Engineering Amusement

Even before I started to ride roller coasters I always had an idea I’d like to try and get into designing them as a profession. It all started when I was around the age of eleven and I was watching a really cool roller coaster special on the travel channel. They were talking about Superman The Escape out at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California. The ride uses an electromagnetic launch system to propel the cars to 100mph. After I heard that fact on the television I immediately went to our kitchen and pulled off five to ten magnets off the fridge and I began to try and build a small scale launching roller coaster. However back then I never understood the concept of electromagnetism and I was unsuccessful at my attempt to build my own small scale launch system as the magnets just stuck together.

When I was sixteen is when I really started to do some hardcore research on how to become a roller coaster designer. I always knew engineering was most likely the field to get into but I didn’t know what engineers really did. I knew the basic idea is that they made machines and materials which they applied to real world applications. I then found out there were many different branches which consisted of bio, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical and a bunch of even more specialized engineering professions. I had no idea what most roller coasters designers were so I took it upon myself and I emailed a few roller coaster companies and most of them told me to look into civil or mechanical. I checked into both and I was interested into both of the fields. Mechanical engineering dealt with the mechanics of systems and civil dealt with structures and soil. I was leaning more towards mechanical than civil after I saw the starting salaries that said mechanicals tended to make more. However there was one roadblock. Engineering focused on a strong core of math and physics. At the time I had never taken a physics course and math always seemed to be one of the subjects I really had to fight for an A in. I didn’t stress myself out over it because I still had two years to decide what I wanted to do with my life. I was also interested in journalism but that was more so a fall back plan.

During the spring of my sophomore year in high school I was in the process of trying to find a job. I applied everywhere. Whether it be at the local McDonald’s, Burger Kings, or grocery stores no one was hiring me. One day I got a call from my cousin telling me to apply with Geauga Lake Amusement Park which was a short thirty to forty minute drive from my house. I figured why not, I always thought of working there one day operating a roller coaster. I did end up applying for a position and Geauga Lake and I awaited my call. A long agonizing week past and I finally got the call one afternoon after I got home from school. The phone interview went well and my future manager offered me a ride host position on X-Flight. I was shocked to be honest. I had no idea I would end up on such a cool ride as that. I thought if I got lucky I would end up on the Big Dipper at best. I accepted the position and my training started a month and a half later.

The reason I was blown away I got picked to work X-Flight was because it was such a complex and complicated ride system. The ride opened five years earlier as a prototype ride system. The main draw of the ride is that it allowed you to experience the sensation of flying like superman. The ride vehicles were one of a kind as they had the ability to go from a sitting down position to a lying down position on your back. The ride colors were neon green track with jet black supports. The ride was 125 ft tall and featured a loop and many in-line twists that would send you to the flying position. It was my personal favorite ride at the park because there was no greater feeling to me than stretching your arms out in front of your body trying to pretend your superman going at speeds of 55 mph. I was very excited to start working and I couldn’t wait for training to start.

Training was fun. The first few sessions were a bit dry but that’s to be expected as a new employee of a company. A week or so later ride training started. I remember being in school and waiting for the end of the day so I could go learn to operate a roller coaster for a few hours. It was such an exciting experience for me. Learning the ins and out of a roller coaster was such an informative experience for me. Over the two weeks I also found out X-Flight could be a very fussy ride maintenance wise due to it’s very complicated and complex ride system. During our training I began to make friends with many members on my crew and we all formed a good crew together that worked well. We also got to ride our ride during training which was a nice break from the standard drill of learning how to operate a twenty five million dollar piece of equipment they called a roller coaster. There was one ride session in particular I will always remember.

