goatdan

So... question that I thought of when looking at that lift hill standing so tall... all by itself. Is this the tallest coaster to have ever been destroyed? Or fastest? Or longest? While ride removals aren't that rare of a thing, this seems rather unprecedented in size. Sorry if this was already answered and I missed it.

When Boomerangs first came out, I was really gung-ho to ride them and somehow never ended up at the parks that had them. That luck all changed, and in pretty short order I rode about a half dozen of them... ...I think that a lot of people don't remember that when these came out, pretty much all steel coasters had some hurt to them. For the most part, they are no worse and are probably better than most of those. The biggest thing is they do pack a huge thrill punch in a very tiny space. I'll admit to really loving the sound of them operating. At one point, I got to hang out near SFDK's for a while, and I loved the soundtrack that it provided. The overall ride experience doesn't hold up to the brand new rides today, but I don't dislike them at all and would be happy to ride them more. They also have a really solid capacity. On the flip side, (I just realized this is an inadvertent pun) I didn't care so much for the Invertigo versions that I got to ride. The GIBs were a nifty concept, but they weren't nifty enough for them to make sense - they didn't get enough people through them to make sense at the big parks, and they were too big and costly for the small parks. Interesting concept, but not worth the wait in my opinion. As others have said, I'm continually surprised that no one else seemed to jump on the bandwagon and produce another similar model of ride to the Boomerangs in the late 80s especially. If they could just come up with something, it's a concept that I think could still sell well today to parks that had both space and cost concerns.

Buzz Price actually took a sort of fascinating look at this in his book a few years ago, and essentially he concluded that additions and the amount of money that is spent on them have seemingly no impact on overall guest attendance. His conclusion was essentially that there is no direct correlation between how much is invested, and how that investment does. His argument was that it was *how* that investment was done and promoted that really matters. I think that the big correlation between new additions should be what sort of capacity they have, and if they are a decent ride or not. When you have a pretty well-attended park, putting in a ride that cannot service the majority of the guests in the park in a given day is just a strange decision to me. The most important part of the capital investment is the promotion of it, and if the most important promotion - word of mouth - says that they didn't ride the new ride because the line was too long, it greatly reduces the potential that expenditure has to generate additional sales from people who want to figure it out. It seems that a lot of the investments by Six Flags in the past couple years that aren't retrofits have been low-capacity. Having said that, knowing roughly what Six Flags St Louis' attendance is, it's actually probably about right for attendance. Since it's not a super amazing ride, I agree that it won't do tons... but, it's definitely better than nothing.

I've never been on Hades, as I haven't been to the park since I was there in about 2003 and they managed to... ...dispatch a train halfway out of the station before realizing that no one ever got near it to check the harnesses (we had literally just sat down). - and - ...tell us to check our own harnesses and give them a thumbs up when we were ready for the ride to go. I've only ever had one other issue half as glaring at another park, and these both happened in the same day. I've been to the Dells since then, and I've rode other things there, but never even thought about going back. This sounds interesting, but what I've heard about the operations... I still think I won't be heading back any time soon.

I know I'm *way* late to this party, but wanted to stop by to toss in my two cents on Son of Beast... I'm totally going to miss it. I loved the ride... ...but, not for the ride itself. I remember when it came out noting that every big wooden coaster was in no ways popular shortly after it came out. The way they were constructed, at least up until that point, meant that flexed during the ride. If you watch the structures of wooden coasters, you'll see them flex as a train goes by. On something small, where the forces and stress is relatively minimal, it isn't a big deal. When you get big, there aren't many big wooden coasters that have much of a reputation for being smooth or fun. Son of Beast looked absolutely beautiful. I still think it may have been the most photogenic wooden coaster ever built. I loved the curve of the wood from the top of the hill to the first drop. The idea for the first huge helix seemed awesome too. I love the ride for one reason, and one reason only and that is both times that I rode it, it was a highlight of the trips that I was on with some of my best friends. These were just-out-of-high-school road trips, and the first one we rode Son of Beast on the day it reopened, on it's first public train after it's little issue in it's first season. It was actually smooth that day, believe it or not. I heard that it was already riding pretty poorly later that day. The next year King's Island was again on our itinerary, and we all hit SOB and reminisced about our good luck in hitting it that day and getting to ride it. By that point, as a ride, it pretty much sucked. I'll always remember Son of Beast as a ride that was the pinnacle of luck on one of my most favorite trips with friends that I'll have ever taken, and it's a ride I'll only view through rose-colored glasses now. Rest in peace, hunk of junk. I'll miss you. Oh, and for the record I've been to KI many times because I've got relatives in Cincinnati, and we used to visit them and also go to the park. I've hated the regular Beast since I first rode it probably about 25 years ago now. Oddly, I love Flight of Fear, and loved it most as Outer Limits: Flight of Fear with the OTSH and dead stop on the block break. Yeah, I'm not normal

