Volcano: The Blast Coaster

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We went through the first launch like normal. It was very forceful and fast. But when we came to the 2nd launch. It didn't accelerate at all and we didn't hear the LIM's turn on.

We then proceeded to go up with the speed that we had and we got about half way, but still didn't come out of the mountain before it rolled back. We went around the long turn backwards and the train slowed down as soon as it hit the launch fins. We then rolled back very slowly and during that time maintenance was called. By time we got to the launch position, maintenance was ready to evacuate us. They pulled out special ramps that I didn't know existed and they were running under our feet getting them in place. They did it row by row. They hooked up a special electrical cord to the train to unlock the restraints. Then I had to walk across the metal grates that connected the footers to get back to the station.
 
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Alright moment of truth time.

Are the lines moving any faster than they were before?
How do the renovated areas look now? Are the old Lost World rides still decaying up in the mountain or did the park cover those up/remove them?
 
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Paging Evan... Paging Evan...

When you were there Sunday, Evan, were you able to figure out how in the world this new queue configuration helps the line? Even after looking at the pictures in the update, I'm still stumped.
 
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There was only 200 people in the park so it was constant walk on. I will say that you don't have to wait on a train.

Also it was an employee training day. So there first time running the rides with people so they weren't the fastest.
 
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I saw some pictures of a full Q for this over the weekend and I hope that somebody here can give a realistic report on whether the line moved faster with the new configuration. Anyone?
 
I imagine that if there's any change to the loading system it won't have much improvement over the old system. Intamin inverts are incredibly slow to cycle compared to their B&M cousins.
 
Anything has to be an improvement over standing in that hot tunnel, not moving, because the people at the bottom can't figure out how to get in a line and stay out of the way.
 
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Even with our efficiency it'll be incredibly hard to increase the capacity of Volcano by anything notable. The ride would be stupid lucky to break 800 an hour whereas most normal coasters can pull 1000+ without even trying. Hell Apollo's could probably break 2000 an hour with no loose articles and people who knew what they were doing.
 
It takes a couple minutes to get on and get off(2minutes X 7 trains)...Not sure which rocket science slide ruler you are using but it appears close to 10-15 minutes. Certainly not far off enough to get nasty over. Sheesh.
 
Mazakman said:
It takes a couple minutes to get on and get off(2minutes X 7 trains)...Not sure which rocket science slide ruler you are using but it appears close to 10-15 minutes. Certainly not far off enough to get nasty over. Sheesh.
Click to expand...

I did the math, it's closer to a half an hour actually, but that really doesn't mean much with how pitiful its throughput is. By the way, a typical train cycle should take less than 90 seconds. Volcano's capacity is garbage even with 7 extra cycles and here's why. The loading system it uses is not enough to cope with how much time it takes to unload and load riders. It causes stacking, probably the nastiest stacking around besides anything coined a Stand-up coaster. You are pushing 16 people through on every train, when most coasters can push out at least 24 on a train. Other rides that cannot do so have either a loading system or a blocking system to cope with it, like Maverick at Cedar Point for example. Volcano only has 4 blocks, which is enough for 3 trains, pushing 16 people on each train. Bizarro at Great Adventure pushes double that in each train and has 5 blocks, enough to never worry about having a blocking issue or any egregious stacking, which Volcano has to worry about any time a train arrives in a station. Maverick fits 12 people per train, but has over 9 blocks and 6 trains so that more people are cycling at once (96 and 72 for each of them compared to Volcano's 48) and it loads two trains at once. Those numbers add up because Bizarro and Maverick take a shorter time to cycle than Volcano (Bizarro 3:20, Maverick 3:00, Volcano 3:30).

Here's where the numbers add up. Bizarro is expected to cycle the same train a little over 12 times an hour maximum for a Riders Per Hour quote of 1184 people. Maverick is expected to cycle the same train a little under 9 times an hour for a RPH quote of 1200 people, and this thing loads, unloads, and dispatches two trains per actual cycle. That effectively makes it do the same work as a coaster with three trains and twice the amount of people per train with the same cycle time. Volcano has 16 riders per train and takes 3.5 minutes to cycle a train around once. The most it can get out of that is 820 riders per hour with one train making 17 cycles per hour, on the old system. If Evan is right and Volcano is expected to increase total cycles by 7 then it will only increase each train's cycles by 2.33 per hour maximum, that means this thing will be barely scraping 930 riders per hour (928 to be exact).

In a line full of say 3600 people. Maverick will empty the queue in 3 hours exactly, Bizarro will do it in a little over 3 hours. Volcano's old system will do it in 4.4 hours, and its new system will do it in barely under 4 hours. That is pathetic.
 
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So I read like half of that and I think you may be saying that to increase the riders per hour they need more blocks and more trains? Or did I just really miss everything.
 
Party Rocker said:
So I read like half of that and I think you may be saying that to increase the riders per hour they need more blocks and more trains? Or did I just really miss everything.
Click to expand...

If they really want to truly increase capacity to make Volcano a respectable coaster in terms of wait times they should adopt a system like Maverick and add one more block. By increasing the blocks to 5 they can safely afford 4 trains on the track, and adopt a system where two trains are cycling at near the same time instead of one cycling, one in the station, and one waiting. With that fourth train in the cycle, Volcano's capacity will theoretically increase to 1088 riders per hour, which will put it just barely behind Bizarro but slightly ahead of a ride like Mantis.
 
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