OrangeMango

It works for me. It's one or two videos to the left of the Sky Rocket one, depending on which one you are watching. He didn't wait in line. He got on at about 11:10 AM. He got off around 4:45 PM. He was a little wobbly when he finally got out.

Better article with a video http://kdka.com/kennywood/Jack.Rabbit.anniversary.2.1861554.html

http://www.wpxi.com/news/24640461/detail.html

Well we're down to about a 30 day window. http://www.kennywood.com/attractions/NEWfor2010.php

I still don't think the crane disappearing is a bad thing. They could have simply taken it to another site for the weekend. Now if there is no crane by Tuesday or Wednesday, then I would say something isn't right. I made that assumption based on the idea that they could put up track at roughly the same rate they poured footers (and so roughly the same rate they dried). If they were able to hold to that, then they could have everything erected within days of the last footer curing. That could leave a week and a half for testing. But I do think that is overly optimistic. For a launch coaster, I don't think there is anyway they are ready to go after just a week and a half. The two weeks wasn't a prediction. I was saying that I think it will take at least that long, and probably longer, to get the ride running. That also assumes they are able to get much of the station and launch work done building the rest of the coaster. If I recall, weren't the footers for the launch poured pretty early? And they have started station work, I think.

The crane being gone isn't necessarily indicative of anything. I walked past a construction site every day last year that would change cranes frequently. Sometimes there was no crane for a day. Other times, they would have the new crane in place without me every seeing them change. As for new steel not going up, that could be because the footers weren't fully cured yet. It's possible that the crew simply got a week ahead of schedule and had to sit back and wait for the concrete to dry. After all, the first day, they only put up 4 supports. They put up, what, like 3x that amount on just the next day alone? Or maybe they got to work erecting steel knowing that it was likely they were going to have to pause and wait for the concrete. It takes about a month for the footers to dry, and I think that once the last footer drys, we still have to assume another two weeks at least. That is, two weeks if everything works exactly as it is supposed to the very first time; which I doubt. But even if you say 3 weeks after the last footer drys, that still only takes us no later than Memorial Day. (Which assumes the last footer was poured today. As far as I know, they've been done for a couple days at least) Another thing: I don't think the park can afford to still be building this by the time daily operation rules around on May 20. Having an active construction zone right at the entrance of the park would most likely be a disaster. If all that is left is wiring, testing and stuff like that, it's not such a big deal. But still building it could cause major problems. Long story short: If I was a betting man, I wouldn't bet on when this coaster will open.

^^So that's what they did. I like that. That rail still looks to me like it bounces up and down, but that hill was always a little hard for me to look at and track. It's even harder in pictures. I was only looking at the gray rail's position in space, not relative to the other rail which is probably more important. It looks like they may match up, but I really can't tell. I guess we'll find out for sure when we start riding it. And do you know if they are going to paint it once it warms up?

Does anyone have a picture of the Phantom from last year? It actually looks like it could be worse to me.

I'm with jarmor here. It's pretty obvious to me that cooliocody12 just ripped Wormy's video off Youtube, cropped it, added some music and an intro, and re-uploaded it. 1) Look at the timestamps on Youtube. Wormy's was uploaded February 7th. Cooliocody12 uploaded his on February 8th. Does this mean that cooliocody12 took the video from Wormy? No. But it does show that the inverse isn't true. 2) The mouse, a black one, not the standard one, is at the exact same point on the screen, to the right of that green ride. (I presume it's a ride) 3) As the train is going up the lift hill, two white trucks can be seen going along the highway in the background. They are traveling from right to left, and at the 5-second mark of Wormy's video, the first one passes behind the white building that is behind the lift hill. The same two white trucks do the exact same thing in cooliocody12's video, except two seconds later due to the intro that he added. The train is at the exact same spot on the lift hill. 4) The quality of cooliocody12's video is noticeably less than Wormy's, almost certainly because he ripped it and then published it again, leading to a loss of data. I found another reference point as the train comes over the last hill into the brake run, but everything else so conclusively points to cooliocody12 falsely taking credit for the video that I didn't even bother to include it. By the way jarmor, your avatar creeps me out.

I had a couple minors on my crew and the only thing they weren't allowed to do was operate our coaster. They were allowed to run our other rides fine.

I believe the only thing minors can't do is operate roller coasters and the Skycoaster. They can check bars on a coaster, but they aren't allowed to do controls. I heard once that the reason for it was some type of state law, but I really don't know. Most of the minors end up in Food&Bev. Some end in Rides. I know nothing of Games. And of the ones that end up in Rides, a fair amount, if not the majority, end up in Kiddieland. The hours for a minor aren't that bad. Because of child labor laws, they can only work 40 hours a week. I don't think they are allowed to work more than 8 hours a day, and no more than 4 hours without a break. May not be exactly right, but it's close. I can only speak for Rides, but because of the 40 hour limit, minors were likely to get 2 days off as opposed to the one that non-minors get. Also, they never have to worry about working the longer shifts. A 10:30-6 and a 2-close are the longest they would have to worry about. Even then though, a lot of their shifts would be 10:30-4:30 or 6-close. I think, but I could be wrong, that I heard about a minor in Food&Bev who had a shift that started at 4. I had pretty much no contact with anyone outside of Rides though, so I really can't speak for any of them. Kennywood does hire at age 15, but not until you get into summer and they need fresh help. If a 15 year old applied in April, they will not get hired until at least June, more like July. And the restrictions on the super-minors are even more severe than the 16 and 17 year olds. Speaking for non-minors here: Your only a slave if you consider yourself one. If you want to spend summer doing whatever you want or bum off your family, then Kennywood isn't for you. If you want to make as much money as you can out of a minimum wage job in a lousy job market, then go for it. I'm in both the rarity and the later. I was a complete hours whore and took everything I could get. I switched a 6-close for an all day shift. I switched an off day for a shift that is one hour less than all day. I would routinely switch into longer shifts, or volunteer to stay if we were short. I know one week I had about 59 hours. The last month and a half or so, I was easily hitting 50, 55 hours a week. That, along with my frugal living, is why I still have a fair amount of money in the bank and my co-workers are scrounging for pennies. And the thing is, why crew only assigned all day shifts when we were really short. Other crews typically give a couple all day shifts per day, when fully staffed. I know that other people topped my hours count without even trying. As for off days, etc. I don't think anyone was ever turned down on my crew. If you needed a couple days off, you got it. If you needed a certain shift, you got it. A job at Kennywood is going to be as good or as bad as you make. It's more or less nothing more than your mentality when you pull into the parking lot. If you're going to bitch and moan about having to work, your going to hate it. If you willing to put your time in working outdoors during summer to help put yourself through college, its not so bad. It sounds cheesy, but its really up to you.