Here's the thing about the walkaway part of it though that made me think it was more of a "checked brain" then a "fame / fortune". When the guy asks the cameraman to put the camera down (at 0:49), the cameraman fumbles with it for a minute, seems to spin around, perhaps looking for the exit and (and this is the important part) doesn't focus back on the train or scene at all. No "from the exit" shots as he is walking away. No just kinda toss my camera back in the direction of the trains for a couple seconds. None of that. He films his feet for about 15 seconds as he walks away. Sure, he's walking about -- but what else do we want him doing? Running in a panic wouldn't do anything, he clearly isn't going to be helping anything by staying up there, he's just listening to the cast member -- and on the first time. When the CM repeats "out out out!" and he spins around, it looks like the CM directed the photographer, who could very well be getting off in that station for the first time, or could be confused as if he should leave through the entrance or the exit.

It would basically be impossible to compare Disney to the SF / CF chain. One of the reasons that they would probably automatically have a higher rate of large scale accidents that is operator / operations error than rider error is because of the type of rides that they have. While it is still dangerous, hopping off a dark ride mid ride would 99 times out of 100 be a lot less catastrophic than, say, hopping out of an coaster during the ride. Accidents on any amusement rides get TONS of attention because of how rare they are. I heard today that on an average day, the monorail system moves 150,000 riders. That's over 54 million riders per year. EPCOT Center opened 27 years ago, so even at a conservative estimate, it has had over 1 billion riders since then. According to another site that had a timeline of monorail issues, there have been 12 people hospitalized due to something happening on a monorail trip, and now one person killed. That means (if I calculated correctly) that you have a one in one billion chance of having a fatality, and a one in 83,333,333 chance of being hospitalized from your ride on the monorail. With a quick glance at some airline statistics at another site, there have been approximately 143,500,000 flights from 1970-2005, of which there were 59 fatal accidents. That means every 2,432,203 flights end tragically. It also means that monorails are approximately 411 times safer to ride than airplanes. Amusement rides and attractions are *incredibly* safe, and I'm sure that Disney will find a way to make the monorail system even safer now that this has occurred.

If the entire point of running an investigation is to figure out what caused it, why immediately shut down SOB until you are sure you can point at it? And I really don't get where I'm trying to negatively judge the injured woman from -- I'm wondering what she said or did that the park believed it enough to shut down a ride that they believed was operating totally normally immediately, weeks after she had rode it. I agree that SOB makes itself the obvious culprit, but again -- what I'm interested in is finding out why the park shut it down over two weeks later, before the state asked them too. Otherwise, can this set a precedent that any rough wooden coaster (Ghostrider and Mean Streak come to mind) can be blamed and shut down for any similar hospitalization trip even weeks after the person has rode? In all the cases that you have presented, parks immediately shut down rides because the problem happened immediately. Shutting down a ride believed to be operating normally over two weeks after an incident (that I had assumed they didn't know about until then, more on this in a second) point to something different to me. If it happens all the time, can anyone think of *any* other time that a park ran a ride for a lengthy period and felt it was operating normally, and then immediately shut it down for an incident that had occurred earlier? I tried to find any examples of that, and I cannot find any times that an operating ride was closed weeks after someone claimed an incident on the ride. The closest I could find was a few hours of operation afterwards. There is one possibility that I thought of in both reading your replies and writing this one that I bet is what really happened: The person riding got off the ride, got first aid at the park and was dispatched from there. Two weeks later, it was found out that she had this issue, which would be why they could trace it *immediately* back to SOB specifically, leading to the shutdown of it. And seriously, I have no issues with the woman -- she *obviously* is believable enough to cause Cedar Fair to shut down a huge attraction, so that makes me believe there is something to it. If it wasn't a believable incident, I can't imagine Cedar Fair just shutting down the ride. If you called your local park and told them their coaster hurt you, I really doubt it would automatically trigger a state investigation. There has to be something there -- and like I said, the timeframe thing here is the interesting part to me. Having said all that, with the hypothesis two paragraphs above, I've now come up with something I can think.

