verticalzero

Text from www.goerie.com Millcreek zoning group approves construction of new coaster Waldameer Park got a big boost Wednesday night when Millcreek Township's zoning board approved construction of the park's Ravine Flyer II roller coaster. The three-member board unanimously granted Waldameer owner Paul Nelson a variance to build the thrill ride on a bluff near Lake Erie, though the decision came with stringent conditions. The board said the granting of the variance hinges on Waldameer meeting a set of 17 requirements. The amusement park, among other things, must get a $15 million liability insurance policy for the ride, hold Millcreek harmless for any accidents related to the ride, plant a strip of pine trees to shield the ride from Waldameer's neighbors, and keep as many trees as possible along the coaster's path. "Whatever has to be done, has to be done," Nelson said after the Zoning Hearing Board announced its decision at the Millcreek Municipal Building. Nelson said he has dreamed of building the Ravine Flyer II since he was a boy, and he said he'll need three to four more years to erect the steel-and-wood coaster, which is designed to cross Peninsula Drive near the entrance to Presque Isle State Park. Nelson has estimated the ride will cost as much as $6 million. He said it will attract a flood of coaster enthusiasts and other new tourists to the 108-year-old Waldameer, the 11th-oldest continuously operated amusement park in the United States and 27th oldest in the world. The Ravine Flyer II is designed to resemble the original Ravine Flyer, which Waldameer dismantled more than 60 years ago and which has gained legendary status among coaster aficionados, according to the trade publication "Amusement Today." Wednesday's decision ends years of waiting for Nelson, who first announced plans for the Ravine Flyer II in the late 1990s. But the ruling does not remove the possibility of more delays. The Zoning Hearing Board granted the variance despite persistent opposition from Brian Candela, the owner of Sara Coyne Beachcomber Campground, which sits at the foot of the bluff where the coaster is designed to travel. Candela, who was not at Wednesday's meeting, has said he wants Waldameer to grow, but that the park should build the Ravine Flyer II using a design that Candela believes would be less disruptive to neighbors. Candela's lawyer for the zoning appeal, Edward Betza, attended Wednesday's meeting and said the decision disappointed him. He said he must review the ruling with Candela to decide whether to appeal to Erie County Common Pleas Court. The Zoning Hearing Board members who decided the case are Chairwoman Regina K. Smith and members Michael Martin and Robert E. Sidman. Smith read the lengthy decision, which she said the board reached after extensive deliberations during two executive sessions, or private meetings, on Monday and Tuesday with lawyer Thomas Kuhn, the board's special counsel for the Waldameer appeal. Smith said the board based its decision on four and a half hours of testimony that the members heard at a meeting on the appeal March 3. "This case has been a very difficult case for the board," Smith said. "We have truly anguished over the decision." She said the 17 conditions are meant to secure the safety of the Ravine Flyer II, preserve trees and other plants along the ride's course and protect the neighbors' peacefulness and enjoyment of their property while allowing Waldameer to use its property as the park desires. Several of the 17 conditions deal with ways Waldameer must alert motorists to the coaster or prevent them from being distracted by it. The board prohibited Waldameer from placing advertisements or other signs on the bridge that will carry the coaster across Peninsula Drive, and the board said Waldameer must place signs along Peninsula Drive that warn motorists of the coaster crossing overhead. An environmental issue was at the core of the board's ruling. The dispute was over whether Nelson, Waldameer's owner, should be allowed to build the coaster on a bluff that overlooks the base of Presque Isle State Park and, in the distance, Lake Erie. State law and a Millcreek ordinance define that bluff as hazardous and off-limits to construction. Township officials more than two years ago asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to issue a report that would better define bluff hazards on Lake Erie, including the spot where the coaster would go. The township hoped the report would help guide officials as they tried to decide whether to let Nelson go ahead with