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Thanks, glad you enjoyed. I was kind of "dragged" into the animals exhibits and ended up really enjoying it. You get a handstamp for park re-entry since the zoo is separately available to outside guests.

^&^^ Thanks for the insight!

You're right, coasterbill. I won't skip either. It's a bit sad that Martin's is gone now. Thanks for the great outlook, ajfelice. That is exciting news right from the source. By the way, I always look forward to reading whatever you post, it's always perfectly on point. I'll probably be arriving a bit before 5pm and am more than happy to support such a great park with a full day ride band, no question. And thanks for the heads up on the Ferris Wheel. "Wheel" definitely be back to get our night ride one day. Maybe combine it with our first Kennywood/Idlewild visit which I dream about pretty much every day. But we're saving that for a longer, relaxed trip. Herschell is always just off my radar, one too many kiddie credit denials I guess. I have heard of this. We are incredibly lucky to have all this history preserved in the northeast, and I will definitely put it on the to do list, if not for now then for ASAP.

DirkFunk: That's all great info, thanks! Your trip advice is always top notch. My partner is a huge waterpark fan so I'll save Water Safari for a visit with him. The state fair however, looks like I just can't pass that up. Seabreeze's carousel will definitely be a highlight; the whole trip kind of gelled around needing to check that out upon learning the story. The museum I was not aware of though... cool. And I'll make their flume a must-do. Likewise, coasterkid.... very helpful, thanks!

'Allo guys n gals. I'm doing a solo trip the weekend before Labor Day. My itinerary is pretty well locked in, but I could still use some help from the locals and park veterans on a variety of topics. Here's the plan (now revised- see 1st post on pg2): Fri 4th - drive out to Meadville PA late at night. Sat 5th - visit Conneaut in the early afternoon then drive up to Waldameer and visit until close. Drive up to Hamburg, NY for the night. Sun 6th - Niagara Falls opens extra early all weekend so up early and spend a couple hours at the Falls. Then drive to Martin's Fantasy Island for a quick visit. Then drive to Seabreeze for a quick visit. Then drive to Sylvan Beach for a quick visit, if there's time. It's right on the way home, so no big deal if it doesn't fit in. I'll be getting back home around 2am Sunday night/Monday morning, assuming a stop @ Sylvan Beach. The whole trip, and Sunday in particular, sounds like a real grind, I know ... I'm up for it, promise! I'm aware there are nearby parks that are being passed up, only 24h in the day.... Canada's Wonderland & Marineland: not interested in dealing with a border crossing on short time constraints, and both of these parks I'd rather first visit with friends in a coming year. CW especially... will do a big Platinum Pass summer within the next 2yrs. Darien Lake: didn't make the cut for this short trip because I'm genuinely interested in the other parks more. I'll get here, and it's an easier "sell" for visiting w/ GP-ish friends. Midway State Park: I totally wanted to squeeze a quick visit here just to look around and soak in some history. But the park's schedule just made it impossible. My "must ride" list is already pretty stacked, but I'm fine tuning it. Okay, onto my questions. Tackle any or all. >> Any general or specific advise. Fire away if you've got it. >> Waterparks. It won't be my main focus but I am a fan. Any unique must rides? I've done all the standard fare stuff. >> Log Flumes. I know Waldameer's is a must do, and I know you get really wet. This is the one park I'll have time to dry off. But what about Seabreeze? Is their historical flume actually good? How wet? Are you even allowed to ride a flume alone lol? >> Martin's. Do all the rides (esp Silver Comet) open right at advertised park opening hour, or do they stagger ride openings? I'm hoping to arrive right before park opens and knock everything out posthaste. >> Seabreeze. Flyers: Bisch or Larson? Are they old? Do they run fast? Also, I'm afraid this place will be packed - thoughts? >> Single Rider. Are there any marginally-advertised single rider lines or policies I should know about? Other than Flight and Antique Cars at Martin's, are there any rides at any of these parks that are not open to single riders? >> It doesn't appear Sylvan Beach offers pay per ride tickets. This is a little disappointing for a park of its stature and my timeframe. Can anyone confirm or refute? >> Will Sylvan Beach really stay open to the advertised 10pm? If I arrived between 8&9 would I even be able to get in? >> Any must-stop eateries en route? TIA ya'll! {edit1: plan now revised - see 1st post on pg2} {edit2: changing title - will use thread for TR}

Agreed. I think it goes here: I like how the truck color compliments the track colors. Bad@ss looking all together, cool marketing ploy indeed.