I agree with your possibility here, however if this happens immediately like this, why does no one think to inform the park for over two weeks? Generally, people don't go to an amusement park alone, and even if she did, on her way to the hospital or when talking to a doctor at the hospital, you would think she would have said that it started after a ride on Son of Beast. And then the park would have been contacted. Like I said, we don't know the answer. I'm not defending Son of Beast because yeah, it sucks and I wouldn't deny it could do this with someone. But even your scenario that sounds quite plausible still doesn't explain the two week delay in the ride being shut down. I'm wondering if more details about this will come out which will help explain it. That's all. As is, it just seems very strange.

You're missing the other half of my argument however. If you didn't know that someone was hurt for two weeks, how can you be certain enough that it was the fault of that particular ride (and not Vortex, or the Racer, or the original Beast, or the train tracks they ran over in their car on the way to the park, or five hundred other things) to shut down one of your star attractions for an undetermined length of time? What is the rest of this story? Did this person do nothing but ride SOB on their visit? Did they do nothing else at all that could have caused this? What about the other 50,000+ who rode it after her who are all presumably okay? Like I said, this just opens a LOT of questions, and the park being so certain that this 'incident' was caused during normal operation where they didn't know about the problem for two weeks just seems really, really odd.

Because how do they know that it is actually Son of Beast? Unless this person lived in a dark, cool room, came out on May 31st, rode Son of Beast and immediately returned back to that dark, cool room there are *lots* of other factors that could be at play. The fact that it was reported as Son of Beast and the park immediately shut it down means there is something else at work here. You're right that rides where accidents occur get shut down all the time, however other than what we see as a statement that the lady was injured on the ride, the ride continued to operate after May 31st. If there was a notable accident, the park would have had to close the ride down immediately, not wait slightly over two weeks to shut it down. Presumably, no "accident" occurred, and Son of Beast was operating normally during this time. If the park is certain that during normal operation that it can hurt people and send them to intensive care, so certain that they immediately shut down the ride, it seems to be a more serious thing than an accident where the ride can be repaired and fixed. If the park is agreeing that during normal operation, this thing gives you brain bleeding, it's a MUCH larger problem than the 2006 accident. And again, that's why I'm surprised the park immediately shut it down. They in their quotes have sounded sure this person was injured there, and if they knew they were, I would have expected the ride immediately shut down. If they didn't know, I don't know how they can be so sure this was SOB that was the problem. I, for one, am not claiming them to be money hungry. However, if you have a loved one who had a huge problem and you are certain that it is because of X, and 10,000 people go on X in a day, wouldn't you be concerned about their safety enough to tell someone (like the park) that there was a problem? Also, if this person were hospitalized for 16 days, wouldn't the media have gotten a hold of this first? It's been a *very* quiet media story so far. Something here just doesn't add up right now. We need more details to be released by *someone* to explain why they are so certain it was SOB, and why if it was it took them so long between the accident and shutting it down.

There's two things that I think are interesting... 1) How does the person know that it is Son of Beast that hurt them? 2) How does this person know that it was from that day if they didn't report for 16 days? Regardless, and this is the important part, the park immediately shut down the ride because of it. I think it would be very easy to say, "How can we tell it is the ride? Since then, 50,000 riders have gone through it and have been fine! By immediately shutting it down, it gives the ride a sense of guilt that it might not have and a sort of stigma. I wouldn't be surprised if Cedar Fair decided to use this as a reason to shutter the SOB forever. As we've speculated, maintenance costs must be extreme on it, and now with Diamondback at the park, they have something that overshadows this failure of a ride so they could easily move on without it.

^^ No, I'm not really worked up about it, I'm just pointing out that if there was an argument for me to naturally make because of my investment, it would be that Six Flags has no idea what they are doing, and I can't believe I lost so much money on them, and I should sue them because I had no idea that I might lose so much money on them! But, as a responsible investor I did my homework before I invested, and I even told some people when I was investing that this would go in one of two ways -- they would magically find a way to start pulling out of debt, in which case the company would be earning tons of money and the stock would be a spectacular investment, or they'd do bankrupt and I'd lose everything. It was a risk worth taking to me, but a gamble that isn't going to pay off. That's not going to stop bondholders and other shareholders from taking them to court though because they lost money in them. Everyone loves the stock market when they make money, but they point at others when they lose. I'd expect in the next couple months a lot of Six Flags bond / share holders to start doing a lot of pointing. New Orleans (with the rent thing) was the first group to start a lawsuit. I'd expect many more.