Our crew got invited over to Steel Venom to test ride for a few rides. However, we had to ride six consecutive cycles as they needed to take some computer data. Steel Venom is much like the Superman Escape roller coaster I described earlier. It uses a magnetic launch system to accelerate a train of twenty four people to speeds of seventy miles in less than four seconds. The ride vehicle was a suspended coaster car which meant your legs dangled from the seats without a floor beneath you and the track was overhead. When it opened it was the first of it’s kind coaster in the United States. If you were to look at it from the side it is a U shaped coaster with a spike at each of the ends towering at 180 feet straight up in the air at a 90 degree angle making the vertical part of the U.  The front spike twists riders 270 degrees vertically straight up the 90 degree angle. The back spike just went straight up without any twisting but on the third and final trip back to the spike there was a magnetic break that held your train suspended in the air with only your restraint harness to keep you held it. I agreed to it thinking it wouldn’t be much of a challenge to me as I’ve rode this ride multiple times in years past. After about the fourth ride I started to feel a bit queasy but I ended up being just fine after the six rides. Afterward we went back to our ride and went over a couple of more operating procedures and it was time to leave. Over the next couple of days we fine tuned our operation skills and then the operating season finally began.

The beginning of the season was wet, very wet. Every day from opening day till the end of June seemed to be nothing but a constant downpour of rain. There were a few sunny days on the weekends but for the most part the beginning of season was swamped out. The constant drag of the rain seemed to damper our spirits but we all still tried our hardest to give our best at work. There was one day where a nasty storm came in. It was a terrible torrential downpour with thunder and lightning that caused most of the rides in the park to shutdown.We were one of the rides that ended up shutting down but we were lucky for the most part as our station platform provided a nice shelter except where the wind blew in around our massive control panel towards the front of the station. However the wind started to pickup and we went under our station platform into the area where we kept our belongings. However, that plan soon failed as flood waters and a mini river began to form under our station. From there we were told to seek shelter in the bathroom as there was a funnel cloud spotted near the park. We waited in the bathroom for a bit but the park ended up shutting down early due to the weather which was on the forecast for the rest of the day.

During the beginning I also started to develop great guest service skills due to our ride have mechanical breakdowns from time to time. When our ride was broken down we would talk to the guests that were currently in the line for the ride or in some cases were on the ride itself waiting for the ride to be fixed. The guests weren’t always the most happiest of people when the ride  broken down while they were waiting in line or on the ride itself but I tried to make the best of their experience and I tried to get their mind off of the ride breaking down. You just had to focus on the positives. I enjoyed talking to the guests. You got to learn about their families and where they came from and why they were at the park. It was a very diverse but hard working crowd that came to Geauga Lake.

However towards the end of the season we were all tired. During the summer most of us averaged 55-60 hour work weeks with one day off a week. The paychecks were nice but sometimes the work seemed to go on forever. There were some incidents on the crew and with the ride but that’s to be expected over the course of the summer. Nothing is ever going to be perfect and you have to learn to live and benefit from the adversity that might surround you.

At the end of the season I was glad and relieved it was over. It was a long and tiring summer. School was starting up and I just wanted to hang with my friends in school instead of seeing the same people I saw every single day the past summer. I needed a break from Geauga Lake and I honestly had no idea if I was going to come back the following season. There were certain things that happened I didn’t agree with but I know the people that I needed to think highly of me thought highly of me which might help me in obtaining a leadership position for the next season. I let the thought linger on my mind as I started a winter job search.

My during school job turned out to be at a pizza place. It was very different from my work at Geauga Lake. I was stuck slapping around sauce on a circular piece of dough then I sprinkled cheese and nasty smelling mushrooms on this piece of dough and then put it in an oven. I also got terrible hours there compared to what I worked at Geauga Lake but I took what I could get. I made some friends there but the job wasn’t as fun as Geauga Lake. When the application became available online in January to apply at Geauga Lake I filled it out immediately to return the next year.

A couple of months passed and I got a call from my rides manager again. He wanted to offer me a leadership position as an assistant team lead of a flat ride area. At first I was a bit hesitant because I really wanted to work a roller coaster again but I agreed to it thinking people have been moved around before so why can’t I get moved around too? The flat rides I were going to work were basic spin and puke type of rides but I still was hopeful to be moved but if I didn’t I would still be happy where I was. I was in leadership in the park and I could only go up from there.

Once again training began. I was able to meet my TL who seemed to be a really nice guy and we saw eye to eye on a lot of policies so I figured it was going to be a good season ahead. Soon enough we were doing ride training on the weekends and I began to teach my crew how to operate the rides efficiently and safely. I always enjoyed training because it allowed you to get to know your crew and what kind of people they were. I was really happy with my crew because they seemed to be dedicated workers and that was the only thing I asked of them.

