terminatorschaffer

With the combined habits of Disney's strict operating procedures, a secondary fail-safe system such as a block system, powered by a separate source, could have easily prevented this tragedy. Human error was at fault here, and it's far fetched to assume that a fail-safe mechanism would have faltered as well.

^And that HUGE bad ass Batman symbol needs to light up. Same as the huge one on the back of Superman. I was always sad to see them turn dark...

From what I've heard Arrow Suspended Coasters have a rough time with maintenance because of their swinging capabilities. They literally tear the tracks apart at high stress points, and its pretty often that maintenance can be found welding crossties and track hours before park operation to get the ride up and running for the day. It seems the Arrow track is just not heavy duty enough to withstand the forces it creates on a daily basis. Iron Dragon at CP undregoes welding on the crossties and track because of cracks (mind you the ride is not nearly as extreme as EF). Ninja at MM also tends to have welding done to the track every so often (and mind you again, Ninja does not provide nearly the type of gravitational forces that EF did). While Arrow Suspended Coasters are a hell of fun, I'd imagine as years go by the remaining ones will start to go away.When watching POV's of Eagles Fortress in the past, I kind of always wondered how long the track would be able to take the excessive forces of the circuit. I imagine it got to a point where they were welding track together every single day, and, well, after a while you just start to wonder "when is the track going to give while a train is riding the circuit?" Apparently inspection stepped in, and until some serious design refurbishment investment was in place, will not be able to open. As long as some of the bigger parks that own Arrow Suspended coasters don't mind the maintenance costs, I'd guess they'll be among the last remaining Arrow Suspended Coasters. Its too bad, I always wanted to get a ride on Eagles Fortress.

I for one think this ride will be a lot of fun, not crazy intense, but popular with a wide range of people, and you really can't ask for more. But I do think there have been WAY too many design problems with the track installation itself. One could argue "this is a new type of ride" but leaving all the fancy new tech bells and whistles behind, track installation and design is pretty basic from an engineering point of view- especially for a company like Maurer that has been doing this for years. The mistakes Maurer made, in my opinion, are rather inexcusable for a roller coaster company to make. *Supports not lining up with track *Tunnel Clearance Issue *Lifthill delay, installation, removal and installation and now we have a train valleying. Keep in mind, this isn't even including all the state of the art stuff they plan to have going on once the ride opens. Now, if they can't even get the basic stuff down like installing track, how well the LEDs, music tracks and on ride videos are going to run really makes you scratch your head. Universal Studios Florida IS missing out on summer crowds by not having this ride open right now. When I heard Maurer Söhne was making this ride, for some reason I had a gut feeling this ride would have delays.

Attention ALL LIFT RING FANS!!! My friend that works at USF was at the park late tonight and got video of them INSTALLING THE RINGS!!!! They look AWESOME! USF Installs Lift Rings! Check it out!

^That's a great article and I appreciate your hard nosed approach to explaining what's going on with Six Flags. The article explains a lot of the problems with not only companies like Premier, but with much of the US economy as a whole. A good number of people that work for these companies know what's going on, but they use the law to their advantage by using terms like EBITDA to appear as if they're rich. What it comes down to is you gotta know your facts, and based on how things have been occurring lately, its seems like a lot of people these days don't. GAAP is the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and it explains why the company that runs Six Flags has been digging itself into a hole for years. Coasters are basically so much of an investment that most parks never pay them off right away, and when you account for daily maintenance on a coaster that you're paying off with interest, the profit margin from the coaster isn'tthat large. When parks aren't profitable, the bills for the coasters keep coming, and quickly they're owing for a coaster they can continue to run to bring in guests, but are annually (or monthly) falling behind on financially. Six Flags is improving - internally - by trying to change its lackluster image through its employees. They bring in large amounts of guests yearly, and if they keep it up the numbers will keep rising. The hardest part of running a company is getting it over that "ghetto" hump to the "luxury" hump, because once you're sailing smooth in the the theme park industry, it gets easier to make more money. Walt Disney proved it.