his plans. The state has yet to issue the report, so Nelson sought the variance from the Zoning Hearing Board. The board members agreed that the coaster was to be built on a bluff, though they granted the variance and attached the conditions. Smith said the board found that the bluff, while it meets the definition of a bluff under the law, is less a cliff and more of a "non-precipitous slope that could accommodate the proposed structure." The board also noted the DEP's lack of a ruling or involvement in the zoning hearing on the Ravine Flyer II. ------------------------------------------------- The art of a roller coaster starts with the cars. At Waldameer Park & Water World, where they've sunk the anchors for the Ravine Flyer II, that meant a call to the Philadelphia Toboggan Co. PTC built the Comet, the park's 1951 coaster. The company's steel-wheeled cars would have to manage the path of the 2,900-foot Ravine Flyer II, which will travel twice as far as the Comet in the same 90 seconds. "We base a lot of our drawings on what the cars can do," said Larry Bill, who designed the ride, which will bridge Peninsula Drive. "That as much as anything defines the scope of a wooden coaster." That and the owner. Paul Nelson has wanted this particular roller coaster since 1945. He was 11 then, and just starting at the park. "We used to have breakfast with the owners," Nelson said. "We would talk about the past and about the future of the park, and that always came up." It had to. Roller coasters are the skylines of amusement rides. They draw people to the park. Consider Santa Claus Land, a park in southern Indiana. They had 300,000 visitors in the summer of 1991. A name change and the opening of two coasters, including the 67-mph Voyage -- another Larry Bill design -- helped sell more than a million tickets in 2006. That was not lost on Nelson, who saw roughly 400,000 people last summer at Waldameer, which opens its 2007 season today. He has long wanted a classic big wooden track, a muscled-up homage to Waldameer's first bridge coaster, which opened in 1922. That Ravine Flyer operated until 1938, when a rider fell to his death. After that, the bridge came down. The station became the Lakeview Grove picnic pavilion. The new track starts just across from it, behind the Wipeout. It will climb 80 feet -- clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack -- crest with a few-seconds view of the lake and then barrel down the bluff and across Peninsula Drive. That feature all but stopped it. Nelson fought nearly 10 years for the zoning change the bridge required. He also squabbled with a condominium association and the owners of the Sara Coyne Campground. Now it's Larry Bill's problem. "We've gone over roads before," said the designer, a senior partner at the Ohio-based Gravity Group. "But not with this big a bridge." The steel arch will stretch 161 feet, reaching to an acre adjacent to the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. The coaster will open in 2008. The yellow-pine track will duck under four tunnels and reach a high speed of 57 mph. At the moment, though, the coaster is a foam-and-cardboard model in Nelson's office. It's a hillside stripped of trees. It's three dozen steel anchors, the engineers' equivalent of an iceberg: I-beam tripods, their bottoms hammered 63 feet into the ground. It's that and a $6 million invoice. "This park is like your wife," Nelson grumbled. "It knows if you've got a dime. And it wants it." Bill's team keeps tweaking the design. There are crossovers and bank angles and 10 spots of bunny-hop air time. "There's a lot of dishwashing to the job," he said. "No question about it. But it's exciting, creating something, making a ride out of nothing. And that's what we're doing with Waldameer. We're giving them back that signature attraction." He has a pretty good picture of it. "You're going to be up above the trees, looking out at the lake, and then you'll be diving over that hill. And that's when it will really get exciting." As a kid, Bill rode the coaster at Coney Island. Now, at 54, he mostly rides his own designs. The Ravine Flyer II is number 35. Even then, he said, he prefers to eye the exit line. "Just being there, watching people come off the ramp, laughing, having a good day. ... For me, that's a real nice time." ---------------------------------------------------- It's so nice to hear about a Park which gets it's sig ride back after all the years of planning and destroying the original coaster. I'm going to visit the park when I pass through onto Cedar Point next year.

