Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Your Lucky Day...

In Sandusky, Ohio there is an amusement park called Cedar Point. It's known for an abundance of roller coasters [16 in fact]. In 2003 Cedar Point debuted a ride that combines cutting-edge science with plain ol' fashioned craziness.

Meet Top Thrill Dragster. If you'd like to see TTD in action, click over here.

But a few days ago, things went very, very wrong. Normally, the system launches the cars far enough up the massive hill so that the train's momentum carries it over the edge. Then gravity takes over and the train is slowed down by magnetic brakes on its way back to the station.

Last week, that didn't happen, and the 18-passenger full train came to a stop at the very top of the lift hill. Observers claimed that the train must have been perfectly balanced to keep from going over the crest.

After about 10 minutes, a maintenance worker arrives on the scene. His solution? A slight nudge to push the train over the edge.

Thankfully, ExtremeCoastin was able to capture the moment on film.

I'm a fan of the roller coaster, but I can't tell you that I would have been the calmest person on that ride if it had happened to me.

Courage,

Mike G.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Holy smokes! I just watched the video (I think 3 minutes of that is too long). That's a crazy drop... I went to go on that!