How Wave Pools Work Pretty solid article on these things, I've always wondered this myself but never thought to look it up. Sounds like the pumps are at the very bottom, so unless your 8 feet down, I don't think you'd get sucked in. And even if you were at the very bottom, you can see that it says those cages will never be exposed to the pumping mechanism. How well those return canals are fenced off is probably the responsibility of park maintenance. Seems a flawless design, I've never heard anyone getting caught in one of those things and losing their legs

^Well you better get used to it cause Valencia is going to be getting busier as years go on. It may be slightly boring but its just too nice all the time out there. Not a fan of the location of those 21000 homes, but Mountain parkway will be much different in 15 20 years. If you check out how the road used to be and how it is now, you'll see they've done A LOT of good work, its just taken a long time. The Old Road is now much improved for future expxnsion, and although the northbound exit gets nasty at peak hours, they didn't have many other options.

^You're right. Does anyone know where did the train end up after the cable snapped? Was it on the lift, or did it complete the circuit? That might help explain better where the cable snapped, and why the catch car moved like it did.

Maybe if they found a couple big sponserships for the Metro I could see them reopening it while getting some of the costs covered. Instead of the plain colored stripes on the trains, they could cover them and advertise with those huge graphics decals you see on big SUV's. They could Coca Cola logo the entire train, for example. If they installed flatscreens like they've been doing on a lot of their rides, they could also advertise for more revenue and inform guests of park information while on the Metro. Six Flags seems to be willing to spend money in areas that don't always offer high returns (Thomas Towns, Wiggle Worlds) and with the friendlier park attitudes they have been maintaining at Magic Mountain, a transport ride would be icing on the cake for the park. Its nice when families can bring the stroller on the ride and sit down, even the older crowds enjoy a break from walking to relax on a tour of the park. I think the guest satisfaction would outweigh the costs if you do it right.

^^Forget Knotts, MM is THE SoCal coaster park to see this summer. IMO, Terminator is worth missing KBF. I think a ride like the Mountain Express or any kind of wild mouse ride would be AWESOME in Flashbacks spot. It makes a smaller ride for families and it would increase the coaster count at a relatively small cost. MM could spend a couple million and get a really cool one and theme it like they have been, I think it'd be a hit! I also agree about the deluge rides, I believe they're LIM powered and so they offer quite a unique ride, although it might not increase the coaster count it definitly would be cool for them to offer the HH attraction during the summer and MM attraction during the winter.

I don't know who said this about Terminator in their TR but its absolutely not true. Been on Terminator on Media Day and yesterday, both trips on all my rides I simply asked the ride attendant if I could sit in the front or back and they have been more than happy to honor my request every single time. I don't get this either. I've ridden X2 plenty of times and when I get in the station I ask if I can sit in whatever row and I've always been granted my request. Yeah, they have asigned seating for the GP that has no clue how to organize themselves in a line, but I've found to sit where you wanna, a little courtesy goes a long way.always has worked for me at Magic Mountain.

This is what I brought up as soon as I won, I was wondering if X2 would be open.I don't wanna get my hopes up so my guess is that it won't be. Also, please remember, although lots of TPR people are going this is still a PUBLIC event. This isn't TPR is taking over and can suddenly act like the rules don't apply to them. I've heard some mildly immature ways to "beat people" to the back of the park, and I'm just saying please don't forget that we are still guests being priviledged to be in the park. They are nice enough to let us in, show respect by being respectful. We will all get to ride tonight!

^Agreed. I wonder how many people are getting in, maybe the line for Terminator will end up taking up most of the night. Think X2 will be open?

^Actually I just checked my email again and I got in! I basically just tackled my girlfriend with joy cause I was bummed earlier, I thought I didn't do something right! I got the email at 11:36 this morning. So keep checking your email people there is still hope!