OneOfTheWills

With all the stuff I've acquired over my years doing haunted houses, I'm sure I have a few fog machines and strobe lights the park could borrow!

They are Cummins generators. Between 1.5MW and 2MW each. Typically used when a planned outage is in the works. Probably work on the new substation. Here's a clicky for more info.

^Happened around 2PM today (02/10/15). Just before the camera was set to Voyage's lift hill, you could see workers adjusting the dummies and putting restraints on them. I wonder if they tested today and just didn't want any witnesses on the first one in case anything went wrong. Would have been bad pub for B&M's first launcher if we witnessed a rollback or worse. I'm sure we'll get to see future testing.

Raven Maven is at it again! *shakes fists* Recent post on the HoliWood Nights Facebook group page shows Lauren and Leah holding, as Paula put it, a "Secret Document." Here's a link to the page if you are a member of the Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/325861871036/ Here's one of the photos posted in the group for those who can't see it on the link above. Looks to be a schematic and a tall (long?) one at that. The proportions are off for this to be a schematic for Thunderbird. 2016 maybe? If so...wow that was fast! Question is...could this be for the former Pilgrim's Plunge/Giraffica area or...an area including where the (former) Sparkler once stood? For those curious like myself, I tried a few tricks to bring out any detail on the paper....it looks as though most of the schematic has been Photoshopped (or purposely overexposed) out. Except for the important bits at the bottom. Those are the boxes where all the design information goes... Here's that photo. Thoughts? Paula, I just finished recovering from my withdraw from all the hype leading up to Thunderbird's announcement!

^I thought I saw two cars in the station today while at work! Night rides are going to be so, so good.

Let's also not forget about the still vacant Pilgrims Plunge/Giraffica area. Does anyone know if the station has been removed? All of our eyes (and all of the cameras) have been pointed towards TB construction. HW poured Crow's Nest's pad without our knowing because it was out of frame...what else have they been doing? A comment on the Holiblog stated that the concrete was still there. I also had a strange thought that we might see the removal (or moving or layout change) of Lewis & Clark Trail in a few seasons. It takes up real estate between three of the holiday sections (4th, Christmas, Halloween). Like I said, it was a strange thought but as much as I would miss the ride if it was removed completely, it wouldn't completely surprise me now.

I believe the land he was referring to is across from the employee parking lot on highway 162. Conventional thought tells me that the employee parking lot will end up over there one day and they will work with the state to get a tunnel under the rode like they did for The Legend parking lot. They could go two ways with that employee parking lot if they do move across the road. One, use it for the continued expansion of the Thanksgiving section. Two, which would be my personal preference, expand upon the 4th of July section. I don't think they've fully maximized the theming potential that sections has to offer. They already have the pathways going down there, which are currently for employee use only right now. Both, across from the employee parking lot (State Road 162) and land over by the Legend Lot. I'll make a simple map tomorrow.

...AND earn a lengthy timeout from posting to TPR. We will not tolerate someone stealing photos from other websites and claiming them as their own. Well, I meant the owners of the photos but yes, TPR should stop those types of offenses.

Thanks! Hyena Falls does seem way out of place on those images. I've yet to see it in person. I'm still curious why it was placed way out there when there was plenty of room behind Kima Bay without needed to remove many trees. Also, the red outline isn't random. That's the actual property boundary as listed by the county HW resides in. Kinda looks like an elf's shoe....

One thing, coasterchitchat, the picture of The Raven that you have captioned as "The Raven ending" ,in your trip report, is actually Raven's beginning. ^I remember Will saying that years ago. Geez, I miss him being at the park, especially during HWN. His spirit is still alive and well, that's for sure. I was looking at the Google satellite map of the park, trying to figure out what will go where. Ahhh... dreaming is free. One can only imagine what they have in store for us down the years. I've been looking/day dreaming about where and how HW will expand in the future as well. Made this to help myself (and anyone else) visualize just what Holiday World has to work with. This map shows 2015 plans as well as how much area the park still has for future expansions. Red=Christmas Dark Blue=Fourth of July Orange=Halloween Tan=Thanksgiving Light Blue=Splashin' Safari Pink=Picnic Areas White=Employee Areas Black=Parking (Only part of total parking) The Red Outline is the property boundary for HW&SS. This doesn't include property on the other side of State Road 162 (to the East of the park) and State Road 245 (to the South) which splits The Raven Parking Lot and The Legend Parking Lot. Here's a little animation I made showing the expansions from Santa Claus Land's opening in 1946 to Holiday World's opening of Thunderbird in 2015. It's as accurate as I could make it (read: probably not very accurate) but close enough to get an idea of how much the park has grown over the years. And.... No. The most that could happen is someone asking the photos to be taken down. Since no money was exchanged for the photos and they were not used to sell a product, there is no ground for a lawsuit.

^So happy to see that "clearing" is still loaded with trees! This is exactly right. As I said earlier, B&M is working with Intrasys the same way they work with Clermont Steel. B&M is a design firm, essentially, and has the say in what they put their name on and therefore what components are implemented in their designs. Another example of this than the perfect analogy kyleparks77 gave is the GoPro camera. GoPro designs and has the final say as to what the end product will be but GoPro also uses Sony components inside of their cameras. Doesn't make it a Sony camera. Doesn't make it a Sony/GoPro partnership, either. This happens a lot. It saves the primary company (in this case B&M) massive amounts of money in R&D as well as in fabrication. This, in turn, saves the customer money which saves the guests money on tickets.

