QueerRudie

I'm thinking this might be the perfect answer to the long-held question of the closure of Opryland in the first place, granted, this is a different scale, but one that should work very well. What's interesting to me is the future expansion- although small, it might be a foothold for expanding out into larger areas... (OK, so I can dream that Opryland comes back... although Dollyland DOES sound interesting...) R.D.

Let's see: Last remaining Anton Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop in the United States... up close and personal, the smell of refined axle grease and teflon dripping down the silky smooth rails. The ability to get close to the double-flywheel foot for a strong, forceful catapult, thrusting you hard and fast down a long, long, section of Anton's finest steel, then being thrown on your back and pushed firmly and quickly into the leathery seat... and then higher and higher up, up, up to the top... only to have Anton do it again in reverse. No, there's no reason to debate it (At least from my point of view...)

CPM is on the road again- I hear he's tracking down a flat ride from IRM... lord knows where he's going to store THAT one... We have a winner! Congratulations to Almere Stars for his winning entry "Grizzly" Please send a PM to QueerRudie with your name, address and related information!

Yup- Almere Stars for the win. No second prize due to the low number of entrants in this contest (A total of seven; minimum for second prize is 10)

Even though there's a wink, it would NOT surprise me to see this open at Cowabunga Bay. We still haven't had an announcement (have we?) about this years new attraction? Yeah, I know, the rumor mill, but Shane started it! I’ll put an end to this rumor right away. The footprint of Greezed Lightnin is over 700 feet long. Our longest property boundary at Cowabunga Bay is a little shy of 400 feet. I am probably the biggest Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop fan around and this isn’t to say that I wouldn’t someday like to own my very own personal model! Stand in line... I've already got dibs on one for my backyard... that and a CityJet, a JumboJet, A Wildcat 65...

Thanks, RD. One of the key goals for this model in particular was to make it extremely accurate, which has also elongated the time of construction. I hope to continue this level of detail with the scenery which will hopefully make it look just like the real one! A Schwarzkopf model would be really cool! You can follow the same technique of making B&M track to make yours. You're painting can and will be considerably more difficult than mine, and I think mine is pretty tough! That's sort of what I was looking at- for simplicity sake. I do think that some of the 'finer details' (I.E. track type, etc.) will be more challenging overall- so I'd figure 'start small' and go up from there- with a Shuttle Loop II. Have you ever worked with painting the track before assembling it? My thought is to build the 'test track' to complete, then mount it to the supports/structures following a 'curing' time for the paint. It would make some of the more complex Schwarzkopf models easier to build in the long run. R.D.

Hmmmm... I keep forgetting about the Arr... er... Morgan Hyp...er Junior coaster at Santa Monica... Perhaps that could be a side-trip before heading to LAX on Monday morning.

Not eventually. Go this year. SFoG is the best park in the entire SixFlags chain- and by a distant margin. They actually CARE about their guests, and make an effort to be the star-leader of the entire chain. And Jizzman... these pictures are so good! It's like an instant-flashback to my first TPR event- and I'm hoping to make it back for DSB II this year!

This for me is a great park showing what can be done with simple, easy to do designs, clearly laid out paths and structures, and without feeling like the park is commercially-based. Excellent job with the park. R.D. GFMT

Simply amazing! If I were a park manager, I'd be hiring you to create maps for my park- they're that good!

Smart ass. And about the backstage tour.... ahem... YES! YES! YES ! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! Or even JA! JA! JA! JA! JA! JA! JA! JA! JA! WCB just got -that much- more fun- especially for me R.D. (I'm going to go take a cold shower now...)

This TR, although long in coming, has some of the best candid shots I've seen in a while- Nice job... and where's the Schwarzporn? R.D.

And depending on the crowds and if it's a local football team, it would most likely be the types of crowds we would want to steer clear of as we would see GP-ness of epic proportions. People like to riot for no apparent/real reason in the bay area when it comes to their team completely getting shafted or some other unfortunate event that doesn't directly affect them but feel they're part of it. I believe this has happened during a couple Super Bowls...The main one that's coming to me right now was back in 2004(?) when the Raiders made it and got slaughtered. The bay area (Oakland) was not a pretty site to see. But again, these are Raider fans, football's most notorious/rowdiest fans of all the NFL. When the stadium's all erected (haha!) I can see epic bid wars between different parties for that year's host for the Super Bowl, and I'm pretty sure Santa Clara will want to really push at it. Good luck Santa Clara neighbors, you complain about noise and chaos from a single roller coaster... well you may have it coming and not from a coaster! That is a once in a long while event (A Superbowl) as well as the neighbours are all businesses -and thus, closed on weekends when the stadium would be in heavy use... so noise wouldn't matter then. The noise issues will be a problem now and infinitum. And they will plague any large-scale rides at Great America- now and infinitum.

