for this ride this soon.

After new parts arrive, what is the minimum time they need test the ride to open it? Like if parts get installed "today" can we expect the ride to be open after a week if everything goes like they expected?

That is great information you shared about the engineering of these coasters that are going excessive speeds and forces. The question i have is do you think zamperla is able to fix the problematic lsm launch. Ive watched the eltoro ryan video saying the fins and sensors were always misaligned causing the ride to shut down more than being open. Also your theory of wheels and new compounds for ride longevity. Thanks.

Great info

These videos are so great! Thank you!

This was the most cringed videoI have ever seen. Thumbs way down & blocked youR lame content from ever showing up again. Wow. SMH.

The jelly bean loop is the best name for the SLC rollover I've ever heard. It is perfection

​ @ryantheridemechanic you didn't say much about the rumored stress cracking of/on the bogies; that was what I have been mostly harping on. I've pointing to how UNmassive the horizontal & vertical members are [esp. compared to Falcon's Flight's-esp. note vertical RIBS!]. [& maybe stronger alloys req'd?]. Issues here could affect the wheels? I've also pointed out that on its last Mon. of operations , the SILver center car's rear seat(#6) rode quite rough while the BLack's #6 rode QUITE SMOOTHLY !!==problem(s) progressive. WHAT DO YOU THINK about the design, amount of metal in the bogies?? [remember FF's]- (see below too) -TTD/2Ron4695/46(rides are on tt2)

Very nice video. Thanks for posting and have a nice day too.

Looked up Uremet....realized I used to live just down the street from it for 7 years and never knew. 🧐

Falcon's Flight is going to be 155 mph. Add in that 110 degree Saudi Arabia heat and have to wonder. Then again Formula Rossa is 149 mph

Steel Curtain is a problematic Roller Coaster. It was constructed in 2019. It has had consistent down time over a 5 year period. Sometimes, it'll be down for a month or two. This year it's down for the entire 2024 season. Do you have any idea on how a ride can have consistent down time over a span of 5 years? Maybe a good video idea

Even as someone who's favorite manufacturer is Intamin and would've rather seen Intamin do this, it's not like they wouldn't have run into problems either. Tbf, Zamperla has never even attempted something like this, so it isn't surprising that some things need adjustments or fixes. But so far, it doesn't seem like it's as big of a deal as people are trying to make it. Even so, still wish Intamin had done the conversion, but I also wonder if they didn't even want anything to do with the ride anymore lol

There's a material out now. It's brass mixed with Stainless steel. It's not a fun material to machine because it's so hard and stringy. But it would wear near a bad as just brass or Stainless.

Not surprised or bothered by closure. People act like TTD just was running perfect when it opened.

I think someone was leaning on the air gates.

You mention all this "toe-in & "toe-out" stuff on the wheels. Are the wheel structures not on a gimbal swivel, free to rotate both left-right (for track turns) & up-down (for track hills & valleys)? Isn't that the reason for the wheels being in pairs? (so the wheel assemblies orient themselves parallel to the track, the same reason railroad trucks use axle pairs). Wheels are NOT mounted on automobiles that way! It would be useful for you to make a video about the details how wheels are mounted on coaster trains, including how trains negotiate track curves, especially helical sections. This involves having one set of wheels determining the roll of the car, & the other set free to rotate in roll. This involves the linkages between the cars which must bear vertical forces but allow rotation about all 3 axes. Experimental ride? Come on! There is Top Thrill Dragster (running at same top speed but without reversal) & Kingda Ka which goes even faster. Another thing to consider: calculate the G-loading at the wheel's circumference (due to its rotation only, not track contact loads). It's going 120 MPH while orbiting in a 0.5 meter circle. I calculate about 1440Gs! That's not really "bad" for metal wheels, but for urethane material that is purposely soft, that could be issue. For the smaller guide & upstop wheels, this is most likely 2x higher!

I'm pretty sure Zamperla, when they introduced the LIghtning trains, said the wheels are not Urthane based, they are something else that is supposed to withstand way more force..

Thanks for this video, extremely informative!

Millwright here. So great to find a good mechanical diag of this problem. Thanks man

Titan when it opened at six flags over Texas had a similar issue with the running wheels being worn down due to excessive heat. I worked at the original Texas Giant at the time and the crew and really any employee in the park would know when a wheel or wheels failed because it sounded like the loudest B&M roar that would echo throughout the park. The water misters that were put in place at the end of the break run to cool the wheels were not sufficient, so the park had to bring new wheels with the different composition you mentioned and subsequently the ride was out of commission until those arrived.

Ok, Amazing video, hilarious AND educational. Honestly you are a breath of fresh air in the "Coaster - Tube" Community....

The uncertain mis alignment of the switch track is what I thought it was but luckily its just the trains

Is there a compound that will work on Falon's Flight? It seems the heat cycles and length of ride alone are going to eat up tires. Then add sand on top of that, seems like a problem.