Text from www.goerie.com Millcreek zoning group approves construction of new coaster Waldameer Park got a big boost Wednesday night when Millcreek Township's zoning board approved construction of the park's Ravine Flyer II roller coaster. The three-member board unanimously granted Waldameer owner Paul Nelson a variance to build the thrill ride on a bluff near Lake Erie, though the decision came with stringent conditions. The board said the granting of the variance hinges on Waldameer meeting a set of 17 requirements. The amusement park, among other things, must get a $15 million liability insurance policy for the ride, hold Millcreek harmless for any accidents related to the ride, plant a strip of pine trees to shield the ride from Waldameer's neighbors, and keep as many trees as possible along the coaster's path. "Whatever has to be done, has to be done," Nelson said after the Zoning Hearing Board announced its decision at the Millcreek Municipal Building. Nelson said he has dreamed of building the Ravine Flyer II since he was a boy, and he said he'll need three to four more years to erect the steel-and-wood coaster, which is designed to cross Peninsula Drive near the entrance to Presque Isle State Park. Nelson has estimated the ride will cost as much as $6 million. He said it will attract a flood of coaster enthusiasts and other new tourists to the 108-year-old Waldameer, the 11th-oldest continuously operated amusement park in the United States and 27th oldest in the world. The Ravine Flyer II is designed to resemble the original Ravine Flyer, which Waldameer dismantled more than 60 years ago and which has gained legendary status among coaster aficionados, according to the trade publication "Amusement Today." Wednesday's decision ends years of waiting for Nelson, who first announced plans for the Ravine Flyer II in the late 1990s. But the ruling does not remove the possibility of more delays. The Zoning Hearing Board granted the variance despite persistent opposition from Brian Candela, the owner of Sara Coyne Beachcomber Campground, which sits at the foot of the bluff where the coaster is designed to travel. Candela, who was not at Wednesday's meeting, has said he wants Waldameer to grow, but that the park should build the Ravine Flyer II using a design that Candela believes would be less disruptive to neighbors. Candela's lawyer for the zoning appeal, Edward Betza, attended Wednesday's meeting and said the decision disappointed him. He said he must review the ruling with Candela to decide whether to appeal to Erie County Common Pleas Court. The Zoning Hearing Board members who decided the case are Chairwoman Regina K. Smith and members Michael Martin and Robert E. Sidman. Smith read the lengthy decision, which she said the board reached after extensive deliberations during two executive sessions, or private meetings, on Monday and Tuesday with lawyer Thomas Kuhn, the board's special counsel for the Waldameer appeal. Smith said the board based its decision on four and a half hours of testimony that the members heard at a meeting on the appeal March 3. "This case has been a very difficult case for the board," Smith said. "We have truly anguished over the decision." She said the 17 conditions are meant to secure the safety of the Ravine Flyer II, preserve trees and other plants along the ride's course and protect the neighbors' peacefulness and enjoyment of their property while allowing Waldameer to use its property as the park desires. Several of the 17 conditions deal with ways Waldameer must alert motorists to the coaster or prevent them from being distracted by it. The board prohibited Waldameer from placing advertisements or other signs on the bridge that will carry the coaster across Peninsula Drive, and the board said Waldameer must place signs along Peninsula Drive that warn motorists of the coaster crossing overhead. An environmental issue was at the core of the board's ruling. The dispute was over whether Nelson, Waldameer's owner, should be allowed to build the coaster on a bluff that overlooks the base of Presque Isle State Park and, in the distance, Lake Erie. State law and a Millcreek ordinance define that bluff as hazardous and off-limits to construction. Township officials more than two years ago asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to issue a report that would better define bluff hazards on Lake Erie, including the spot where the coaster would go. The township hoped the report would help guide officials as they tried to decide whether to let Nelson go ahead with his