Six Flags Over Texas (SFOT) Discussion Thread

From the latest pics, I CANT make heads or tails of what is going to happen with this thing. It. so far, looks incredibly short. It looks like half of the ride was removed. This was my favorite coaster of all time.

Since when was a double helix "half" the ride anyway? Talk about hyperboles... Oh boo hoo, they removed the slowest and most boring part of the ride while simultaneously boosting the thrill on every other part. I really don't get some of these glass-half-empty comments... If you have any doubts whatsoever that this ride will not be heads-and-tails better over the old, ridiculously rough and unpleasant Giant, you need a psychiatric exam stat.

^ I don't think anyone is going to doubt that the new Giant is much better than the "old, ridiculously rough, and unpleasant Giant" ---- but what I think some of us are wondering is will it be better than the Giant of the early 90s when it was still untamed, intense, re-ridable, and at the top of nearly everyone's list?

Sadly, far too much time has past between the last really good Giant rides and the opening of the new version to get a good comparison. Time also has a tendency to inflate folks' recollections of how good something used to be.

I do know this, though: the Giant of 1990 would still by my #1 coaster today, even after adding more than 300 coasters to my list since then. If the new version takes my #1 slot, then that's enough of an indicator for me that it's as good or better than the old one.

Droce by the park yesterday, and they finally tracked the first turn (the one after the drop and double up)! It looked looks like you will be hanging on your side there for a bit before the second drop. Fun stuff!

I am bummed this ride is not complete already... We just won a trip to Dallas Texas from Southwest Airlines (to go to their halloween HQ!) and will be in town a few days. We are stopping by SFOT, but sadly, there really are no rides that look all that exciting at this park besides Titan. Oh well. Hopefully the park is better then I expect! We got SFOG passes so it will be free for us to stop in, so thats good. This ride looks incredible. Wish it was ready

The one thing I'm not too sure about at all is the stability of the ride itself. It seems like adding all this extra weight of the track, plus the force of having the trains running on it, would put a lot of stress on the wood supports. We all know that wood isn't unbreakable, and looking at SoB, it can always break at the worst possible time. Its not that I'm thinking that the track will drop if something does break, as the steel I-beams likely wouldn't flex as much as a wood track, but if it does happen, it can't be a good thing. It's just that there's a lot of weight being added to the structure, and the force of the trains will just add to the wear and tear of the ride's structure - especially in the overbanked turns, since it doesn't seem like they've added a lot of lateral support where there's going to the a hell of a lot of lateral force being generated.

The one thing I'm not too sure about at all is the stability of the ride itself. It seems like adding all this extra weight of the track, plus the force of having the trains running on it, would put a lot of stress on the wood supports. We all know that wood isn't unbreakable, and looking at SoB, it can always break at the worst possible time. Its not that I'm thinking that the track will drop if something does break, as the steel I-beams likely wouldn't flex as much as a wood track, but if it does happen, it can't be a good thing. It's just that there's a lot of weight being added to the structure, and the force of the trains will just add to the wear and tear of the ride's structure - especially in the overbanked turns, since it doesn't seem like they've added a lot of lateral support where there's going to the a hell of a lot of lateral force being generated.

The track is about the same weight as the track it replaced. The forces will surely be different, but I'm sure they already thought about that when engineering the ride.

^ Also, a lot of the structure is shorter than before, which reduces the overall weight supported by the lower level supports.

Gotta agree about the overbanked turns, though. Hard to believe that the final version of the support structure will look anything like it does now.

It's been confirmed that the new Texas Giant will be receiving the flame cannons from Bizarro at Six Flags New England as mentioned in a Q&A session during Super Hero Celebration.

Q. Why was the Flame Cannons removed from Bizarro?

A. We Felt they were not necessary and they will be used at SFOT on the Texas Giant to save money.

Link

Flame cannons on a wooden coaster. What an excellent idea.

Flame cannons on a wooden coaster. What an excellent idea.

First off, it's a steel coaster, secondly, I agree! It's actually been working quite well on Terminator for the last couple of years...

While the ride experience seems to be somewhat of a tricky subject (intimidator 305, maverick's heartline roll), structural integrity is a well defined science. They usually build structures to theoretically handle at least three times all expected forces, so I wouldn't worry about the stability of a professionally built structure.

That's a big step up for SFoT, where just about every ride is lacking any kind of theming.

