PaTim

So this is neat. The Voyage is getting Gravity Group's engineered precut track added and well as a less sophisticated horizontal version of a prefab track. I'm optimistic this prefab track may offer more permanent solutions to lower maintenance costs while keeping the rides smoother in the process, especially given the lower positive G profiles on traditional woodies compared to the Intamin prefabs. Here's the video:

I have the same fascination with as you say, the Hershey/Dorney dichotomy. I live in Eastern PA and we always had many large amusement parks to choose from, but for the most part Dorney was the park of choice in the late 80's/early 90's. As you said the water park was a big reason. What really gave Dorney the edge was when they built Hercules, which made the headlines as a record(and back) breaking coaster. Then they added Steel Force several years later and it seemed to cement Dorney as the go-to park in this region. Then the late 90's-today happened and Hershey just blew them out of the water(pun intended) with steady coaster additions and eventually their own water park(with arguably better water rides). Not that Dorney is bad, but Hersheypark is just superior in almost every single way. This new entrance looks absolutely stunning, and you can't really go wrong with a B&M hyper. I'm excited for this time next year when I assume they will announce the specs of the new coaster.

I saw that. I guess it had a poorly placed ledger in that triple up and the person I rode with told me it developed a serious pothole. I agree about the aggressiveness of the ride, it's great and it's something CCI never held back on.

Finally got to Lake Compounce and rode Boulder Dash for the first time in my life on Friday the 18th. I was very surprised with how much airtime it had in both the front and back seats, not quite the Intamin or RMC ejector level, but still very strong and throwing me up into my lap bar on just about every hill. There's two spots of significant roughness; the bottom of the first drop and the bottom of the hill next to the rocks on the out run. Those spots are BRUTAL, but other than that it was fairly smooth. What a ride....its definitely an elite coaster wood or steel, and it's utterly beautiful offride and on.

Millenium Flyers are actually heavier than PTC's. GCI even discussed that being a challenge on HP Wildcat, saying that when they decided to switch to MF's they had to shave about 40 lbs of weight of each car to get the weight to match the previous PTC's. Of course MFs also track way better and have a suspension system, so that likely takes bite out of a ride too.

Yes, they have considered it. A few years ago (gosh, maybe it's been like what... 5 years now, or longer?), they had some Timberliners and were testing them on Voyage, but for whatever reason they stopped and it never happened. I can't remember why it never happened, but they have most definitely considered it. EDIT: After some research, it turns out they were testing them in August 2010. According to Coaster-net.com, the Timberliners were scrapped because they ran slower due to their lighter weight. They claim Holiday World highly values the Voyage's intensity and the slower running trains took a lot of the bite out of the ride.

That's so true. There's a reason why GCI gets the bulk of the work in the refurbishing/retracking market. They've mastered their craft in construction, as a matter of fact one of their engineers claimed on Reddit that their coasters don't cost any more to maintain than steel coasters of the same size. TGG seems to have less precision with their trackwork. Their Timberliners are a great design, as a matter of fact it would be interesting to see how well they'd run on a new GCI construction.

Sorry folks, it IS boring, LOL. As a matter of fact I lucked out because I did skip ahead and landed on the part of the discussion where they were talking about the Timberliners. I didn't listen to the whole thing....I swear

[youtu_be] [/youtu_be] Great info in this video about why they ditched the Timberliners on the Voyage. As it turns out (according to what these guys found out), the lighter weight of the Timberliners led them to run much slower than the PTCS thus taking a lot of intensity and airtime out of the ride. That makes a lot of sense, and apparently Holiday World didn't want to sacrifice those aspects of what the coaster came to be known for.

Well, you know what they say... It's not the size of the woodie that matters, it's how good the ride is. And this ride looks awesome!! I'm loving both the new GCI's in China this year. Between those two and Mystic GCI are on for a great year. I'm really interested to see how these compare to the recent Gravity Group rides in China as they've been knocking it out of the park recently. Some of the Jungle Trailblazers are exceptional coasters. It's nice to see the GCI continue to be successful in their craft. It seems there's a perception that the traditional wooden coaster is going to be obsolete, yet they continue to prove otherwise. As far as how they compare to the new Gravity Group installations, I'd be interested to see that comparison several years from now since GG has been using the Timberliner trains. I wonder which ones will get rougher at a faster pace.

The reason it seems so short is because of its height in relation to its length. The speed generated from the large drops propels it though the course very quickly and there's slightly less elements than the other RMC's.