plans. The state has yet to issue the report, so Nelson sought the variance from the Zoning Hearing Board. The board members agreed that the coaster was to be built on a bluff, though they granted the variance and attached the conditions. Smith said the board found that the bluff, while it meets the definition of a bluff under the law, is less a cliff and more of a "non-precipitous slope that could accommodate the proposed structure." The board also noted the DEP's lack of a ruling or involvement in the zoning hearing on the Ravine Flyer II. ------------------------------------------------- The art of a roller coaster starts with the cars. At Waldameer Park & Water World, where they've sunk the anchors for the Ravine Flyer II, that meant a call to the Philadelphia Toboggan Co. PTC built the Comet, the park's 1951 coaster. The company's steel-wheeled cars would have to manage the path of the 2,900-foot Ravine Flyer II, which will travel twice as far as the Comet in the same 90 seconds. "We base a lot of our drawings on what the cars can do," said Larry Bill, who designed the ride, which will bridge Peninsula Drive. "That as much as anything defines the scope of a wooden coaster." That and the owner. Paul Nelson has wanted this particular roller coaster since 1945. He was 11 then, and just starting at the park. "We used to have breakfast with the owners," Nelson said. "We would talk about the past and about the future of the park, and that always came up." It had to. Roller coasters are the skylines of amusement rides. They draw people to the park. Consider Santa Claus Land, a park in southern Indiana. They had 300,000 visitors in the summer of 1991. A name change and the opening of two coasters, including the 67-mph Voyage -- another Larry Bill design -- helped sell more than a million tickets in 2006. That was not lost on Nelson, who saw roughly 400,000 people last summer at Waldameer, which opens its 2007 season today. He has long wanted a classic big wooden track, a muscled-up homage to Waldameer's first bridge coaster, which opened in 1922. That Ravine Flyer operated until 1938, when a rider fell to his death. After that, the bridge came down. The station became the Lakeview Grove picnic pavilion. The new track starts just across from it, behind the Wipeout. It will climb 80 feet -- clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack -- crest with a few-seconds view of the lake and then barrel down the bluff and across Peninsula Drive. That feature all but stopped it. Nelson fought nearly 10 years for the zoning change the bridge required. He also squabbled with a condominium association and the owners of the Sara Coyne Campground. Now it's Larry Bill's problem. "We've gone over roads before," said the designer, a senior partner at the Ohio-based Gravity Group. "But not with this big a bridge." The steel arch will stretch 161 feet, reaching to an acre adjacent to the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. The coaster will open in 2008. The yellow-pine track will duck under four tunnels and reach a high speed of 57 mph. At the moment, though, the coaster is a foam-and-cardboard model in Nelson's office. It's a hillside stripped of trees. It's three dozen steel anchors, the engineers' equivalent of an iceberg: I-beam tripods, their bottoms hammered 63 feet into the ground. It's that and a $6 million invoice. "This park is like your wife," Nelson grumbled. "It knows if you've got a dime. And it wants it." Bill's team keeps tweaking the design. There are crossovers and bank angles and 10 spots of bunny-hop air time. "There's a lot of dishwashing to the job," he said. "No question about it. But it's exciting, creating something, making a ride out of nothing. And that's what we're doing with Waldameer. We're giving them back that signature attraction." He has a pretty good picture of it. "You're going to be up above the trees, looking out at the lake, and then you'll be diving over that hill. And that's when it will really get exciting." As a kid, Bill rode the coaster at Coney Island. Now, at 54, he mostly rides his own designs. The Ravine Flyer II is number 35. Even then, he said, he prefers to eye the exit line. "Just being there, watching people come off the ramp, laughing, having a good day. ... For me, that's a real nice time." ---------------------------------------------------- It's so nice to hear about a Park which gets it's sig ride back after all the years of planning and destroying the original coaster. I'm going to visit the park when I pass through onto Cedar Point next year.