> It looks like SFOGdude25's pic made the local news. > There's one other pic out there but it's from the other side, so less illustrative. It's credited as "photo by Wes Shipley via Twitter" in the article linked below. > The "damage control" comments below from the park manager are egregiously flippant and sour-tasting. Neither of the recent incidents are routine or excusable. No injuries is besides the point. Withholding detailed comment "during the investigation" and hoping the story fades from public view would have even been a more respectable route. http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/beech-bend-ride-malfunctions/article_876e2e09-75f3-5f7a-b119-be7d7206139c.html Beech Bend ride malfunctions By SIMONE C. PAYNE Updated Aug 16, 2015

That was my reaction too. Generally I am dead silent on coasters but my first ride on Skyrush found me screaming: "THIS IS THE GREATEST RIDE EVER". Just going through some pics and thought I'd post a few from my two visits to Hershey this year in June and July. The zoo is pretty good! I mean, c'mon, just try not to say "awwww". Stormrunner has really grown on me, it's definitely my second favorite in the park. Quack. Fury is not the only B&M with treble clef-ish track. My favorite coaster supports of all time. Skyride was running pretty well. So THAT'S how they sleep! Whatchoo lookin' at? Yes, I know I have a funny nose/beak thingy! Does not appear to be in the best of moods. I think this was a caiman...? These did not move fast. The prarie dogs were addictive to watch. Looks dee-lish! Muahhhhh! How... does he get out? Oh! This thing terrified me. How do you even defend yourself if it... you know... ? 90 minutes queue. Ever notice how LaffTrakk and Lightning Racer have complimentary stations? Oh snap. I'd forgotten that I'd .gif'd this. That explains why I was uploading 25 pictures but it was telling me 29 files selected. D'oh. I'm in the camp that believes this ride is underrated.... ...severely underrated. It is phenomenal. This is a train ride, and... I thought this was construction for a new woodie (for a split second). D'oh! The train ride is themed move heavily than the rest of the park. I know this is an owl, and a d@mn cute one!

I would like to visit this place just for RoS, but with Quassy Park/Wooden Warrior just down the road, I can't get any of my coastering friends to accompany me on the longer trip. So here's my question: It would be creepy for a 30yr old guy to visit this place solo, yes? Be honest. Maybe I could rent one of my nieces or a nephews for a day, though they're starting to get older. What is the target age here? Enjoyed your report, by the way. Very nicely maintained park.

I'm just catching up on the news now. In the interest of reducing dead horse abuse, I did carefully read all thirty-something pages. Still, apologies for the late contribution to a topic I'm sure you're all tiring of. This is a very interesting point. The technology is available, proven, and very straightforward. Wicked Twister has one guarding either end of the station. But I'm certain not every park will do so with their fences. I happen to purchase, install, troubleshoot, and maintain light curtains on multimillion dollar manufacturing equipment. Guarding every segment of fencing with a light curtain is a seriously expensive undertaking. My back-of-the-envelope estimate says this is a quarter- to half-million dollar installation on a ride the size of Raptor. Times all the rest of their coasters. Worth it? I'd sure as heck be doing a careful CBA, given the incredible stupidity parks have to deal with. And I wouldn't be surprised to see this somewhere, someday. But small parks can't swing it, fersure. A compounding issue is that, coasters being gravity-driven, there is a decent chance that nothing useful could be done even if the system is apprised of the intruder. Brakes capable of quickly stopping the train would need to be added all over the course (which may not even be possible, generally speaking). So, in most cases it would be effective, but in some cases it would not, short of an even huger cash outlay. This makes the investment less attractive. As for protecting them from malicious activiation, I don't think that would be significantly challenging. This, this, and this x1000. Being in a vehicle that impacts and kills someone can be life-changingly traumatic. I once watched a brief piece that interviewed train conductors and car drivers victimized by suicidal individuals jumping in front of them. Some people can shake it off, but in many cases it induced massive, lifelong, depressive emotions and the need for intensive therapy. My heart goes out so incredibly deeply to those riders. And..psssssst... it's "fair" hehe, "fare" is for the bus

Over the Falls at Martin's Fantasy Island only lasted a season and was sold off to a traveling show in the UK. I'll get pics of the new Music Express when I go, though.

^^ The maglevs passing each other certainly woke me up! The whole coaster could one giant launched airtime hill "within a plane" (like S&S freespin), with a parabolic trajectory mimicking a free launch under gravity. There's virtually no force against the magnets, they're just needed to keep alignment. The ultimate floater airtime machine. A secondary set of offset, dampened mechanical upstop and ride wheels automatically guide only during first part of launch and last part of brake run, or if a launch goes over/under standard speed and causes an acceleration against the track that exceeds the magnets' holding force. In that case it would ride like a standard coaster for the duration of the ride, or until excess speed scubbed off. Of course this would still be prohibitively expensive and not at all appealing/marketable to the public. But I do imagine it would give a very unique and pleasurable ride experience - perfect "floatiness" - in absolutely smoothness - and would be achievable with current technology. It could launch and brake on both ends and shuttle people across parks.