I am? I have my money invested in common stock, which is all about to be absolutely worthless, so if anything making the argument that I did makes it even stronger. I invested my money in the common stock relatively recently (around the start of the new management) believing that the new management team was on the right path. I still think they are, but I'm going to lose a lot of money with this most recent turn of events. Cedar Fair on the other hand I've been a shareholder of for over 10 years now. While the stock price has dipped to about half of what I paid for them, the fact they gave out sizable dividends each year means that I have made my money on them already, and the share price is basically gravy. I'm waiting, however, to see if they rise again as there is new talk amongst investors that they may actually be a great value right now, and their share price is back on the rise a bit. If they rise like I expect, I'll liquidate my holdings. If not, the risk of them going lower is offset by their large dividend that is worth nearly 10% of their value, so I'll hold onto them for that. Doesn't mean I think their business plan is a good one.

Ah, but this is all a balancing act. The parks run the risk of having a huge attendance shortfall if they don't add anything, and they could potentially have a huge increase if they add something new. Coaster-centric parks (like the Six Flags chain) swing more toward the 'need to add something new' side of the coin than theme based parks to increase or keep their attendance going. The problem with the previous management wasn't adding a new ride here and there, it was a problem with adding huge ride packages all at once. Adding four coasters to Ohio in one year, or more than one anywhere does almost nothing different than adding one in a single year. And it strained their infrastructure greatly -- I visited Six Flags Ohio the year they did that, and the rest of the park was dirty and stuff wasn't open, giving me the impression I never needed to go there again. One coaster and some infrastructure upgrades would have been much better (and cheaper), and left me wanting to return. It definitely isn't mostly the problem. It may be partly the problem, because the old management was only focused on one demographic, which was the thrill rider demographic. And by focusing only on that demographic, they skipped over the more profitable and sustainable family market. Big coasters definitely have a place in the theme park landscape. You add one, and you get a definite boost in attendance, while family rides are more investments that can attract people for years. Look at Disneyland. Their last big addition was the Nemo Subs and before that was basically Indiana Jones in 1995. And they aren't having trouble bringing in huge attendance days still because family rides last longer. But, when you rip out family rides to toss in only thrill rides, you have to constantly update them to get a return. So, they were doing things right sort of, but the thrill riding demographic is not close to enough to keep a park afloat all by themselves. Magic Mountain, especially in the market they are in, really has to have the thrill aspect to compete, which means I would expect them to continue to get new major thrill rides every couple years. If you want a family park, you have Disneyland and you had Knotts until Cedar Fair took away most of the family atmosphere, so those are much harder demographics to crack there. Cedar Fair doesn't have any parks in Indiana, and I don't know why they would be so gung ho to grab all the parks close to markets that they already have parks in anyway. When they did that with Six Flags Worlds of Adventure, they ended up closing it. And really, what sense did it make buying it to begin with? It would make more sense for Cedar Fair to invest in parks no where near to their others. Having said that, Cedar Fair is the ultimate in coaster operators. They have done what Six Flags from 1999-2005 was trying to do way better than Six Flags ever did it, which is own and operate parks based almost entirely on their thrill content. They made Cedar Point into a very popular park by having almost nothing but thrill coasters at it. But their problem is that their expansion has given them a lot of these other parks that used to attract everyone. Who knows what will happen with those, as rides like Diamondback at Kings Island is a great addition, but unless it is followed with family entertainment, it will eventually erode their base like what they have done with Knotts. Coasters can only do so much, but since Cedar Fair did such a great job managing Cedar Point with just coasters, I think they are sorta blind to that. They might do things to make coaster fans happier with the parks if they were to get them in a short term basis, but in a long term basis, I think that Cedar Fair would (and maybe will) end up with the same crisis that Six Flags ended up with to get to this point. If you want to read more about why parks invest in things even when they aren't necessarily profitable, I'd suggest checking out the book Walt's Revolution: By the Numbers written by Harrison "Buzz" Price. It discusses the whole mystery of Capital Expenditures, why they happen and what they can bring. Fascinating industry. And very tough to easily understand. This all reminds me, at some point soon I need to sell my Cedar Fair shares... maybe near the end of this year.

