MagicMountainMan

I doubt those other movies were shoved down your throat as much as Frozen's presence at the parks. I'm completely fine with Frozen being in the parks, like the other Disney movies such as Lion King and Snow White, but I don't want to be suffocated by Frozen s**t when I visit the parks. Funny you should mention Lion King because in the mid 90s when the movie came out there was an entire parade dedicated to the movie! It's corporate synergy, a concept that Michael Eisner perfected in the 90s. It's smart business, makes them money, and most of Disney's core demographic eats it up. For all of you that hate Frozen, just be glad that it doesn't have it's own parade.

Well the trend has been and will continue to be 'big' year followed by 'little' year (tick tock). Even with their special events like Fright Fest and Holiday In The Park they are adding big stuff every other year.

Is it too early to claim RMC as THE premiere roller coaster manufacturer in the world right now? Seriously every single project they have done, every single one, looks fantastic. This is no exception. I rode Roar a summer ago and wasn't overly enamored with it, but boy am I in love with this!

I am completely happy with this, good job Six Flags! Hopefully they restore the original entrance to the ride and burn down the Cupacabra maze that currently sits there...

You're correct, Great Adventure will be getting a live show experience similar to Full Throttle Nights at Magic Mountain. Personally, I find the show a lot of fun! (Although I'm incredibly biased) Haven't been to Great Adventure in quite a few years, but this new coaster looks pretty neat. Anything besides a Six Flags neutered Zac Spin is a good thing!

My bets are on a Revolution restoration as well. Saw the lead Revolution car backstage being cleaned though yesterday, so not sure if they're setting the lead car up for a photo op like they did with Colossus last year or actually refurbishing the train which which means no Revolution restoration. Guess we will find out in a few hours! It's honestly nice to not know for once what the park will be doing.

I'm honestly surprised we haven't heard anything this year as well. There was a rumor floating around internally that Cyclone Bay would be the next area to get some much needed TLC, but I was under the impression that it would be happening next year, not this year. I'm kind of looking forward to being surprised for once, even if it's something small. Surprises are fun.

I'm not sure honestly, I've heard it's the type of the wood and is really easily sun bleached. I've also heard it's fire treatment that bleached the wood. Don't really know for sure.

I think the problem with Apocalypse is a combination of them using wood that has no business in the arid climate of the SCV along with the park doing virtually no retracking... They literally water the entire ride every morning before the park opens to help the wood (which it clearly hasn't much).

The sky turned orange for a bit but the wind probably changed direction as that's no longer the case. Hopefully the fire gets contained quickly...

How exactly does the park have plenty of room to expand? Unless they go further into the parking lot, they are going to have to start taking out rides.

So Lex Luthor is testing right now! Must have gotten that part pretty quickly.

Expedition GeForce

A family style coaster would/could be a nice addition to the park... They already have 4 coasters in Bugs Bunny World/Whistle Stop Park. I don't think they need any more kiddie coasters... A nice, long "family" coaster would be nice but it's just not Magic Mountain's demographic. They market rides based on gimmicks and I don't think "World's Longest Family Roller Coaster" would win any corporate directors over.

Yes and no, Superman's main wheels are either nylon or polyurethane. The reason Superman is so loud is because the guide wheels (that are oddly enough run on the middle of the track) are steel. Interestingly enough, the left track of Superman that just reopened features newly installed middle guide track on the ascent up the tower which has made the left side noticeably quieter. You can actually hear where the new guide track ends and the old remains on the left side.

That's what was in the photo I referred to two posts earlier, a crane with the chain hanging from it. Whoops! Can't see certain photos on Tapatalk, sorry!

There is a crane at Goliath so good news!

They quite literally took the left over paint from Scream and painted just the outside of Tornado.

Honestly, as far as dispatching trains goes, I never really quite realized and appreciated just how bad Magic Mountain is at ride operations until I went to Europa Park a few weeks ago. Seriously, forget the Discovery orientation class when you get hired, just make the new hires watch a video of the Europa Park crews dispatching trains. It was beautiful. On Blue Fire there were only two people outside of the control booth and both would check restraints once gates closed. There was one person manning the control panel. There was one person acting as grouper for the line. 4 people in total in the ENTIRE STATION and it was absolute clockwork. Even with loose articles (don't even get me started on their brilliant loose articles bins that automatically opened and closed) and people sucking at being a functional human being, they would STILL pump trains out every 30 seconds. It was phenomenal. Granted there were no mind melting, brain teasing, confusion devices to buckle (seat belts) on Blue Fire which helped speed things up a bit, but still, I was blown away. They made it look easy, which it should be but yet at Magic Mountain it isn't. Sorry for the rant, but Europa Park's operations were incredible. Magic Mountain is the antitheses of that. I need to go to Europe more... I always thought that the reason Psyclone was so rough was due to damage from an Earthquake. You would be correct. It was the Northridge Earthquake.

I don't believe you. That ride sounds like a freight train on steroids that you can hear from friggin' Anaheim. There's no cure for that. Left side is quieter. Stand under it and find out for yourself.

That's odd. You'd think the new cars would be lighter and put less stress on the track. Guess not. Just clarifying, they weren't replacing the main I-beams the track rides on, they were replacing the middle guide rail. The one that makes all the noise... Although supposedly due to the new guide rail it's now noticeably quieter. Edit: Just listened to the ride, it's really obvious where they replaced the middle rail. It's mercifully not very loud.

Yeah, off season maintenance on the track. There were days in the dead of the off season where they had a crane removing sections of the middle track piece and replacing it.

So Superman finally has both sides running again. It was supposed to be running both sides for the beginning of the summer crowds, but well... At least the left side is up again...

Wow I was just at the park as well! (Last Friday) Sky Fly wasn't open when I went, not sure why. But I concur on your thoughts about Expedition GeForce! It was a ton of fun!

I understand some teething problems, but Twisted Colossus is a mess. Kind of makes me wonder if Six Flags hurts themselves by designing all of the ride control systems in house... I really don't have any idea and I'm not an engineer, but even the guys in ops and maintenance are frustrated with how temperamental the ride has been.