TombRaiderFTW

It's a bit presumptuous to assume that it being delayed to 2022 is because of a failing on Six Flags's part. It might be, or it might not be. There's a pandemic going on that has affected many things, for example.

Are you kidding? It's a piece of roller coaster track that traveled BACKWARDS in time! Not only is it valuable from a coaster enthusiasts standpoint, it's important to the study of time travel! Nah, I think an increase in value is dependent on how many were done like that. If it's all of them, then no change. If that's the only one like that, then that might change things.

If it's Cascabel 2.0, I'm not renewing my KI season pass and am instead becoming an Indiana Beach stan. Seriously, the idea of having ONE Schwarzkopf 3-4 hours from my house makes me so happy, let alone two--especially if one of them is a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop.

I haven't been to Holiday World since maybe 2016, but before then there were years where I went multiple times per year. IF the park takes care of its coasters like it did back then, the wooden ones run night-and-day better in the spring and fall. They aren't good rides in summer--they'll all jackhammer in many places. I've never noticed such a polarity at other parks, but then again, KI is the only other wood coaster-heavy park I've been to many times per year.

If you were going to advise a new enthusiast on what parks they should hit up first, which ones would you recommend and why? Let's assume travel expenses aren't an issue. Feel free to consider price of admission, food prices, merchandise prices, etc. in your recommendations, if you feel "bang for your buck" is an important factor. You can get as specific as you'd like. Heck, feel free to write out a whole itinerary if you want! I'll start. Admittedly, I'm leaning more towards the history side of things. In no particular order: Knoebels. It's the best operating glimpse into the history of amusement parks, in my opinion. It's also just incredibly fun and charming. From trying to get the brass ring on the carousel to the existence of Flying Turns to the Traver bumper cars, it's like getting a glimpse into the original heyday of the amusement park world before the 1930's. Also, everyone should ride Phoenix in 1-3 before they die. Disneyland. It's beautiful, and it revolutionized how amusement and theme parks were designed. From Main Street to Haunted Mansion to Pirates of the Caribbean to it's a small world, despite being 50+ years old, it still feels like an earnest attempt at something new and amazing, and you can't help but love it for that. No, Magic Kingdom in Florida is NOT the same thing. Disneyland, in my opinion, is THE quintessential theme park. Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Kings Island, or Six Flags over Texas. All three are charming and top-tier examples of how the Disneyland idea was propagated to seasonal parks, and each of them has managed to keep (or regain) a lot of their original charm despite several changes in management over the years. Each also has stand-out rides that every enthusiast should try.

Oooh! That's really exciting. Will you post a side-by-side video of a POV with old track versus a POV with the new track once the ride starts testing in the spring? Something similar was done with the Coney Island Cyclone a few years ago: I'm honestly curious if retracking that much of the ride will cause it to run faster.

They're not retracking the whole ride, if I remember the original post correctly. It's just getting IBox track in certain areas.

It seems like cloned rides get talked about a lot when it comes to predicting park plans, but the rides themselves are rarely discussed. What's your favorite ride that has a clone or near clone? It can come from Kings Island, or it can come from any other park. The world is your oyster! Remember, it doesn't have to have an exact replica. For instance, I'd consider Hurler at Carowinds to be a clone of Thunder Run at Kentucky Kingdom, even though the layouts aren't exactly the same. I'll start: I love the Coney Island Cyclone and the near-clones I've ridden. Viper at Six Flags Great America is a good ride, and Georgia Cyclone was one of my favorite coasters. They're fun, extremely compact layouts that often contain more airtime than what they look like they'd have from the ground.

Yo dawg, I heard you like RMC, so we put an RMC in our RMC so you can RMC while you RMC. Anyway, that's really interesting. It's odd to me that an RMC-designed ride would need to have its track replaced when Tremors, a CCI, has had Topper Track for close to a decade without issue. I've read reports in enthusiast circles that rides that were partially retracked with Topper Track don't hold up particularly well over time (Georgia Cyclone seemed like the most frequent culprit, if I remember correctly), but I guess I'd assumed that was because of the PTCs they often run. I wonder what this means for the future of launched RMCs, if launched RMCs even have a future after the issues with Lightning Rod.

Kangaroo, Bayurn Kurve, Volcano, and Paratrooper. I'm floored. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHI7m1SF9Y6/?igshid=kxfjoeb6d0to

My Eleventh Commandment senses are tingling.

It's been a couple years since I was last in it, but the Rivertown arcade near Beast had skeeball.