That's a big step up for SFoT, where just about every ride is lacking any kind of theming.

You either haven't been to the park or you're blind. Which one are you?

Just sayin'

Neither. Tell me which of the major coasters at SFoT have a themed ride experience? The ONLY ones that come to mind are Runaway Mountain and the Runaway Mine Train. I'm talking about actual ride experience, not queue line experience. Mr. Freeze? No. Batman? No. The Titan? No. Shockwave? No. Flashback? No. THBS? No.

Actually I'll give you THBS, but only partially because I don't really consider that a major coaster.

Neither. Tell me which of the major coasters at SFoT have a themed ride experience? The ONLY ones that come to mind are Runaway Mountain and the Runaway Mine Train. I'm talking about actual ride experience, not queue line experience. Mr. Freeze? No. Batman? No. The Titan? No. Shockwave? No. Flashback? No. THBS? No.

Read your initial post.....you didn't say "Themed Ride Experience"......you just said "where just about every ride is lacking any kind of theming". BIG DIFFERENCE. Theming to me is the entrance to the ride, queue, station, etc........

Just sayin'

Neither. Tell me which of the major coasters at SFoT have a themed ride experience? The ONLY ones that come to mind are Runaway Mountain and the Runaway Mine Train. I'm talking about actual ride experience, not queue line experience. Mr. Freeze? No. Batman? No. The Titan? No. Shockwave? No. Flashback? No. THBS? No.

 

Read your initial post.....you didn't say "Themed Ride Experience"......you just said "where just about every ride is lacking any kind of theming". BIG DIFFERENCE.

 

Just sayin'

Agreed. Sounds like the guy just has a beef with the park and is here just to bitch. Sorry dude, you picked the wrong forum.

--Robb

Yeah, I don't consider waiting in line part of the ride.

Just sayin'

Yeah, I don't consider waiting in line part of the ride.

 

Just sayin'

You'll just say anything to try to make it sound like your initial comment wasn't stupid, huh?

Flame cannons on a wooden coaster. What an excellent idea.

First off, it's a steel coaster

Unfortunatley, I think what is confusing people is that they have two signs posted at the ride, one says hybrid coaster, the other says wooden coaster for 2011.

one of the two signs, don't have a shot of the other one.

Neither. Tell me which of the major coasters at SFoT have a themed ride experience? The ONLY ones that come to mind are Runaway Mountain and the Runaway Mine Train. I'm talking about actual ride experience, not queue line experience. Mr. Freeze? No. Batman? No. The Titan? No. Shockwave? No. Flashback? No. THBS? No.

I'm pretty confident Batman is well themed, with the ride itself swopping through canyons and around wayne industries, and mr. freeze has the tunnel with lights as you launch out, that's themeing, shockwave needs no themeing, it's awesome without it

Who needs theming at a park that has PINK THINGS! Seriously, the world doesn't care about theming or the worlds steepest drop on a wooden/steel/aqua coaster when there's PINK THINGS at the park!

Jimmy "I love Pink Things" Bo

Yeah, I don't consider waiting in line part of the ride.

 

Just sayin'

Well in that case, an exceedingly few number of coasters have a "themed" experience during the actual ride; few enough for you to not whine about SFoT not having enough. Backpedal much?

Yeah, I don't consider waiting in line part of the ride.

 

Just sayin'

Sadly, most parks seem to agree. That's what makes IOA such a standout park. On a few of the rides, the queue experience is as good as or better than the ride at the end.

Neither Hulk nor Dueling Dragons (or whatever they call it now) has much in the way of theming during the ride itself, but if you can look at either of those coasters and say they aren't themed.... well... open butt, insert head. Just sayin'

I have been watching this very closely, and I must say that I am very excited to ride this when it opens. It looks like it is going to be an amazing ride compared to what it use to be!

~Matthew

A little bit of an update for everyone from last night. No Oil Derrick and it was getting dark extra early with a very over cast sky.

they put the transfer track over in the "home postition" and there seems to be a bit of a gap between the table an the rest of the course. It's going to take some big fillers to fix that.

Here is the gap at the station going onto the transfer track

in other news they have started adding rails to the old helix area

and the big news is they tracked the first big turn

we finally have a connection and this entire side of the ride looks very complete from a visual standpoint.

and as usual the graphic. The places I dont have ledgers on here are places that you cannot see at the park so I don't illustrate them, however they are very likely already installed.