Lareson

All of the Cedar Fair parks have them now, part of the massive update Google did to Streets View. Some of the stitching gets a bit funny in some places, like on that TTD picture there, but it gives some people who have never been to those parks a nice virtual walk through of them. Also since MiAd doesn't have a proper thread, I'd thought I'd share this little snapshot of it.

A wooden structure that hasn't had any proper maintenance on it for the past 3 years and many sections of it are over 100ft tall, the way they're taking it down is the safest and most "constructive" way to do it. The design of the support system and the way that timber had aged, it just wouldn't hold up very well if they were to do a normal demolition on it, meaning tearing small chunks out of the structure using a giant claw machine. With the way that structure was designed and put together, it always worried me that something bad was going to happen to it, and look what happens in 2006. I've noticed that all of the RCCA coasters that were built, the cross support boards are very far apart. The structures for them don't look very dense, as let's say CCI's or GCI's were, and they built smaller coasters. Son of Beast is an extreme example though, and since RCCA's other coasters don't experience the same forces and height, their other coaster are much better off than SOB ever was. Now I'm not saying that the structure itself was unsafe, just that it was pretty much designed to support what it was expected to do, nothing more. It's no wonder why during the investigation of the 2006 incident that they wanted a forensic investigator to come out and do a CAD model of the coaster to measure the forces on it. Having a support beam break and actually splinter during normal operation, and only 6 years after it's open, means that something isn't right with the structure. I know they added to the structure after 2006 in the "weak points" where the structure experienced the most forces, and even did the switched to lighter trains. I think after doing the math after this last 2009 incident, the cost of keeping this coaster for much longer wasn't possible. This also gives me to believe that an Iron Horse conversion was not even possible without major support modifications and the cost would probably be the same as adding a completely new coaster. All I know is that in 2000, all the technology to build Son of Beast like it should of been was there, and it should of been used. The ride probably would still be running, with loop and original trains. Sorry for the babbling, it's just that everything fits together in my mind on why Son of Beast ended it's operations prematurely and is now being taken down.

Greg Scheid just posted a new demolition video to his Twitter account. www.telly.com/I2BGW?fromtwitvid=1 All I gotta say is, wow. All came down in just a few seconds. Now I understand how they're taking this giant structure down so quickly and cleanly. The lift and 1st drop are going to be fun to watch (as long as there's a video for it!)

Interesting way they're tearing out Son of Beast. Probably with the way the structure is and how massive it is, taking out small sections at a time is probably the safest to do at this point. Also, read an article that was written when it was being constructed about a section of the support structure failing because of high winds. Pictures of it were very interesting as I thought they were actually from demolition. This should of been the first sign that something structurally was wrong with it. Even though it was "lightly supported" as the article states, seems to be a lot of timber that broke and should of never happened if done properly. After reading that, things started to click, and now I can understand why things happened the way it did with Son of Beast. Shoddy wood, poor structural designing, possibly poor workmanship too. I only know of one other coaster that had a structure failure caused by weather during construction and that was Troy at Toverland in the Netherlands. The two failures look completely different. Of course there's a 7 year gap between the two and Troy using newer construction codes, but still, Son of Beast was never right to begin with and that the true reason of this construction failure was probably buried under Paramount's management. I couldn't find any pictures of the Troy colaspse, but I did find a Dutch news video of it. As you can tell, Troy's failure did a nice "stacking" collapse, which I believe it was designed to fail like that if a failure occurred. Son of Beast's looks like they took a wreaking ball to it and has no order at all, and who knows if RCCA even though about that during the designing stage.

For those that have been to Cedar Point this weekend and the past, has Mean Streak been open? I know the past 2 Halloweekends that I've been to, it's closed early to start on the off-season maintenance. Just curious cause I never actually knew if this was an annual thing or the past 2 years that I've gone, they'd decided to close it to start work on it early before the snow flies.

I was there Tuesday and Wednesday this week and I knew Son of Beast wasn't going to last much longer. There were trucks parked next to the lift hill and I didn't see a glimpse of the trains sitting next to the structure. Wonder what they're going to do with them since Cedar Fair really doesn't own any of those Gerstlauer trains to part off to other parks. Can see them probably going up for sale here shortly, if not sold already. In the back of my mind, I'm somewhat disappointed that I missed this credit, but this just didn't look that great to me. Roller Coaster Corporation of America just didn't seem that great of a roller coaster designers. If Paramount brought in someone else, like CCI, GCI, or Intamin to build and design it at the time, I think we'd have a different outcome. Although I have a feeling why they picked RCCA in the first place, since CCI had 7 coasters to build that year, Intamin was just starting to get back into wooden coasters, and GCI was just starting out, having only built a few coasters up at that point. Just to start my trip off, Tuesday afternoon, a strong storm blew over the park that had knocked a few limbs off some trees, including a couple by Diamondback that took out a section of the low-zone fence. Nothing else was damaged, but it did take Diamondback a bit to get back up since they had to repair the fence. Also I would like to mention that Delirium was still down both days, but I did manage to see it with guests on it Wednesday and team members positioned at the ride, only to notice that it e-stopped itself not long after and was down again. Heard that they got a "new" gear box from another model at a sister park and it's not playing nicely with the computer system. Pretty much all they can do for these Huss rides now, just pass parts around until they run out of them. While I was waiting in line for The Beast, also noticed that there looked like there were workers inside of the old Crypt building working on the new haunt going into it this year. Just saw what I could from the queue, so I don't know if the ride itself is still in the building or it's already been taken out (parted and chopped I assume since there's no cut hole in the building to take the parts out in larger chunks.) Overall, pretty good KI trip this year. Hoping we'll start seeing demo on this standing pile of timber soon.

Yeah, that was a great ride. One of the first rides you see when you pull through the parking lot and had Chance's awesome lighting packages as well. From the way they un-formally announced it, it sounds like it was an unexpected removal. I know last year, they gave the whole structure a fresh coat of paint. They wouldn't paint something that they knew they were going to remove, right? There was a service bulletin released by Chance Rides in June about the Falling Star models, so don't know if that had anything to do with it. Here it is if anyone's curious about it: http://www.state.il.us/agency/idol/Bulletins/ChanceFallingStar.pdf Wasn't there an accident on one of these a while ago? I thought I remember hearing about one, which could of caused this service bulletin, but I can't find anything about it. I know it was relocated in '89 from Bob-lo Island and I have no idea what the manufacture year was, but I know it's one of the oldest rides in the park.