BrandonR

Just got word that a PR rep at ACE's Winterfest confirmed that Six Flags over Texas won't be enforcing the ever-so-controversial ride lockers for the park's 50th anniversary season this year. Now I'm not sure if this is a chain-wide thing, but hopefully it is. Can anyone think of a single decision Six Flags has made in recent years that has caused so much uniform anger amongst all park guests? I can't! Hopefully this is a step in the right direction! Or maybe the park already generated so much revenue off the devices that they can afford to ditch them for several years to come... Oh, and if you're wondering why I spelled a word with an underscore, it's because there's a strange word filter on these forums for that word...

I'm surprised it didn't valley with only two cars running. Of course that means the full train should really tear through the track...

Personally I'm doubting it'll be ready for March 5. I haven't heard any news or reports of testing, and if they haven't started by now...

Ultimately the best improved design, that you see everywhere now, is that the brake run is drastically angled so that gravity can overcome the magnetic brake's force. So you can have fixed, fail-safe brakes without a kicker tire or some other propulsion device, and without moving brakes.

They can't get much shorter than they typically are. Just about everytime I visited the park last season it was a walk-on. Photo updates are going to be hard to come by, as the park is closed for the off-season.

Isn't it possible that the electric part of the "electro-magnet brakes" are just the fact that the permanent magnet brakes can be turned off/on by moving the positions of the poles? Not in that they're magnets powered by electricity?

And you can honestly say your crew never ran a little behind or got delayed by guests and stacked a train or two? It's inevitable, regardless of how much you "hustle."

I haven't heard about anything major being done to the Judge, other than the small amounts of rehab they seem to put various sections through in the off-season. There are some spots on it that are surprisingly rough for such a small wooden coaster, one being after the big second hill where the train just slams riders down and it feels like some sort of chiropractic adjustment. But none that rivaled the Giant's roughness, so I doubt we'll be seeing much from Judge anytime soon.

You people are seriously complaining about a new TV show that's main focus is roller coasters and thrill rides? Forget what it's called, just be glad it's a show about our favorite hobby. I don't particularly care for the name either but I think the show is done well enough, and the host isn't totally dislikeable. And of course these shows aren't geared toward coaster enthusiasts, why would they produce a show geared toward such a tiny percentage of people? So of course he's going to exaggerate the rides and make them seem bigger-than-life... Because 99.9998% of viewers would fall asleep or change the channel if instead he talked about trim brakes or blocking procedures.

I'm not a hotel snob or anything, but the on-site lodging has always seemed rather outdated, poorly kept, and overpriced, compared to what you can get near the park. I've stayed at both the Fairfield Inn and Suites and the Best Western (although it was a Comfort Suites when I stayed there) and both were reasonably priced and nice, not to mention in the better parts of the town. And if I recall, they've built a ton of strip malls all around the hotels I mentioned above with just about every chain restaurant you can think of, which was good because on my visit prior to that, all that seemed to be around was fast food.

English plz. I explained this in an earlier post but who knows how many pages ago that was. Basically, nothing that is manufactured is perfect and has some amount of variation in the dimensions of the design. It's why parts have allowed tolerances next to dimensions, for example, this piece should be 3 feet plus or minus .25". Those are tolerances, and engineers have to account for the variation in each part when designing something that can be assembled. Tolerance stackup is what happens when you start assembling a ton of those components together. So let's say for a steel roller coaster you have a footer, which has its own tolerances, and a support, that has its own tolerances, and another support (its own tolerances), and a track (more tolerances), etc. Well when you start adding up all these tolerances there's a bigger-than-0 likelihood that things can be "off." Typically it's the fault of tolerance stackups when you see either gaps or things being too big and not fitting. My whole point was that when you think about the size of a roller coaster and the number of components they're made of, it's kinda amazing these things can fit together in the first place without even more problems.

No... Why would they put a metal strip on top of a metal track for a train with polyurethane wheels? Well just imagine trying to design a ride on top of an existing ride's supports and then try to account for the thousands of variables and variations in every aspect of the ride. No ride is perfect. Like I've said over and over again, the tolerance stackups with roller coasters is pretty amazing when you consider how many things have to be accounted for in the dimensional variations.

And let's not forget that the number of "flaws" we can point out from photos is directly proportional to the quality and number of construction photos we get access to. This ride's construction has been covered in detail by people who have access to the construction site and are able to take very detailed photos. If every ride was photographed with the same level of scrutiny I guarantee there'd be just as many other minor issues/gaps/misalignments. Like I said, tolerance stackups on roller coasters is a very major issue.

They're arm guards, and lots of rides have them in some form or another.

Well we've been talking about nothing but Texas Giant, but let's not forget the whole reason they're doing this renovation: it's the park's 50th anniversary (and essentially the Six Flags chain's too). What else do we think the park is going to do? Obviously no major construction given they haven't started any but surely they're planning some other stuff for such a milestone.

Hahahaha, you do know this is a Six Flags park right?

The track is most certainly hollow. Otherwise I don't see how it could weigh the same as the old wooden track. I don't think it'd be any louder than any other steel coaster. Probably quieter since the wooden supports are likely to dissipate more energy. Of course this is all speculation since the sound depends on sooo many factors. B&Ms are especially loud because of the weight of the train, but the Giant's new trains don't look all that heavy. Plus I've always heard the square spine is what makes B&Ms so loud (if they're not filled with sand that is).

Yep, I pretty much got the same pictures: I did put together a poorly-stitched image of the view from the railroad here: There's a higher-res version, along with various other images here: http://www.guidetosfot.com/features/giantreinvented/

On a positive note, those kinds of queues are a very good sign when it comes to the park doing better in terms of attendance and more importantly, future attractions.

Speaking of the very well-done Holiday in the Park event, I uploaded a bunch of photos showing off the event, as well as a video of the pretty cool light show they have in the Texas section. And for those able to visit the park, be sure and hit the SantaLand gift shop (in the Majestic Theater in Goodtimes Square). They're offering very cool Christmas tree ornaments made from the old Texas Giant structure! And for you unfortunate souls that can't make it, you can try and win one!

Hmm really? Seems like an awfully strange place to store the Giant's lift hill, given it's not that close to the ride, not to mention all the maintenance shops and warehouses are much closer to the Giant than La Vibora.

Probably the ride ops, who generally don't have the know-how or authority to grant such requests anyway.

Can I just ask people who want to sneak cameras on coasters, why? I mean it's not like the ride you're on hasn't been filmed before dozens of times already, and probably with better footage with properly-mounted, professional camera equipment. I really don't see why someone feels the need to sneak a camera on a ride to get some shaky, blurry POV when there's a 99% probability that better footage is already on Youtube. Not to mention it's dangerous. When I worked as a ride op on Titan I saw some pretty bad injuries people got from having loose articles hit them, including one person who got hit by a toenail clipper and came back to the station bleeding pretty bad (of course I'm still trying to figure out who would bring nail clippers to a theme park and on a roller coaster).

Totally agree with HitP being very well done this year. Tons of lights and specialty foods/attractions. The park really outdid itself.

You didn't hear? Those spots are where the jumps are going!