Lovely Pic's Nicole, Did your friend have a Hang n Bang for her 1st upside down coaster...? if yes very brave.

When people say "poppet"

This includes the PS3. Current Blu-ray players will be rendered obsolete by the end of the year. The Blu-ray disc association, in an effort to realize the hitherto unseen potential of the format, has mandated that all BD players going on sale after October 31 must offer fully-functioning BD Java, in order to deliver PIP interactivity

I got Wii Play and Wii Sports. 6,00 Will Points, extra numchuck,controller and a game pad for £230

My Wii Number is: 6528479991349223

I bought a Wii today, they are so cool and fun to play.

Lovely photo's of Weerwolf (which gives a great ride considering it is a Vekoma) and of the other rides The water should be clean and not smell of anything. I tried to go on the kiddy coaster but was not allowed. I enjoyed my day last year, "Turbine" opened at mid-day, I had to hit the front seat and was thinking of good old "Thunderlooper" at AT. If the Parks are not busy, the Ops should let anyone who wants a re-ride to stay on the train and not walk round the Qing area. They allow this at Walibi World and Heide-Park. I always ask to stay in / change my seat when it's not busy. ----------------------------------------------------------- The only only major problem at WB is the "Indoor Water Park", the speedo wearing law was fine, it was just the amount of Chlorine they put in the water, after 10 mins your eyes went red and your skin was slightly burning and very dry. I thought the Chorine was bad enough in English swimming pools, but this pool was very bad, so watch out. The swimming pools at Centre Parc's in Holland did not have any chorine in or very little, this made the am or pm much more enjoyable.. Keep us updated on Vertigo

Torch the whole layout and start again, this time with a better designer and a fun not so "rough" layout. I'm sure KI has another 35 hectars to put this ride into, or build it so it entwings in and out of the the Beast's layout. I have not been on the new lighter trains, PTC should build a set or 2 for Cedar Fair. It ran brakeless when I rode it back in 2000, but the lift-hill was so loud, KI should be forced to change the safety dogs so you can't hear the ride while riding SOB's dad.

The park looks very nice Don't employ that company which built "SOB" otherwise Paramount will have loads of problems.

Glad the "Blue Streak" was not damaged. You could chop the fallen trees up and replace some of the track n supports for the coaster. At last an award, but this will still not save the coaster: ACE has awarded the park’s Blue Streak wooden coaster status as an ACE Roller Coaster Landmark..

Great photo's keep em coming, I agree the "Blue Streak" should be a National Lankmark like the "Cyclone" in NYC. It would be saved if the park ever closes for good.

I 2nd "Blue Streak" to open 1st

It's a Dumb Blonds day. I'l do "Tidal Wave" at TP naked.

I use my Sony Ericsson cell phone, it has a 3.2 mega pixel camera.

Mighty fine looking, I wanna give it a big "hug"

There is a way to log on to the USA PS3 Store and download all of the playable demo's and video's which are not on the European PS3 store. You can do this with the Japanese PS3 store as well. I have over 20 playable demo's.

The wooden "Wild Mouse" at Southport is 1 of 3 left in the world, it should really be saved for our heritage, AT can put it in the ex "Black Hole" tent. It seems like most coaster fans from the USA don't care what happens to our rides over in England. The fact is, the Cyclone was part of England’s coaster scene for over 50 years, It was a disgrace to see it being destroyed. England does not have many wooden coasters left and they need to be put as a Grade 1 listed status asap. It's like saying trash "Phoenix" and "Leap The Dips" on your side. --------------------------------------------------------------- Someone should erect a statue of Amanda Thompson, and allow us all to chuck whatever at the statue! It would get rid of a lot of frustration.

Parks will do anything to get their new ride noticed to the outside world. Infusion is 109ft high, 49.7mph and 2,260ft long. SLC Standard. BPB says PMBO is 235ft high above "sea-level" really it's 213ft with a 205ft drop so "SilverStar" wins as the Highest coaster in Europe. Sea-level height does not count and if it did how high would be "Cliff Hanger" ex "Red Devil" in Ghost Town in the Sky and the "High Roller" in Las Vagas..?

From Screamscape. Screamscape has just learned that a fire broke out inside the park’s Droomvlucht (Dreamflight) suspended dark ride attraction either Sunday or Monday. Emergency teams were able to put out the fire within five minutes and no guests were injured other than a little exposure to smoke. From what I understand, this was an electrial fire caused by a short-circuit in one of the control boxes. No word on when the attraction will be up and running again. ------------------------------------------------------------- I am so glad the fire services put this out as quickly as possible, it is my fav dark ride and to loose this would be un-forgivable. No pic's of the damage yet

Always visit a Theme Park in England before June or after the 2nd week in Sept, this way the kiddies "should" be at school and the Q time will be less than 1/2 hour for each ride. I tend to go to AT in Oct, don't care if it rains as this makes the Q time shorter and I can wear goggles on the rides.

That ride is not for me as I would freak out and not feel 100% safe

You won't find a better view across a Park while riding the S&S Swing then this one. Was "Balder" fixed quickly..?

The Video is suppose to be funny that's all.