This project is very inspiring to me, as these models are perfect eye candy- especially with the attention to detail, precision of the track and structures, and overall quality of the projects entirely. Someday, if I ever get off of the road for more than two weeks, I'd love to try and tackle building a few models like this myself- predominantly of Schwarzkopf-class coasters. Nice job all around!

QueerRudie: Queer: DUH. (If this requires explanation, you need help.) Rudie: Short/slang for Rude Boy, as in the devoted followers of Ska, particularly the First Wave and 2Tone Movement eras. (Although I'm not as 'Rude' as I was in the past- I did evolve into a Skin about five years ago... but didn't want to change my name- or all my e-mail accounts!)

CNN reports the captain of the ship has been detained 'for questioning' over the incident... which makes me think did the captain of the ship have tee few too martoonies at the time of the incidient? (And I didn't realized that Carnival owned Costa Cruises... came as a surprise to me!)

Yup. These two new trains are the prototype/first production trains from Gerstlauer, and will be LAP BAR ONLY...as His coasters should be! However, this is just the start, I think. I'm hoping SFMM is watching HP for those new trains... and gets the hint! Would be nice if only California would revoke the rule requiring all looping coasters to have the dreaded OTSR's. The reasons for the OTSRs on Revolution are entirely insurance/legal related, and not with California's laws. Montezooma's Revenge, the upcoming Superman: Ride of Crapacity, and others are lap-bar only/seatbelt and lap bar rides. I honestly think the GCI is dead, dead, and well, dead. If anything, I could see a small Eurofighter/Gerstlauer custom coming first- as those rides are not only quieter, but easier to assemble and cheaper long term.

Looking good- and I approve -completely- of the B787-900 pics in the station. Nice job there.

Yup. These two new trains are the prototype/first production trains from Gerstlauer, and will be LAP BAR ONLY...as His coasters should be! However, this is just the start, I think. I'm hoping SFMM is watching HP for those new trains... and gets the hint!

Funny, cause this thread (Which I think you started) is "Fun and Strange FACTS about parks."

Ummmm... How do you figure that? THEY AREN'T EVEN IN THE SAME PLACE! (Knotts is to the TOP of this picture..)

Alex, you're off in lala land there... as in: CF won't be doing that anytime soon...

Yes, the Tidal waves were reunited into a single being again. Schwarzkopf's coasters were, for the most part, modular and completely interchangeable within a particular series: I.E. the trains for a Jumbo Jet/Speedracer III could be used on a City Jet; Trains for any of the LoopingRacer/LaunchingRacer/HeartlineLooping/etc. coasters were completely interchangeable- or modified quickly to work on any other variety. The Tidal Wave Twins were exactly that: Both were assembled side-by-side in Munsterhausen. While most of the track was sold for scrap (Sadly, I'd love to have had a section of that for my backyard...), the cable, drum, weight-drop tube and tower, full train, all of the brakes and motor assemblies were saved and re-used on SFKK's Greezed Lightning coaster. As for Whizzer's parts: The trains went to different homes along the way: From the best information I can get, one full train plus spares went to Worlds of Fun, while the other two migrated south of the border. The original transfer track, brakes and other spares went to... Chicago, keeping the Whizzer there operating. Sadly, like with the track of Tidal Wave, most of it was scrapped. i can say with some good confidence that now that Gerstlauer (the company which bought up Schwarzkopf's facilities and assets...) is building new trains, etc. for Schwarzkopf coasters that it's a matter of time before we could see these great designs returning to life again. It would be -wonderful- to see coasters like Whizzer and Tidal Wave brought back to life again, as more modern designs overall. R.D. Praise be to Anton

This looks like an amazing project, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it 'up close' R.D. GFMT

I placed the original post back into the forum: Robb, Did you get the forward of the PM I received from this guy? He's OK with putting up a TPR banner and link on his site. R.D.