Absolutely. It's almost funny because if you think about it there's been talk of MS being reimaged in some form even long before RMC has been doing conversions. Because of this we can laughingly make an argument that this is their most anticipated project ever

Cedar Point does a great job at making their coasters unique from each other I'm regards to elements. If I were to speculate based on what RMC has done in the past I would guess that the new MS will turn out to be the park's most "complete" ride. It only makes sense to take a ride from worst to first, right? No matter what the final creation gives us it doesn't seem farfetched to say this is one of the most exciting coaster projects in recent history.

http:/Mean Streak- December 28, 2016 They're really moving along

Awesome announcement! I love how TGG(and GCI) absolutely PACKS their layouts with elements, where even if the track length is short you feel like you got a "complete" ride.

Maybe the conversion will be similar to NTAG where the MCBR was kept and didn't hurt the ride quality. Whatever they do this is exciting because pretty much the entire coaster fanatic world has been discussing a rehab of this ride for almost two decades. #finally

Monstre, Mean Streak, Predator, the two CW woodies, GA Cyclone, Timber Wolf, KD Grizzly..... I wonder if a park would be interested in hiring RMC to convert older steel coasters. Magnum is fun but there's no questioning its roughness, imagine if RMC was brought in to reimage it with T-Rex track. Of course that's just an outside the box idea but it appears that refurbishments may be a huge part of the coaster industry's immediately future.

Lightning Racers called. GCI'S that run their Millennium Flyer trains right from the time they open tend to age much better than traditional woodies from other manufacturers past and present. Wildcat and Gwazi opened with PTC'S. The jury is still out on larger TGG coasters that open with their Timberliners only because they're all overseas and opened within the last 2 years.

It's amazing how much better tailored trains (non-PTC) work on wooden coasters, yet almost every single larger example has non-trailored(double-axle).

I think SOB serves a great purpose in the amusement industry, which is to provide an example of what not to do. How they managed to get everything wrong in one coaster project is quite impressive, from using double-axle trains to a boring layout to subpar structural design and construction this ride had it all. Had it been manufacturered by a more experienced firm and used single-axle trains with a better layout things might have been different. It didn't deserve the opportunity to be RMC'd.

Perhaps they're enclosing the entire first drop. It kind of fits the theme of the ride, it correlates to the work being done, and it possibly relates to the "Getting Closer, Interested" hint (getting closed in). Even the extra stakes can be indicative of extra support needed for the tunnel. It's already the middle of January, so I'm not sure how extensive the work being done is going to be.

The ferris wheel type lift on Round About at Hard Rock Park was pretty interesting.

Son Of Beast has to be the biggest mistake when you consider the margin of error beginning right from its conception. It's almost like everyone involved with the idea and design of the ride knew absolutely nothing about roller coasters. Not only was it a traditional wooden coaster that obviously would have greater operating costs, but to make almost no innovation as to how the trains would interact with the track is quite impressive when it comes to poor planning. But.... they didn't stop there. They also managed to create the most boring profile that a high-thrill coaster can possibly have, and that was in a time when firms were making leaps and bounds with designing things like airtime into their creations. Some other coasters were busts, but it's hard to compare any of them to the level of SOB.

Remember when that lady fell to her death on Texas Giant at SF Over Texas? Because I do. It was a horrible occurrence, but if you feel that particular instance represents a jeopardization to your safety consider this: Millions upon millions of people visit Six Flags parks each year. They average around 25 million visitors per year across the chain, so over the last three seasons that equates to roughly 75 million. A one in 75 million chance of a fatal accident is safer than air travel, and considering the circumstances of that particular occurrence the chances are even lower. It was a freak incident influenced by the passenger's waistline undermining the ability of the restraint being able to secure her properly during strong negative g-force elements of the ride. These are extremely rare, and while they have happened and are tragic they should be examined closely as to why they happened and whether the would happen to you. Unfortunately people speak in nonsensical platitudes, for instance reporting to the media that a hydraulic lap bar didn't click.

I hate when that happens. If you go to www.holidayworld.com and then go to the Holiblog there's a post discussing what's new for 2016. In it there's a video where the maintenance crew is discussing what they would like for Christmas. The head of maintenance is texting what they want to Santa Claus, and at 1:44 of the video it shows the screen on his cell phone with texts that say "nuts, bolts, wood" and "roller coaster tunnel" and a response text that says "You got it". Perhaps there's more to it but since they're announcing it in January it sounds fairly reasonable.