Sorry, long post coming... but I've been following this and interested in this whole thing every since I first invested in theme park operators in 1999, and I think I've got some decent knowledge worth sharing. If you're just interested in complaining about your local park not getting new stuff, move along... That wouldn't make *any* sense. Six Flags tried to get something going with the bondholders, and they turned it down. You can read about those attempts and it was talked about on their last conference calls. So, if the bondholders who wouldn't work for *that exact deal* before now decide to buy up all the stock to liquidate the parks, it would be like throwing bad money after worse money. They didn't want to do it before, so now they want to do it to spite Six Flags and make them close parks and sell them, so they can lose even more money? Let's face it, there aren't that many other operators out there looking to buy right now, and if a company goes bankrupt, how much do they get in a liquidation? HRP sold for what, $25 million? That doesn't make any sense. Whomever started that idea is crazy, period. But here's the thing -- I think most people are looking at this like Circuit City or the auto industry, and it isn't like them in either way. Circuit City had a huge debt load and tons of stores that were not making much (if any) money. Their stores were worth more closed and liquidated then they were open, so that is exactly what happened -- the Circuit City stores closed and were liquidated. Six Flags parks are not worth more closed and liquidated or they already would have been. Astroworld for instance was liquidated because they thought that the land under it was worth a ton more than it ended up being worth. Having used rides and moving them from park to park is generally more pricey to move than you'd expect, so while there would be some savings to moving stuff from another park, it wouldn't be huge. In the auto industry, there have been massive layoffs and plant closings while the business still operates, but I wouldn't expect to see this out of Six Flags because if the business is profitable, they wouldn't be closing it down. It isn't like GM is saying, "Man, Hummers are really flying off the shelves, but we better shut it down!" They are closing down and selling or just shuttering lines that are not making money. The Six Flags parks, from what we know, are making money. Even if lets say that a park like SFA only makes $1 million in profit a year. If that park is shut down, how much is the land really worth? How much could you get from the rides that are on it? Probably not much. And, since it is profitable, it makes more sense to leave it open, earning its meager $1 million (no idea if that is true or not, they don't break it down like that in earning reports) a year than not. So, I would expect just what the chain has said -- business as usual. This is an issue that is really a back of the house sort of thing, where the banks and bondholders should have never granted the money that they did when they did, but because they risked it (and that's the key thing here, anything in stocks and bonds is a risk), because they failed to do their homework, they will lose most of it. This could have all been avoided if, when Gary Story was originally on his rampage to buy every park in the world, people had said "No." and "Show us the business plan." and then studied it. As for the EBITDA stuff, it's a measure that is used whether for good or for evil by firms throughout the world. The bigger thing to look at (which they only started reporting this year, presumably because in the past it would have really shed a light on the house of cards that EBITDA has been for them) is free cash flow. The chain reported their first ever 'Free Cash Flow' year, which was reported at $5,607,000. While that isn't a ton of money, the fact is that Free Cash Flow is looked at as the money that is distributable to bond and shareholders after everything else has been satisfied for the year, including new capital. The year before was reported this year as about a $165 million loss in free cash flow, so it was quite the turnaround. Now, if you take out 75% of the interest payments (shown for 2008 as $167,166,000), you have a $41,791,000 interest load that you're carrying. If the parks had that, the parks would have been $130,982,000 on the free cash flow side last year, and would have only had a loss of $40,589,000. The two years together would have been a profit of over $90 million dollars. While that isn't perfect, that would give the chain the ability to pay off their entire debt (including assuming interest payments would be the same, which wouldn't be the case) in about 15 years. If they have profit like last year, it would allow them to pay it off in less than 6 years. So, long story short, what happened here was a completely unsurmountable level of debt taken on by the Premier acquisitions, and the mismanagement of it after that point. Thanks to the fact that with the financial crunch we're in now, banks aren't just willing to toss $1.8 billion in the way of a company that hasn't been making money to cover their payments, it means that this is being dealt with by harming the people who didn't investigate the company earlier with the bonds that were made then. This is what investing is all about, and because the core business of Six Flags (providing the service of amusement parks) makes money still and not all will be lost, Chapter 11 will allow them to reorganize like this. In the case of Circuit City, chapter 11 led them to realize that they wouldn't make money anywhere with their business model, which caused the chapter 9 liquidation. Six Flags will have to have a lot go wrong for this to suddenly become chapter 9. Hopefully, the above will help to get you to that point. They still have a ways to go (the amusement park business fluctuates SO much year to year, it is hard to sit back and have any real idea where they will land), but this is the correct first step on their road toward becoming a (potentially very) profitable operator.

