Crew Positions
Shockwave could have a massive crew during the height of the summer and during days like Memorial Day and the 4th a fully staffed crew was usually in place. This included a person at controls ("driver" or "driving"), two unload, one loading, one at "enable" (the position at the back of the train on the load side was called "enable" since this was the person who pressed the "enable button" allowing the driver to dispatch the train), one at turnstyle (top of stairs, assigns seats if needed or just monitors the platform), and someone in queues.
Shockwave also had a lot of Aiphones ("Aiphone" was the brand name of the intcom phones the crew used) - controls, enable, base lift (I think), top of lift, block brakes (the brakes after the 3rd loop, before the boomerang), queues and in the maintenance room. The one in queues was tough to hear so the person would often have to be paged to pick it up ("Will Bill please pick up the white courtesy phone? Bill in queues, please pick up the white courtesy phone, thank you" and other such mic abuse!).
Crossing the track was not supposed to be done through the cars but people would do it from time to time. Instead the crew member was to go to the back of the train, signal "time-out" to enable and controls and then cross by stepping on the rear axle. That was definitely hairy if you were scared of heights the first couple of times because there was nothing behind the train to hold you, you usually grabbed an upright harness and stepped.
There was an e-stop (emergency stop) at enable and controls. Controls, if the situation warranted, had the option of doing a lift stop. This led to some serious issues though. When an e-stop was pressed no one could reset that except for maintenance, the button had to be pulled out by them, etc. However, if someone hit the lift stop you could start the lift again but this was not supposed to be done. Note I said "supposed". I recall at least one time where there was an "accidental" lift stop and then restart followed by the lead pressing the e-stop, calling maintenance and some disciplinary action being taken! More lift stop fun below.
Wheels, Wheels and More Wheels
Shockwave had its share of problems that kept the maintenance guys busy and the #1 issue by far was the rate at which it went through wheels. Crew members became very adept at identifying the tell-tale sign of a wheel that had it. I'm not sure what the wheels were composed of, some hard resin compound I would assume, but they got very hot and parts of them would literally just melt and peel away. Usually the wheel would start coming apart in chunks and you would hear the trademark "ga-wump-ga-wump-ga-wump" and after visual inspection a call to maintenance was made.
Most of the time we would run that train until maintenance got there unless it was really bad, then we wouldn't load that train (which irritated people greatly). Once maintenance arrived you'd send two more empty trains and take the ride down. They got very efficient at changing them, could be done in about 10 or 15 minutes as I recall.
First Loop Fracture
Before too long there were mumblings among the crew of a first loop fracture, I believe this started in '91. That's when, if you were AM crew, you might show up and they would be up there working on it. Exactly what they did - I have no idea but the crane was always there. Sometimes they would forget to take the thing down and here's the ride running with that crane up in the air. Someone figured out that probably wasn't a good idea though and would make sure it was put down before the ride would be run.
Because of the crane I believed this story was true as opposed to the ever-popular "Iron Wolf is sinking" and "they replace a palette of wood on Eagle every day" rumors.
Obviously this "wheel flying off" incident was long after my time but I would be of the opinion that Shockwave's demise had much more to do with its structural issues like this fracture and the wheel maintenance issue than anything else.
Computer Monitor
Shockwave was the first coaster (at Gurnee anyway) I am aware of that had a monitor in controls. It was one of those old amber monochrome ones with a very rudimentary readout showing status of a couple of systems and where the trains were on the tracks. If the ride "set up" (when an error occurred and the ride shut itself down this was called "set up") it would usually display an error code that you could give to Operations to pass on to maintenance so they would know how many hands to bring.
I don't remember any of them but a couple of the errors were much more common and so the call of "Shockwave set up for XXX again" would go out to Operations.
Shockwave Down for "Guest In the Ride Area"
Shockwave had more e-stops for "guest in the ride area" than any other ride I can think of and it makes sense. It wasn't too hard to figure out how to get into the Shockwave ride area and the ride had a nasty habit for shaking things loose. SOP said if a guest entered the ride area that was an immediate e-stop situation. Crew was only allowed in the ride area when walking to the station from the break area or when they were doing track walks to pick up lost personal items. This required wearing a hard hat and lead supervision and/or approval.
Anyway, the train got pretty close to the ground and the potential for getting hit was there (the real low points were fenced off but I remember a couple of spots where it was still close) so that was an immediate e-stop. A crew member would then go try to detain the person in question, security was called and someone earned themselves a free trip out of SFGAm.
This happened all the time though, it was really quite ridiculous and I never understood how stupid people were about it. All you had to do was ask someone to go look for it and we usually had the crew to spare to send someone. It didn't stop a lot of people though for just deciding to waltz their way into the ride area to retrieve a 50 cent plush item. All I know is that I didn't smoke then (I do now) and I would have loved Shockwave crew because we produced more packs of smokes during "track walks" than anywhere else since our ride was sitting on a parking lot and not a landscaped area. I'm certain this probably had a lot to do with why people would enter that ride area as opposed to Demon or Eagle or something.
