Cedar Point's Disaster Transport
Phil Wright
please forgive me if I'm bringing up something that has already been
hashed out to death.
I e-mailed a brief description of this coaster today and recommended
that it be pretty low on a coaster to-do list for Cedar Point. How
do others feel? Any big fans?
IMHO, the major high point of this coaster are the STEEPLY banked
turns, but the lack of any air time and overall briefness of the
ride far outweigh the worth of waiting in line for more than 10
minutes.
In other words, I really like what is there, but there is nowhere
near enough of it.
What are your opinions? Does anybody know of other rides in the
same genre (turns vs drops) that are worth waiting in line for?
Being a coaster neophyte, I don't even know who made this ride.
Dave Althoff
Originally installed in 1981 or 1982 (don't have that handy right now!),
the ride is an Intamin Olympic Bobsled coaster, and was originally called
Avalanche Run. Cedar Point had the design changed slightly, in that they
requested the two-across seating rather than the single-inline seating
normally used for the Olympic Bobsled.
The ride vehicle is a 10-passenger sled, with road wheels mounted far out
from the body at about a 45-degree angle. In other words, wheels pushed
further out to the corners than the new products of the Chrysler
corporation. In the station, these vehicles run on angle-iron track, and
wheels are used for advancing and braking...running against a steel plate
on the bottom of the car.
Originally, this ride had a very confusing loading platform, with two
seperate flush-loading areas. The cars were sent out of the station into
the first ride block, prior to the lift, so that two cars could be
dispatched at a time...one goes on up the lift, the other sits on the
first ride block. The lift hill continues with the angle-iron track, and
shows a very slow and noisy way to haul a vehicle 65 feet into the air.
At the top of the hill, the track is replaced with a 12' diameter steel
half-round trough, which is intended to allow the cars to 'free-wheel' in
the manner of a bobsled. Unfortunately, due to the short ride length and
large number of vehicles, the ride is kept pretty slow, and is severely
blocked out. In addition, the design of the vehicle and track makes
air-time in the traditional sense undesirable, since there are no
undertrack wheels.
The ride was never very high on the thrill chart, and it seems it was
often prone to failure...most often problems related to the collection of
rainwater in the track trough. I am guessing that a combination of the
non-weather-proofness of this coaster, combined with the moderate thrill
value, prompted Cedar Point to do the conversion in 1990.
In 1990, the entire ride was enclosed. For part of the ride, this means
it ran in a large building. For other parts of the ride, the original 12'
trough was simply extended so that the car now runs in a full tube. When
the conversion was first done, there were large areas inside the ride
which were illuminated tableaus; the last time I rode, the internal
illumination had been reduced, and the ride seemed faster.
I believe this ride is currently the subject of some experimentation by
Cedar Point. There are three themed rooms within the queue line which are
essentially themed echo chambers, and the last couple of times I went
through, the audio had mercifully been turned off. A double row of
tracers has appeared on the lift hill, and some changes have been made to
the ride theming. The ride itself has not changed since it was first
installed.
It looks to me like Disaster Transport was an attempt to salvage the
investment in Avalanche Run, and I will say that Disaster Transport is a
great imporvement over Avalanche Run. The trouble is that the ride itself
(not necessarily the whole experience) is weak. And there is a limit to
how much improvement you can get with a mediocre ride. But CP need not
worry...I understand that other Intamin bobsleds have a similar
difficulty. Has anyone here ridden any of the other ones?
Just some observations and history...
--Dave Althoff, Jr. (I won't mention the 'incident' in 1990...)
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Mar-Jean A. Zamperini
motif, and call it "This Ride Sucks".
More people might be tempted to ride it then!
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Mar-Jean Zamperini mz...@andrew.cmu.edu = Steel City Ambassadors
Carnegie Mellon University = -Snare-'89-90
Hunt Library = -Bari-'90-91
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 = Golden Lancers
= -Perc. Staff-'91
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nac120700-Todesco
>CP should turn this ride into something with a "Beavis and Butthead"
>motif, and call it "This Ride Sucks".
>
>More people might be tempted to ride it then!
>
>
it's not the greatest, I think, it still offers a reasonable ride,
especially in the dark.
Walt Schmidt
>Am I the only one who thinks this ride is not a total disaster? While
>it's not the greatest, I think, it still offers a reasonable ride,
>especially in the dark.
Whether or not it's a bad ride is relative. I mean not everyone needs a
Magnum-type coaster to be thrilled. DT, much like the Iron Dragon, etc, is a
good family ride, good for those who aren't ready for the "real" thing.
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Walt Schmidt Penn State University
wjs...@psu.edu
WWW -> http://wjs116.rh.psu.edu/walt.htm (has links to CP info!)
Check out and my home page and tell me what you think!
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Dave Althoff
: Whether or not it's a bad ride is relative. I mean not everyone needs a
: good family ride, good for those who aren't ready for the "real" thing.
Amen. Sometimes I think some of us have a tendency to become "coaster
snobs" and forget about the large number of people who have ridden only a
small number of coasters. If every new coaster were on the order of a
Raptor, Magnum XL-200, or Texas Giant, there would ultimately be a lot
fewer coaster nuts out there. It's amazing how many times I've been
standing in line for Iron Dragon and had someone (Earthling) tell me that
Iron Dragon is her favorite coaster.
Of course, Iron Dragon is also probably the coaster with the noisiest
riders in North America, so I generally avoid the front seat...
Anyway, Disaster Transport is much the same story. It's actually hard to
really consider it a roller coaster, as it was intended to be a themed
ride experience, beginning with the lousy pre-show. And I think we can
all agree that the whole package is pretty bad. But taken as a ride (a
departure from my usual desire to consider the entire coaster experience),
it is a fairly good introductory coaster experience.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(recovering from a major e-mail system failure...)
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