Stopping by briefly to check the thread before going back to the studio and I've not had time to go through all the recent posts but B&M outsourcing the LSM to Intrasys is the same as B&M outsourcing steel fab to Clermont Steel. It's still B&M's design...but someone has to actually put the thing together. Who better than a company that specializes in such components.

It's crazy seeing how massive that orange Thunderbird track is when it's loaded on a 53' trailer (and still sticks off the end!)

I'm curious as to how much track and supports we will actually see on the construction cam before the crane(s) position it into place on the footers. HW usually stores ride parts on the North end of the employee parking lot. This is behind the construction cam's view. Though, they might not store this ride there because of the amount of steel they will be getting and to keep the steel closer so they don't have to move it too many times.

I think part of the reason parks choose to invest in roller coasters more than flats in the US is because parks know today's guests don't get excited about flats like they used to. This is because, in my opinion, a majority of flat rides spin and guests see this and think, "I don't do spinning rides." Since there are only so many unique ways you can spin someone other guests think, "I've ridden one similar to that before," and then decide not to ride or at least they don't go home and tell their friends to attend the park because of a certain flat ride. US patrons like the uniqueness of roller coasters and slides (even though they too are basically the same ride over and over) because each design is different enough to draw in new and repeat guests. At least in my personal opinion, flat rides don't have that "designed" feeling that slides and coasters have. To me they all feel like replicated machines that replicate themselves every time you ride. I'm sure there are other, more probable, reasons why larger parks sway away from flats but it does seem that the industry as a whole has moved away from them.

I know the animation isn't the end-all-be-all but it seems as though PP/Giraffica's station is gone.

^According to old (but not necessarily thrown out) plans, the current area under construction is slated to be the center of the park. If true, this area has a lot of change in its future.

I think that is yellow track and not the Thunderbird orange. The red/orange track does look a little more red than the Thunderbird track but it could just be lighting. If you look at the closely, you can see that new tie design we were all talking about a few pages ago. It's the launch track. Pay attention starting around 0:05 just before the propelling tires and continuing on under the LSM plates. So, I think that red/orange track is Thunderbird track but we just don't have anything to scale it to and the lighting makes the color seem redder than the animation does.

I applaud HW for the payment plan on the season passes. I know I'll be buying my first season pass to Holiday World this year just because of Thunderbird. Also, I apologize for any snarky remarks I gave anyone with a negative opinion on the ride announcement. Just as I thought your opinion shouldn't matter, I shouldn't have let it bother me. You're entitled to your opinions no matter how much I disagree with them. If I don't like it, I can simply ignore them. Last words on this subject (feel free to ignore), Thunderbird is perfect for HW. I've been reading comments on local media's Facebook pages and the GP can't wait to ride Thunderbird. That's what a ride is supposed to do. Not be extreme or intense or fast, high, long...whatever. A ride is supposed to get everyday people excited to want to spend money on something that is nonessential to their lives because they now believe the feeling they will receive from that ride is essential to their lives. Because that ride makes them an overly excited child again. Not because it's a B&M or Intamin or Mack or a launch or anything specific but because it's an awesome ride to them. That's the best part. Now back to the conversation. I really like the idea a few have been throwing around about a chair lift from the Christmas Section to Thanksgiving. Honestly, I've always been wishing for a miniature railroad but with all the hills, I highly doubt that will ever happen. A chairlift would be great, especially the gondola type that allows for more than only two passengers (I'm thinking of families with small children here). I think the lift would fit perfectly starting out by Rudolph's Reindeer Ranch then going diagonally to the North side of Raging Rapids on the Thanksgiving bridge turning to continue North towards Thunderbird. The lift would go through the area between the Christmas Section and Halloween basically following the path that cuts between HallowSwings and Lewis & Clark Trail. Once reaching the north side of Raging Rapids, the lift would then turn North and either follow the Thanksgiving path over Voyage's break-run or go slightly East of Voyage's last turn (the one into the break-run) and over the restrooms to then continue North but also avoiding the task of crossing over Voyage's track. Either way, the lift would end (or start) somewhere on the South side of Thunderbird's track. This would be a fantastic way to quickly move guests to the back of the park and near to Splashin' Safari's entrance and back again at the end of the day. Of course, HW just bought a brand new ride so speculating about future developments should maybe wait. Maybe the near future holds a convenient way to shuttle guests from the front of the park to the rear.

I've seen some close up photos of HW's Thunderbird track (I know a guy) and the orange/red track in the photos posted here looks smaller than Thunderbird's. Maybe it's because I don't have much to compare scale to on these photos where as the close up's of HW's track I have people standing next to it to scale to.

Nope. Nope.

I'm so pleased! I couldn't care less about how anyone feels. HW just sold a ticket to me for 2015!

I'm hearing voices!!!!

I love seeing how many people are viewing this thread!! Excitement is GROWING!!!

The animation video HW is teasing us with actually looks quite good!!