Well, Diamondback has the same restraint style as Raging Bull, Raptor and Talon is the same as Batman, and Hydra and Bizarro is basically the same as that too. Wicked Twister is the same type of restraints as Vertical Velocity. Not sure about the rest because it is all proportions, but those are the rides that you should be good on, based on what you said.

That's the same around here, although I heard that it was enacted so that people could 'window shop' for one day a week at car lots without being pestered. There are always a couple people walking around a car lot when you drive by it on Sundays.

Because then it wouldn't work in the rain! Wait a minute, this is Cedar Point we're talking about. Nothing works in the rain!

Whoa! You sound just like Gary Story, circa 1999! Neat trick!

Considering that according to some Disney insiders that I trust, Disney did not get what they wanted out of the Fastpass program, and they are experimenting with ways to change the program so that they can upcharge for it, I would think this is not such an epic fail like you say that it is.

Is that a bad thing? To me, it's a big part of the charm of the park. If you don't want to wait an hour or two for some of the coasters on busy days, you can spend the day riding great flat rides still. I'd rather they keep the current line up then eliminate a bunch to get a couple big new ones.

While I can't dispute that you think that they are better, I don't like nearly any ride at Cedar Point, so while I've not been to Great Adventure, I'd point to it anyway. I think there is a simple test to figure out which one to go to, and if you'll enjoy CP or not... If you like your rides tall and fast, CP is the way to go. Until Maverick they built their rides to be able to claim them as the tallest and fastest rides of their type in the world. Raptor, Mantis, Magnum, Millenium, Dragster, Twister and Mean Streak all held some sort of height and / or speed record when they came out. It's simply a height / speed showcase, and if that is what you want it still probably remains the best park to get it. If you like rides that are more compact with more quick elements one after another, Cedar Point simply won't satisfy you much.

That was my point, actually. A good family ride is something that anyone could ride, regardless if they had a kid with them or not. I don't hear too many people with or without kids talking about how they don't much care for coasters, but they visit parks to ride Frog Hoppers by themselves. At Disneyland, Pirates, Small World, Nemo, Peter Pan, Mr Toad, Snow White and Jungle Cruise are all rides that you can ride with the whole family, and you wouldn't feel funny about riding by yourself (like you would on a Frog Hopper). They aren't "kiddie" rides. I would classify the Thomas, Nick, Wiggles, Sesame Street, Looney Tunes, and whatever other randomly themed areas there are out there at parks as kiddie areas. Let's face it, most people's 2 year olds aren't begging to go to the local theme park unless mom or dad told them about it, so adding additional kiddie product does nothing to attract more people. However, adding a good family ride (dark ride, water ride, whatever) that mom and dad would want to experience *with* their kids, that's a winning idea. And Electerik, you're absolutely right about faking it. Adding kiddie rides allows a park to advertise *something* new for the current year on a budget, but that's about it.

I totally agree with whoever has said this is probably a timing issue -- the company is close to bankruptcy, and the city has probably realized that if they declare bankruptcy, they could lose any ability to get any money from Six Flags. If the city is suing because the contract was that they must remain open and now they aren't, knowing a little about legal contracts I am guessing that Six Flags can demonstrate that their inability to re-open is a reasonable exception to that clause. If the park sustained $150 million of damage as stated and the insurance companies have only paid up $27.5 million, then there is clearly a large gap to be made up between the two, and it would not be financially viable for an about-to-go-bankrupt company to invest one hundred million or more to reopen. I'm sure the original contract didn't include a hurricane that would flood the park for as long as it did. The way that I understood the original contract to be was that Six Flags bought from the city the land and the structures on the property when they came in, which would make sense that they could remove the S&S Towers (if they were leased and then bought) as well as the trains from Mega Zeph. The contract wouldn't have stated that everything on the property must remain, or they wouldn't be able to throw out *anything*. I wonder if the real reason for the suit is that the city wants Six Flags to remove the rides and pay them for the rides that they remove? I'll be really interested when the suit comes out and explains this.