peteb

More condo development in NJ is not "what the people want" it's what the builders want because they can build shoddy overpriced homes and walk away with a boatload of money. It's irresponsible to build homes out on a pier; didn't this guy here of Katrina? We get some pretty powerful noreasters in NJ. The local government will most likely try to stop this but unfortnately large developers like Toll Brothers have way too much money and political lobby be stopped in NJ . How about a shopping mall too while we're at it?

SFGADV will show everyone the proper way to turn a #1 ride into a hulk of garbage while turning the park over to thugs at the same time. This park will never change. It's the same pattern; blow tons of money on a few really expensive rides while the rest fall apart or get taken down; then ignore all the problems that have made this a ghetto park for years like security, maintenance, and atmospnere.

SF GADV is one of the worst parks for line cutting. The typical thing that happens is a bunch a loud mouths push up through the line saying they're meeting up with a friend which is always a lie. If you try to stop them you're taking a risk since there is rarely any security in some of the longer queues to back you up. Six Flags shouldn't let the punks control the ride lines; what good are rules if they only hurt the people who abide by them.

SF GADV was so worried about saving a few bucks on their first of a kind in the USA multi million dollar coaster that they totally screwed up the ride throughput by recycling the crap station from Viper. The Intamin engineers must have been laughing when they were told, " We want you to design us a record breaking coaster around this station from a 1995 TOGO coaster" This coaster screams for a dual track loading setup, but then again they would have had to take down the beautiful old Viper station...

Between 4 and 5 g's on this ride? Is this right? Seems a bit high for a Disney ride. I've never been on RnR, can anyone confirm the G forces.

Knoebel's Phoenix at night is incredible; lots of air, floater and ejector, smooth as glass ride. And it's only got a 72 foot drop. This ride is as good as wooden coasters get. The PTC cars give you lots of room to get safely tossed around as well.

Hersheypark is only underated by people who think parks need to have the tallest and fastest of whatever to be good. Hershey is one of the best amusement park experiences out there; the management knows what type of crowd comes to Hershey and what they expect and take care of them. They don't need record breakers to draw a crowd; they just need to keep making solid ride choices as they have done for many years. Because Storm Runner was never intended to be a record breaker, it stands on it's own as an excellent, reliable ride and will for years to come as record breakers come and go.

If you're a train fan, the Pioneer train is a relaxing ride that goes out pretty far into the woods and under Twister and the Ol Smokey train is a real steam engine and fun as well. I wouldn't miss a thing if I were you; it's such a great and relaxing park. I would reccomend riding as many old classic rides just because you won't find them anywhere else, like the bumper cars and high speed thrill coaster.

GASM at SFGADV is getting to be unrideable, but it hasn't always been this way. I've been on it after the trains have been overhauled and it can seem like a different ride. However I won't sit here and bash Arrow rides; remember these rides were developed in the 70's (Corkscrews) and 80's (megaloopers). They were early innovators in steel coaster design; that's why there are so many out there; unfortunately they didn't take their designs to another level after their initial success.

Thanks: I'll keep trying. I've tried differrent ISP's (work,home) and I can't get through even with security off. Hmmm...

I tried to visit the URC site over the past few weeks with no response. Anyone know if Eric Gieszl shut down this site?

I have to agree with you on this one. I love Intamin rides, but I don't consider them smooth. B&M's are smooth. I've had my head bashed on Storm Runner over and over. Intamins break, bash heads, shake and rattle like many other manufacturers rides. They're definitely a good company, but probably have a much better reputation than they deserve. With that said, I still can't wait to get on El Toro.

There's nothing similar about Wild Thing's or SD 2000's accidents nor is there anything similar about the coasters: completely different track styles and completely different chassis and braking systems so the decision to reopen would be completely independent.