Actually it was the rides infrastructure that gave them all the problems. I had heard it was bad enough that to actually fix it, the park would have had to almost completely rebuild the ride. If the only issue was the cars, Kennywood would have swapped out the inside of those things in a jiffy. Even before they closed the ride to tear it down, it had the most downtime of any in the park. I know that after the ride closed, the cars were all parked out back behind the Jack Rabbit. To any fan of the park, the Turnpike was as big a deal as the wooden coasters. Sure you didn't ride it anymore when you were in High School, but you still remembered loving it as a kid. Permanently getting rid of it would be unthinkable. That said, how quickly the park moves to reinstall it will be interesting. The original hope was to put it back in under Sky Rocket, but last I'd heard, that was looking extremely unlikely. The park wants to flatten it out a little (supposedly to increase capacity, but whether or not that is the real reason, I don't know). KW has also publicly stated that with a 4-minute run-time, the old incarnation actually ran a little long by modern standards, and that it was possible that the new version could be shorter. As for the Magic Carpet, or Flying Carpet (whatever it was called), I seem to remember it being closed more than open. I'm pretty sure I was told a story once about someone from the company that made it coming to look at it and not being able to help either. Fun ride, yes. But was it really worth trying to keep it anymore? I'd have to say no. In terms of future investments, we pretty much know the next couple years. This year: Sky Rocket in -- Turnpike and King Kahuna (believed) out. Next year will likely see the re-theme of Garfield's Nightmare. Within the next couple years, the Turnpike SHOULD be coming back. In terms of future expansion, the park will need a lot of money. Whenever they finally move into the Kennyville area, all those houses will need to be torn down. The hillside will need major work just to make anything possible. And the former KMart site is completely detached from the park.

Either your not listening or I'm not being clear. Kennywood didn't just up and decide to hire Premiere to build a coaster where the turnpike was. They did their due diligence, studied where to build it, solicited bids, and went with what they felt to be the best one. Kennywood picked Premiere but then Palace balked when they saw the price tag. The coaster was supposed to be announced during the ACE event held every year at Kennywood. You may or may not have heard the advertising for a "Major Announcement" that was supposed to be made. Instead of Sky Rocket, they announced that a major announcement was forthcoming. While Kennywood was ready to go at that point, Palace wasn't. Eventually, Kennywood and Palace came to some type of agreement, although whether Palace gave in and paid up or forced some type of compromise, I don't know.

You can't accuse them of being behind until you've seen the schedule. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Building something is a fluid process. It speeds up, it slows down. If someone wants to figure it out, go ahead, but it seems to me that the lift hill for Intimidator 305 took just as long as the rest of the track. The crew at Carowinds was left waiting for track, presumably because they moved so quickly. Why is it such a bad thing that they haven't dug footers yet? Most likely, Premiere wasn't able to finish putting the ride together until all the trees were removed. Something came up that sent them back to drawing board. That's what happens when you build something. Kennywood and Premiere want Sky Rocket opened as soon as possible. It is in the interest if neither to wait until summer is over. And besides, you seem to have missed what I said earlier. Kennywood was all set to go with this project way before Palace finally gave the OK. I have no idea how close we were to not getting a coaster, but the disagreement was series enough to make it a real possibility.

I've heard that Sky Rocket is as little as 3 days behind, and I've heard that it is several weeks behind. The thing is, the only people that know if it is behind aren't talking about it. You have to remember though that Kennywood never marketed this as being ready for opening day. Everyone assumes opening day, but "Spring 2010" technically lasts until late June. So for all intents and purposes, unless they give us a concrete day and then miss it, or still aren't open by the 3rd week of June, they're on time. And the late start to construction is not really unexpected. After all, this ride wasn't announced till sometime in August. They had planned to announce it at the ACE meeting, which I think was July 19. From what I understood, the delay really wasn't Kennywood's fault though. Palace was balking at the price tag. I don't know how they settled it, but I heard that Premiere threatened to pull out because of how late into the season it already was. At this point I'm just speculating, but it's possible that when the coaster was announced, the track may have been designed but the supports were not. Or possibly, once the trees had been cleared, new issues with the soil came up that required fixes. That, and not the weather, could explain the apparent lack of activity. This last paragraph is all speculation though. I really have no idea.