EricGarbo

Zippin Pippin at Bay Beach just now. Before that Goliath at Six Flags Great America. Two roller coasters in my top 5 wood; how lucky am I?

Based solely on that picture of the footings, I'm going with a Cheetah Hunt-style coaster Based solely on that picture of the footings, I'm going to say that I have absolutely no idea what they're building. In the end I can't ride it yet so it doesn't particularly matter, either.

^ Will do! I'll get some of my questions put together more formally. ASi is pretty good right now, especially in my industry. When we're doing projects with 100+ valves with feedback it's awesome to just grab two IFM controllers for each panel and run two of those yellow ribbon cables into the field versus a huge block of Flex I/O with a ton of discrete wires.

Wait a minute, how are they running the single rider line? Is it functioning basically as the fast pass lane does? They're using the same line for both. Life just got a whole lot sweeter.

Oh my goodness I didn't expect you to reply. There are so many things I would love to ask you someday about controls for rides. It seems so similar yet completely different from the S88 philosophy I use for food and beverage systems. Do you guys use Ethernet, DeviceNet, or ControlNet?

Wait a minute, how are they running the single rider line? Is it functioning basically as the fast pass lane does?

I'll do it for free! Maybe pay for my Rockwell licensing costs, but dang that would be a fun project.

Wow, they're using PLC 5 still for that thing. At least the SLC is (somewhat) modern.

Yup, same as Full Thrott!e. They even had permanent signage regarding the boarding passes in the main queue. This is something we'll be dealing with for quite a long time. The amount of line jumping signage they had up was really good, too. I wonder if that phone number you call for line jumping can be used for every ride? I have the worst time dealing with line jumpers and I've been in many arguments trying to stop people from cutting 15-20 minutes ahead of everyone. In many cases the people waiting around me support the line jumpers which gets very annoying.

As for the unshaded and endless switchbacks set up, i really believe six flags should brung in a DJ and speakers/lights and turn the area into a dance party to entertain diring the several hours people will be standing there. Also, two large tents might be enough to cover the queue semi-permanently. So basically do what Magic Mountain did for Full Thrott!e last year, which is a good idea. Last year Full Thrott!e had a canopy for the switchbacks (Which they still have) but they had a DJ come in and had those weird dudes/ladies on stilts walking around. For you people about to get your first ride on Goliath today I challenge you to do this: when you enter the zero-g stall instead of looking forward look straight up. The sensation of just watching the world float by horizontally when you're upside down at that height and speed was incredible. Every time I ride Goliath I will do this.

Having spoken to Hank at the beginning and near the end of the Media Day I have to say that he was decently upset with how it went. Technical difficulties and weather aside he specifically told me after the first train of the day that he wanted to give us some rides. I don't think anyone anticipated how much downtime the media was actually going to create, least of all the park president. His quote to me at the beginning of the day was, "Once we get done with this media filming I want to get things moving really quickly so you can all get in as many rides as you wish." At the end of the day he didn't say much to me. He gave a very distraught "Well I'm glad you guys could come out and ride it." type of response. Think of the X-Flight media day. It was two trains just cranking out rides. This was also a Hank Salemi installation. Think of how many more rides people were getting on the Banshee media day. I don't want to be ungrateful; just riding Goliath once would have been worth an entire day of waiting, and because of this I am personally grateful to the park and to the coaster clubs for extending the invitations to us. But lets not pretend that this day was anything that even the more experienced among us were expecting, and that in general the enthusiast community was disappointed with how the event was organized.

Here's one. Very Screamscape worthy. I was waiting in line with a high up member of the maintenance staff yesterday. He did a bunch of the electrical work on Goliath and rode it before everyone else, does ride maintenance, etc. He was talking to his wife and kids about the building of the ride. His (nearly) exact quote was "The Eagle's next. First we got Goliath then we have these guys redo the Eagle. It's a major investment but that was the long term goal." Now, why maintenance personnel would have access to the long term development strategy of the park is beyond me, but within organizations people talk and it's actual conversations with actual employees that can create a change in the organization/give the organization direction. We don't often get the chance to hear the back-door musings of the park personnel and it was funny to hear him say this.

So I'm officially the first person to ride for the cycle: every roller coaster currently in the park an adult is able to ride.

The train exited the dive loop and on its way up into the zero g stall poly started ripping off of a wheel which made an extremely loud noise. When the train returned to the brake run one of the cars was bouncing like a wheel was lopsided. They moved the train to the transfer track and lowered it for repairs.

HOLY CRAP. The station is silent. It sounds like a wheel ripped itself apart. Confirmed: I saw the wheel. Polyurethein ripped off the wheel.

^ Aww yeah I see myself in that train. There's typical Media Day slowness going on but it would be great if the other train was on the circuit just to move people a little bit during this downtime.

First ride on Media Day. It was incredible!

Cars Land CONFIRMED for Holiday World!

I just had this weird thought in my head comparing this addition to Expedition Everest. I hope we don't end up with a failing animatronic dragon and have to refer to it as 'Disco Dragon.'

Based on the information I received you will not be allowed to sit around the property until 3:00 AM anyway. I'm going to be in bed tonight started at 8 PM and waking up around 1:30-2:00 otherwise I would find a place for people coming into town to hang out until the event. Bar close is 2:00, after all.

^^ Thanks for the report! I grew up in Door County and as a small kid we would go to Bay Beach with my Grandma who would babysit me while I rode the kiddy rides. Some of my fondest memories in life are of riding the train there which I link back my desire to be an engineer, my fascination in trains, and my love of theme parks and rides. I'm very happy to see them taking such good care of everything. I'll actually be driving back up to Door County on Friday so I'll be able to snag a few rides on it. I remember the first time I rode it, that pop on that camelback took me but a humongous surprise. I'm looking forward to that ejector air again.

I was just thinking; it's been a long time since I've ridden the former Avalanche (currently Hellcat) at Timber Falls. From the rides I got on it during its first season it has remained my favorite wooden roller coaster in the midwest. Maybe Goliath will change that, but Alan Schilke would only be outdoing himself. Has anyone been over that way recently and know how it's riding?

Somebody else posted the original source for this, but I thought it was worth mentioning that Ragin' Cajun had a single rider line, so it's not as if the park hasn't had a coaster with one. Gah, you're right! I forgot about that, even though I waited in it the only times I ever got Rajun Cajun credits.

There have been various reports saying that but no one has reported seeing any signage. I'll ask on media Day. I'm quite often a single rider so I'd like to know too. Same here, but I can't seem to find an original source on this. My guess is that it's just a rumour that spread too far.

So this is something I've seen mentioned elsewhere on the internet and I just noticed it on the Wikipedia page for it. Is Goliath going to be operating with a single rider line? If so that will be the only one in Great America and I really didn't expect to actually see one here.