We had a bit of a problem on opening day. Our supervisors had no idea what to do with our crew because the third ride in our area was down due to mechanical issues and they had no idea when it would open back up. They ended up dividing our crew across two other crews that needed staffing. The majority of my crew and I were sent to operate the Ferris Wheel and another ride that flipped people upside down. I thought it was kinda cool because operating the Ferris Wheel required the use of a joystick and it was my first time operating a manual ride so it was fun. However my area that I worked in was about to change again.

The next day I got sent down to the kiddie area to help out with the staffing issues they had down there. Not many people liked working down there because you had to deal with little kids and their parents all day. It wasn’t much of a pain for me but it wasn’t where I wanted to be. Although I got a chance opportunity later that day when my supervisor came over to visit me. She asked if I wanted to be the acting team lead of the kiddie area until the real team lead came back from his current job. I was ecstatic with this news. The team lead of the kiddie area was pretty much his own supervisor of the area and made sure his/her employees were carrying out their ride host duties in a safe and efficient manner. I accepted the position and I began that night learning the duties I needed to do.

Over the next month or so I continued being the active team lead until the real one came back. It was a fun position. I had my own radio and I walked around the whole time making sure my employees in the area were performing their duties in a safe and efficient manner. It allowed me to get to know everyone very well and it also provided me an opportunity to fix any ones mistakes which allowed them to learn to do things the right way. The team lead came back which meant I went to the role of working one of the kiddie rides again. It was a bit of an adjustment going back to just working a small ride but I still had fun. A week after our TL showed up I went on vacation with a few of my friends to a few amusement parks in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During that trip I also got moved again to another ride.

My friends and I were standing in line for El Toro and one of them got a call from our one supervisor on his cell phone. He wanted to know how our trip was going and he also wanted to talk to me. I answered the phone and he asked if I wanted to switch over to being the assistant team lead of Head Spin. Once again I was ecstatic and I ended up accepting the position. Head Spin was a looping roller coaster that went forwards and backwards. I was satisfied, I finally got to be in charge of a roller coaster for the rest of the season.

My ride for the majority of the season.

After I came back from my vacation the rest of the season went without incident. I continued to make new friendships with my new crew. We were a great crew that worked together very well. I really enjoyed working on head spin. It was a fun but simple ride that had a lot of character to it. It wasn’t the most popular ride but guests still came to ride it and they always left smiling.

Towards the end of the season there were many rumors flying around about the park but I took no heed in them. Rumors are rumors and there will always be rumors. There are no truth to them regardless of what may happen. I continued to work to my best regardless of what people told me because what did they know? They were just normal seasonal employees like me.

Oktoberfest 2007 was probably my favorite time of working in the park. There was such a party atmosphere in the park that I haven’t felt for the longest time and it seemed just right. The weekend started off rainy and cold but it got better over the next two days. The final day of operation was just like any other day. It was a fun day filled of relaxation knowing we all made it through a long and hard worked operating season. At the close of the day we all said our goodbyes, turned in our final paperwork, and left looking forward to the 2008 operating season of Geauga Lake.

Sadly that 2008 operating season of Geauga Lake would never happen. A week or two after the park closed down for the season Geauga Lake’s parent company Cedar Fair announced they would be shutting down Geauga Lake and turn it into only a water park. The fate of the rest of the rides were to be either moved to other parks within the Cedar Fair chain or to be sold at an upcoming auction the following summer. I attended the auction and took a bunch of photos to preserve the memories I had from my childhood and working at the park. I’m not going to lie, it was very sad to me personally the park was shutdown but it is what it is.

1888-2007

My two summers at Geauga Lake had a great affect on me. Working there taught me great guest service skills, how to be a leader, and most importantly to be understanding of everyone. My dream of being a roller coaster designer was also strengthened by working there because I was took great pride when guests walked off one of my rides because it shows I made their day enjoyable. While it was nice I was able to do that but a couple pushes of buttons didn’t make their day. I knew the real reason was because of the ride itself and not because of me.

I still had my doubts about going into engineering after my two seasons of Geauga Lake. I was still apprehensive about math by the end of my junior year in high school. It wasn’t till my senior year that I really locked down onto engineering thanks to an experience that has had a lasting affect on my life.