I'd really love to see them dig up and restore a Chance Turbo.

^ Very true, it's layout envelope perimeter is about 1050ft and with 3838ft of track, gives it a TL:LEP of 3.65! They really packed a lot of track into a small space, WOW! I'm not sure there many coasters more tightly configured that that.

Conklin's Doppel Looping and Laser at Dorney were separate rides with very similar or identical layouts. Doppel Looping ran at Miami-Dade County Fair in Florida thru 2008. No idea what happened to it after that. Dorney's ride did indeed go to Europe for a traveling show. If I rode Olympia Looping, it was lost to the blur of (non)memories that my '09 Oktoberfest visit became. Sadly coasters were not on my radar at the time. Need to get back there!

The Maurer spinning coaster at Waldameer is actually a pretty fun ride, if you can fit it in. If you enjoy drop towers and have never been on a Larson, I'd highly recommend trying the one at either Knoebels or Waldameer. They're not the tallest, but they are the most fun. And actually, DelGrosso's has one that runs even better, 15min up the road from Lakemont, but that does not look to fit in the itinerary. Lakemont has two increasingly rare, classic flat rides - Skydiver and Twister. The latter may be the last operating installation in the world, but it runs pretty slowly and is only an average ride IMO. The former is very intense but not particularly comfortable, and does not allow solo rides. Ride Skyliner in the first two rows for a crazy pop of ejector air at the top of the first ascent after first drop. Very underrated classic woody.

Broken necks ... really? Half-submerged? Calling a device that has never carried, nor is likely to carry, a dead body a "coffin" is preposterously charged language. The alarmism would best stay contained to the sensationalist "news" organizations. I can't even imagine a drowning scenerio without a highly improbable coincidence of freak issues, a force to which all thrill attractions are subject. Have you ever even designed an ISO13489-compliant control system, or have any idea of the risk analysis needed to do so?

Fury is quite photogenic and I really enjoyed these. Very nice shots.

Why is maintaining a particular separation between a "coaster" and a "slide" necessary for a ride to be enjoyable? I can imagine many types of hybrids between water and coaster attractions that would be exceptionally fun. I certainly share the concern that the looping slide could really just be disorienting and make you choke down buckets of water. I am holding out good hope this won't be the case, and my larger point was that the technology is a nice innovation with exceptional room for new applications and refinement.

Actually.... Sky Turtle Technologies is really onto something with the capsule/restraint on slides. I wouldn't mind going down a slide in a huge capsule, restrained in a standing position with padded belt OTSRs. I also wouldn't mind being restrained into a huge ball and rolled down a slide with waterfalls everywhere. But yeah video looks awful.

The lines yesterday were oddly inconsistent. It was also the hottest day I've ever spent at the park. Got there a bit before 1:00 and headed over to Ka. The first main switchbacks to the left were full and queue was spilling into the entrance hall toward the greeter. No thanks. Figured Zumanjaro would also have a wait but it was literally walk-on. Folks don't enjoy this, or don't know about it, or what gives? The animal exhibit between Ka/Jaro and Toro was open, granting us a shortcut to Toro. I'd never seen this before but it was the most awesome-est thing in the history of awesome-ism. The animals were cute too. Toro line was right to the churro stand. We hit the exit path 33 minutes later, not bad at all. Bull was hauling in the heat, WOW! Good ops. The looping diablo dragon coaster was only filling a switchback and a half so we did it for the newness appeal. Bizarro was 10 or 15 minutes to the station. Nitro line was exactly to the 60 minute sign right before the switchbacks. We entered the station 14 minutes later (!) and waited one train for second-to-back row. The crew was decent but did manage to stack three trains here and there. Had one of my best rides here ever again thanks to the heat. The airtime bobs right before the station were even delivering. B train - very smooth. Headed over to Namtab expecting a sizable wait. Surprised to see the walkway queue empty. Then surprised to see the long narrow switchback empty. Then surprised to see the tunnel empty... staircase... empty.... turnstile ...empty.... station ... three train wait for back (good view) row. I guess the locals have all one-n-done'd it? Anyway this was my second Namtab after Magic Mountain's and it was just fine, interesting, etc., but I'm totally ready for it to revert back to forward facing after one ride. My friend had his mind set on riding bumper cars and we had a pretty terrible experience. Line looked like 2-3 cycles, not even filling the first row of switchback area. One of the three ops peaced out stage right, just as we got on line. She was the slow op, leaving only the (a) slower and (b) slowest ops to continue. At none of the ~30 parks I've visited have I EVER witnessed two more disinterested employees. Like he'd take a step. Then... wait for it... wait for it... another step! I poop you not, the cycles were 15 minutes. As I said, my friend's mind was made up so we stuck with it and got on better than 40 minutes later. The line was actually booing and yelling everytime they'd spend five minutes without making any clear progress toward advancing anyone's next ride. It was almost surreal. Hoofed it over to Superman which was a walk-on but we waited three trains for the front. It wasn't running my last two visits and I really enjoy the Pretzel so this was a great ride. Was surprised to see the low line, as I've seen very long queues here before. Their Huss Top Spin, Twister, had been closed for awhile earlier this year but it was running a program with six or seven flips. One of better programs I've had one these. Ka was still an hour+ at that point and Toro looked like 45m+. It was getting late given our drive home, so we had to get on the road.