Hopefully they use this down time to figure out the locker situation

Here's a crazy, perhaps overly-optimistic view on the timeline of all this. Maybe they actually discovered this issue very early in testing 2 months ago and Zamperla immediately got the fix in motion with the 60-90 day timeline in mind. Cedar Point, not wanting to miss all of the dates they had set, decided to run with the original problematic wheels just to get through previews and opening weekend. Rather than push back the entire opening, they could do what they're doing now and then have people be pleasantly surprised when the downtime isn't as long as people were expecting. A bit tin-foil hat, but in their shoes I think it'd be the best approach to minimize a PR nightmare. I'm also probably grasping at hope since I already have a trip planned in 2 weeks.

Ryan, a question...could the track "gauge" be an issue here? I'm wondering what 20 years of rail use on the top hat affects the dimension of track, compared to the new track that Zamperla installed. I'm guessing it's millimeters in difference, but could that affect the tracking of the road wheels and be causing an issue here, or is the difference in track gauge negligble (from new to old to new) and not a factor?

If you don’t like extreme rides don’t go to CP. they are a premier park for pushing the limits. Sorry not everything is for everyone

Great chat guys. I feel ancient as I have been in the industry for 22 years. Past 6 years I have worked mostly on design, development and delivery of new attractions, so I work with all of the ride manufacturers around the world. The progress in not only safety, but rider comfort, longevity of the parts and ingenuity of new equipment is as a result of guys like us, feeding back what we need to make everything better in our day jobs. I have seen and built some awesome stuff at the cutting edge of the industry, and it is only getting better. I have not installed a coaster with a chain lift for 8 years and I have installed 9 coasters in that time period, and have another 5 in development at the moment, and not a chain lift in sight.

Top Thrills 2

Congrats on 5k!

Looking forward to leaning on some air gates this weekend 😂😂😂

I was half expecting this to happen, Zamperla haven't done anything close to this scale before and they're using a brand new train design too which makes things even more complicated. Always good to get your perspective since you work in the industry.

Sometimes I think the sheer size and speed of this roller coaster is underappreciated. I mean it goes 120mph and is over 400ft! That's just bonkers and is no easy feat. Zamperla will figure it out and the ride will be fine. It's not like it was ever that reliable in the first place. I think Intamin unfairly gets a bad rap because Intamin will build a park crazy if they order crazy. Want a coaster that blasts out of a mountain? Hyper in a shoebox? 300ft, 400ft, 500+ft? 100+ MPH? What if we stick a drop tower on it for good measure?

I do have to laugh that cedar point already has trains with wheels that could withstand this... Millennium force comes to mind. Not to mention they simply could have taken the wheels from the old top thrill trains and analyzed the compound to build their own. Zamperla was way too confident. I'm sure they'll get it together. It only takes one phone call to Intamin.

Absolutely loved your humor mixed with articulate insight! I was trying to wind down and relax for bed while watching this; ended up wide awake in interest. Thanks!!

Hearsay, Heresy, Conjecture, Drivel, and Speculation!! Thanks Ryan, keep um coming! 👍

My brother had his restraint on raptor at cedar point undo and it went up to his belt, I was next to him, my mom on his other side, and I reached over to each other and held him. My mom politely went over when we got back to the station and let them know while I helped my brother who was shaken (he was in 8th grade and skinny as hell) and my mom showed them the exact seat and said we wanted no problems just to protect people. They shut the row down and we stayed for a bit in case more info was needed but I'm not sure what came of it

First off, Ryan, it's one of your best videos. It was hilarious in places. Now for the comments, lol. I agree that I think it has to do with the wheels, which was one of my leading personal theories on Monday. I will admit I thought about the wheel carriers because that was what everyone seemed to be fixated on. I left the park thinking it was either an upstop issue or the compounding to make the wheels. Maybe they needed to find and test the top three compounds that could handle the heat and stress. Each train get a different set and run the hell out of them. But that's expensive so I doubt that will happen. The irony is I specifically focused on the wheels the last monday of operations, and they didn't look like they had gone through hundreds of cycles. In fact, they all barely looked worn on 2 trains. For the record, I think Zamperla did a great job, and shit happens. I wonder how many of the naysayers actually rode it that week. I did several times,and Zamperla can build me another coaster any day.

Zamperla did just jump balls in on a huge project. I commend them for trying it. On a coaster geek note- my top 5 favorite coasters are all Intamin.❤

I would also submit that because of the trains being made with mild aluminum instead of steel framing, the amount of lift that they're getting at the high speeds is also causing the trains to bounce a bit. That kind of impact on the bogies and the wheel assemblies themselves could cause stress fractures, bearing collapse and or surface fracturing like you're talking about with the polyurethane. Like you said though, we dont know whats going on because of the park's secrecy so we are stuck with speculation. Then there's also the 4th issue, the raised center of gravity. The track yaw going up and down the tophat is way off of the train's heart lines so you also have that sudden jolt when the track rotates impacting the bogies. So many possibilities..... Hope they get it sorted outand fixed soon.