A rider interviewed for AP stated they heard scraping and metal grinding before they turned around and saw the derailed car, but it's not clear if the failure occurred before the brake run or in the brake run and sheered the wheel assembly off. These chassis have run without fail for over ten years now, so whether it's a design aging/fatigue problem vs. some other series of compounding events failure analysis engineers will need to determine. I wouldn't be so quick to condemn all Morgan rides at this point; their coasters have had excellent safety records. There are plenty of coasters out there that lose and seize wheels, we just don't always hear about them unless they cause injury. Can you imagine if people were on Kingda Ka, that most perfect of Intamin creations, when it grinded to a sudden halt on the launch? Lots of bad injuries. There are a lot of big, powerful rides that have been built over the past 10-15 years that will start to see effects of stress, fatigue, and aging. You just hope maintenance procedures are good enough to catch these problems or the realistic service life of these ride systems is understood.

Any coaster built on top of a parking lot is ugly. I can't understand making a multi million dollar investment on a coaster with no attempt to remove or even disguise the parking area below. Just cheap and lazy as if the setting doesn't matter.

What's interesting about S&S wood coasters is that Alan Schilke is one of the main designers (creator of X from Arrow). I read an interview with him talking about the design of J2, and you'll see his name on the mechanical drawing of Avalanche on RCDB. He seems to be a pretty talented engineer; these are amazing coasters, even more so considering these are his first wooden coasters.

This ride should be rock solid; huge supports and double backbone track the whole way. Hopefully there are improvements in the chassis as well; this ride could be significantly better than X. Excellent Photos !

I wonder if some of the odd looking transitions were designed that way on purpose or if we're seeing limit to how accurately you can build all these track contours on site crafting the track by hand. Some of these more complicated track sections (that were most likely precisely designed on a computer) need equally precise manufacture to be realized properly. I hope this turns out to be a great ride, but if it's rough and has problems and El Toro turns out smooth as glass we could be seeing a shift in how wood coasters are built in the future.

BBW at night, last car, final drop toward the river. The pull from the rest of the train flings the car on it's side to start the drop; just awesome. Top Gun at PKI to me seems really smooth and refined; can ride this thing over and over since there's never a line. I'd love to see either of these with either the OTSR's removed or new open floorless trains. It's hard to believe no suspended coasters have been built in years. The swinging train motions just are just so unique, you can't compare them to any other style coaster.

I agree with the author's feelings on preservation on restoration; the fact that Tommorowland and attractions such as Carrousel of Progress became somewhat dated is what makes them interesting. It's fascinating to see past predictions of the future; what came to pass and what was way off the mark; that's the wild imagination that created Disney in the first place. I always appreciated what engineers of these attractions were able to create with a with what technology was available at the time. I think Disney needs to think about preserving their history while still advancing ride technology. You can't just change or get rid of things just because they're old (like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride).

That is interesting that Steve Okamoto and Larson are listed as designer/builder. Does anyone know if he no longer works for Chance/Morgan designing coasters?

I think it would be tough to lump all wood coasters together for comparison; it's well known that poorly designed wood coasters such as Hercules (RIP) were maintenance nightmares since they tore themselves apart whereby higher quality rides such as Lightning Racer do not. It's also true that parks that take better care of their rides ultimately spend less on repair/replacement. (Knoebels for example) The same is true for steel coasters. The reliability and maintenance costs/requirements for a B&M sit down or an Arrow Corkscrew (both super reliable) are much different than say, X or an Intamin Accelerator.

You think they would be a little more careful the way they just pile up all the old track and supports; what a contrast compared to new construction. What's a little bump in the track here or there.

I think GCI projects get overshadowed by bigger coasters on spec, but I really love the quality of these rides from the structure to the trains. This will be another ride that proves bigger isn't better. Thanks for the great pictures.

I can't see this being much more of a liability than a wave swinger, except this adds the fear factor. I think you would only have to worry about somebody getting to the top, freaking and passing out, slumping over and getting chucked. Anyone know what type of retraint, if any, they use on this. Is it anything more than the chain and clippy between the legs?