We drove up to TGE on a whim yesterday afternoon for few hrs in the park. Steamin' Demon was a new credit for me and a walk-on. The vertical loop was nice and smooth but the corkscrews were rubbish. Alpine Bobsled was another new credit for me ... suffered through a 45min wait ... and thought the ride was fun. Liked it more than the Mack bobsled at KD because the car really drifts unlike the Mack train. Hit up a couple slides at the water park. It was pretty slammed so we skipped the Tornado that my partner wanted to do. Black Cobra is one of the twistiest slides I've been on and we agreed it was really great. You barely get wet all - which could be a pro or a con. Two laps on Comet afterwards were excellent, running much faster than my cold visit on the last day of the season last year. It moved quite far up in my rankings. Two trains and pretty good ops kept waits under 15min toward the end of the day. After getting a taste for Go Karts a few weeks ago at Coney/Luna (theirs are excellent), Michael wanted to give the Six Flags carts a try. Ugh, overpriced and total fail. Some of the weakest carts I've ever done, not too surprising for a large corporate entity trying to keep the insurance people happy. Closed out the visit with a spin on the indoor scrambler, Blizzard. It was, um, COLD! Fun though.

There's no doubt both CCI and GCI were and are inspired by the great work from the earlier golden age of coasters. CCI just embodied more of Traver's uniquely demented genius and managed to walk that line without the frequent bloodied noses and broken ribs. GCI are all Baker, Miller, Prior & Church. Very, very good - but not as balls-to-the-wall insane (an aviation reference BTW, not a dirty one).

I enjoyed this thread and miss it. A quick warning that nerd-style analysis follows. Was pondering the best way to characterize the compactness of a coaster layout. I think the perimeter of the smallest encompassing rectangle is a decent (not perfect) metric, and captures the idea better for a larger range of layouts than "area of that" does. I'll call it "layout envelope perimeter." With Google Maps it's really easy to do a quick measure on just about any coaster. If you haven't used it: right click > Measure distance is really great. (see picture at end). Instead of saying "for a really compact ride, this one's pretty good..." or "it's amazing even though it's not super compact, but still somewhat....", this stat would help quantify that aspect of it as a basis for discussion of merits. Here's the approximate layout envelope perimeter for a few rides mentioned in here: El Loco - EG: Steel Hawg - Indiana Beach ~550ft Kanonen - Liseberg ~775ft Eurofighter - EG: DDD - SFOG ~1000ft Eurofighter - EG: Untamed - Canobie ~640ft Just for the sake of comparison to big rides, El Toro comes in around 2800ft while Nitro's huge, sprawling T-shape puts it well over 4000ft. So I'd also like to nominate a new suggestion for the thread: the most compact Maurer X-Cars: FamilyCo Express, Formulae X, and G Force (plus a likely clone in Iraq). These all have layout perimeter envelopes around 650ft, but look to take their engineering and dynamic capabilities from much larger rides like Hollywood RRR. They also have some impressive launch stats, and I'd love to try them out. Another interesting stat that goes along with the compactness idea is the ratio of track length : layout envelope perimeter. This kind of normalizes compactness with respect to overall size and allows for the idea of a "large but compact ride", IE the track is "really packed in there" even though it's quite a massive installation. Sprawling coasters have this ratio closer and down to ~1, while very compact coasters have this ratio around and even over 2. So for example: BTR clones punch in around 1300ft perimeter, a bit big to be a "small coaster", but have a very compact-feeling TL:LEP of ~2.1. And that's with a lift and first drop that juts way out away from the rest of the ride. Here's a Google Measure showing the 950' LEP of Freischuetz at Bayern Park, a somewhat larger but still-quite-compact Maurer X-Car.

Wow, that Maurer looks seriously awesome for a small ride. Great report and pictures, the Dutch parks all seem to have very nice attention to details.