This is purely conjecture and is completely unsubstantiated: In retrospect, I feel like the ride's shaping looks kiiinda like CCI designed a layout and then RCCA got their hands on it and "dumbed it down" for their manufacturing capability and/or to remove laterals and airtime. Like, the post-lift swoop looks like a positive g-heavy version of that of Legend, the turn after the big drop looks like the second turn after Boss's first drop if a bunch of banking was clumsily added to remove laterals, the last turn does that CCI thing of banking during airtime, but it's like they went out of their way to remove the airtime or used the wrong friction factors or something. Y'know? Kinda in the same vein as Arrow Arrow-fying a B&M layout with Drachen Fire? Anyway, as someone who didn't ride Son of Beast till 2008, I only recently realized that the original trains had Flight of Fear-style lapbars. Y'know, ones that ratchet downward but have no upwards movement once they do. Pretty sure riding Son of Beast with those should have qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, because oh man. Kinda glad I missed that. Coincidentally, had CCI designed Son of Beast, it possibly would have opened with Gerstlauer trains, which is what it switched to later in life. Unless parks bought trains straight from PTC (or another manufacturer), CCIs in 2000 opened with Gerstlauer trains.

Like I said, it's because I'm assuming MFs are lighter than PTCs. If they weigh less, they're not going to cause as much stress.

^ Because I'm assuming they're lighter than Racer's PTCs.

Here's what I'm in favor of. Beast: Either a GCI retrack or a selective RMC Topper Track retracking in certain high-stress areas. Gently reprofile the ride to remove the trim brakes. The point isn't to turn the ride into something else; it's to make it so it doesn't keep stomping on the brakes around every turn. (And yes, I know, it's had trim brakes since opening. That doesn't mean I have to like them. ) I assume doing that would require the track to bank more quickly, so I therefore assume it'd need new trains (as it's my understanding/assumption that Beast's trains don't have an articulating axle at all.) I'd vote for new 3-bench PTCs. Racer: A GCI retrack and Millennium Flyers. I'm going to commit heresy by saying this, but I'd have GCI gently reprofile the hills to provide more airtime (and possibly provide more hills on the return run.) Racer is a great ride as-is, but I feel like, based on people's reports, that ride (and others) had more airtime before the trains were switched to individual ratcheting lapbars. Based on what enthusiasts claim, that change made the trains heavier, which both made the ride rougher and cut down on airtime. Woodstock Express: It's fine as-is? I don't feel like there's a pressing need to do anything to it. Mystic Timbers: Same as Woodstock Express. It's a basically brand-new GCI. It'd be weird and (in my opinion) unnecessary to RMC it.

^ Mm, that makes sense. A tangent, and I'm thinking out loud here: It's struck me as a bit odd that Kings Island (to my knowledge) never sends Racer's or Beast's trains to PTC in the winter to be refurbed. Like, the trains are perfectly serviceable come spring, but I feel like trains that go to PTC come out the other end feeling like new, and KI's don't. I can't imagine it's THAT expensive to have done--small independent parks do it. Maybe it costs more than it does to have the park do it in-house, or maybe the trains are of age that PTC won't touch them unless they're replaced with new 3-bench trains. I'm under the impression that KI modified Beast's trains from 4-bench cars to 3-bench cars in-house, and maybe PTC won't take on liability for them because of that? But that wouldn't explain Racer. And it's not a Cedar Fair policy or anything, because Blue Streak's trains go to PTC every winter.

^ Thank you so much for posting! It's really cool to get firsthand accounts of a time in the park's history that doesn't get talked about in detail often. As far as the spark wall goes, do you know if that's the same prop that was used in Massacre Manor when it was located in Coney Mall, towards the end of the house? I remember something similar being used there.

I question this, not because I doubt your industry knowledge (because I don't), but because of two things: 1. Both GCI and The Gravity Group offer that their respective trains can be put on existing coasters, and have been (e.g. Roller Coaster at Lagoon, Wildcat at Lake Compounce, Wildcat at Hersheypark, Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa, Hades at Mt. Olympus). Would GCI/GG have to build their trains wider to fit the existing gauge? Surely they aren't adjusting the track gauge. 2. I feel like some of the aforementioned examples (except Hades and maybe Gwazi) had their trains switched out quietly, without too much PR/Marketing buzz. I assume the financial justification was reduced maintenance. Do you feel like it's Cedar Fair's style to only make that kind of change if they can market it?

The live actors in Boo Blasters weren't able to get close enough to the cars to slap them, as I recall. They were actually on a rope that restricted how far out from the walls they could move. That was a neat gimmick, in my opinion. EDIT: The actors themselves, not the "being tethered to a wall" thing.

This doesn't ultimately matter that much, but did Cedar Fair coin the term "giga?" I definitely thought that was Intamin's term, and Cedar Fair took it and ran with it when coaster enthusiasts started applying it to non-Intamin coasters that are 300-399 feet tall. There are small plaques on Millennium Force's trains that say something along the lines of "Intamin Giga Coaster."

You monster.

I mean this in only a nice way: There's something incredibly hilarious to me about knowing how verbose @BB1 has been over the years and then seeing them write, "You do you." It's like watching someone dodge an out-of-control semi on foot, then immediately trip over a Roomba. Oh, and Orion.

I contest. ...I don't have anything to contest; I just wanna keep the thing going.

...The Eleventh Commandment would like a word. A very, very emphatic word.