King of the Park
Because of the lackluster additions after Shockwave the Shockwave crew had the pride of being the premier ride in the park for some time. Rolling Thunder (or "Blunder" as almost everyone in Rides, even its own crew referred to it) was not a significant threat and during the heavy days in '89 we still had the longest queue in the park.
Iron Wolf came in '90 and I got transferred to Wolf mid-season (just missed being on the Inaugural Wolf Crew I guess!) but Shockwave was sitll a huge hit and the lines rivaled each other that year.
'91 was Condor and obviously that was not what anyone considered a "major" so it didn't rival Shockwave at all. It didn't really change until '92 when Batman hit. I distinctly remember the day that I knew Shockwave's day as King of the Park was over -- I think it was Memorial Day '92 and I was working Condor/Dodge. The queue from Batman was so long it went under the train tracks and was going around the corner where it started to mix with Shockwave's queue due, in part, to the fact that whoever was running Shockwave that day hadn't sent anyone to check on queues. Most of them weren't open so the Shockwave line and the Batman line were getting tangled with everyone else who was just trying to WALK get around them.
I was one who took matters by the horn and, besides, I had that Red badge now ya know!
I went over to Shockwave's queues Aiphone and called controls, "Hey this is Bill, Condor lead, your queue is getting tangled in the Batman queue, you better send someone down here". I was given the "we can't spare anyone" response. So I opened up the remaining queues and started redirecting the two line so they would stick to the sides and leave the walkway open. I called the North Side Sup and let him know what I did and that he might want to get someone over to watch it, it was clogging up Orleans Place.Bad Ride Placement
I'm sure when they put Shockwave where they did they didn't give a lot of thought about what it was near to in the park. One of the gravest mistakes in this regard was the proximity of such a featured ride to one of the few places you could buy beer at in the park -- Orleans Pizza.
Now, beer was served in special cups that said you weren't supposed to leave the restaurant area with it but that never stopped anyone. Navy Night in particular was a complete and utter fiasco in '90 as I remember and I was left wondering where the hell the SPs were because the sailors were consuming mass quantities at Orleans Pizza, and then grabbing two apiece for the line at Shockwave which made for a pleasant experience for the staff there.
Drunks at Shockwave became a regular occurrence and led to my very first lift stop. A couple of guys waited for the front and they were absolutely hammered. When they got into the train they stuck their feet out on top of the nose of the car right there in the station. Now, of course we told them they couldn't do that. Well, I was driving and I knew these knuckleheads were trouble. The train was barely dispatched before they stuck their feet out again. I got on the lift speakers and told them to get their feet back in which led to them flipping me off which led to me hitting the lift stop.
We sent a couple of crew members over and these idiots decided they were going to try to get out of their restraints at that point. Security had been called at this point (since we had to call the ride in as down) but they knew this was over their head, they called a "white shirt" security sup to get over there and it was decided they were going to hold these guys in their restraints until Gurnee PD got there. Gurnee PD showed up a bit later and the guys left the ride in cuffs, of course I couldn't resist saying "and enjoy the rest of your day at Six Flags Great America!" over the station speakers to the cheers of all the guests when they were being taken away.
Climbing Adventures
According to the manual the lead was supposed to test all the Aiphones at the ride every day. This led to two problems -- the Aiphone at the top of the lift and the one up in blocks. Most leads just skipped it but I remember one day I was lead for a day at Shockwave (I believe this was very early '92 when I was lead at Condor/Dodge but the Shockwave leads weren't back from school yet) I had to do the full tour. This included climbing the massive lift to check the Aiphone, multiple track walks, and a test ride every hour -- by the book and precise of course!
Earlier on I had remember a group of Sups undertaking the task once was well for some fun. Given the wind that day though they ended up regretting it and came back with some very wind-blown 80s hair!!
Back Seat, By Far
I have never tried to count how many times I rode Shockwave, I'm sure it's in the 100s. Without a single solitary doubt the front was a big let down on Shockwave and the best seat was the back by far. The reason was with the way the drop was -- the drop was pretty sharp and took that bank right away, if you were in the front you just kind of hung there while the rear of the train was still coming. If you were sitting in the back you got whipped over the top before you even came up to it and it was much much more exhilarating.
Blackouts and Stars
I rode Shockwave a lot its first year when I wasn't on its crew, only until I became crew did I figure out one of my great mysteries on the ride. Every time I rode I would start seeing stars by the time I got to the third loop. I had no idea what the heck was causing it because I've never dealt with blackouts or stars before.
One day taking a test ride I finally figured it out -- that ride was such a rush that you held your breath the minute you started going over the top, you held it all the way until you got to the block breaks before the boomerang. Once I figured out to breathe during the drop the stars went away.
I'm sure I'll probably come up with more but I hope you guys enjoyed as much as I've enjoyed sharing. Hopefully it wasn't too mundane.
--Guy
