This one is a Classic. Also known as The Octopus by some customers who said that the original location of Elitch Gardens, prior to it's aquisition by Six Flags, also had this ride and it was known as The Octopus. Whatever name you know it as, you are likely to have seen and/or ridden on this classic ride where each are goes up and down while the whole thing rotates, and to top it off, you shift your weight inside your car to cause it to spin. |
Whoosh! While this is not a very good picture. It show the ride in action. I shot it right from the control panel. This was another of the rides in which I operated. Alike the Big Wheel, balance plays an important role in loading the riders. When the ride is empty, it must be loaded with the each car and then it's counterpart loaded, so you load the first car and then skip all the other cars until the car that is opposite of the car you just loaded comes into the loading area. Once the ride is loaded, the operator can load/unload one after the other without skipping. Some operators may opt to load/unload by skipping just to insure balance. Once the ride has been loaded, I would load my first half and then when the first car it opposite of the car I need to load, I would copy what I see loaded. If it is all little children, I load children. If it is a heavy load, I try to get heavier riders, sometimes this means calling up riders ahead of others which can annoy some but usually the are understanding. This, like the Big Wheel makes this ride a bane for alot of employees, furthermore, this ride is run by levers opposed to buttons and is completely manual. It really should have a "dead man's pedal", better known as a presense pedal. What if the operator suddenly became incoherent? On other rides with such a pedal, the operator's foot is likely to lift up from the pedal and the ride will stop. With the Spider, if it is running, it will continue to run until someone can stop it. |
Hollywood & Vine. Another classic, Hollywood & Vine is about spinning out of control. First, the platform spins, second, four groups of cars spin and finally each car spins! It used to be that you could turn a wheel inside the car to cause it to spin but it was disabled, nonetheless there is a whole lotta spinin' goin' on. This picture was taken at night from behind the control panel. This was the first ride I was trained on operating. It was unfortunately the least favorite to run becasue of so much time involved in getting everybody seated, then the two little doors on each car - sixteen cars in all - has to be latched and the overhead restraint has to be checked to ensure it is locked. If a car is vacant, the same must be done, additionally the seat beat must be buckled. When the ride is over - about a minute later - the operator has to manually open each restraint and the doors of the car. There is one thing that is for sure here, you get some exercise. |
The Sidewinder. This roller-coaster is similar to the Boomerang in the manner that it runs it course foreward and then again in reverse, however, it is much shorter and quite a bit of work. The "work" involved in riding this ride is that you have to walk up about six stories worth of stairs to get to the loading platform. Now if it is a really busy day and the line winds most or all the way down the stairs, you don't have to walk up all of the steps at once so you can have rest stops, otherwise you will be huffing it all the way... and when the ride is over it's back down all those stairs. The course is simply forward down a hill and into a loop and up the other side. The train then comes to a stop and about thirty seconds later, it shoots backwards through the course and back into the station. I would not recommend waiting ninety minutes to ride this. |
The Tower of Doom. Not for the faint-hearted. You are seated with with about four other riders in an unenclosed car and secured with an overhead restraint and then you race upward two hundred feet. Watch as the park seemingly shrinks to miniature size all the while your view expands for miles all around. There are three cars, one faces west for a unobstucted view of the front range. One car faces nouth for a panoramic view of the lower downtown Denver, or look out to your right to see the city's skyline. If you are facing south you will have view for miles on a clear day, but enjoy it quickly becasue once the car stops at the top it's about two seconds before you start your way down... free falling. Have you ever decended a twenty story building in seven seconds? You are rivaled by no express elevator here. |
A death-defying decent Is the glass half empty or half full? You can view this picture either way, are they going or are they coming? For the record, I took this picture while they were coming down and just about at the braking point of their decent. I did not ride this one. |
© 2006 clayaikensboy