Physical

Is that a ferris wheel with 4 carriages?

Just the back one, but only in the up and down direction, not side-to-side. It may seem odd, but it generally helps with banking transitions as those are what causes the most stress to the standard fixed axle chassis This is a pretty good picture of an underside of an articulating PTC train. You can see the cutout where the rear axle is allowed to move. Also, this is one of the weird White Cyclone trains that for some odd reason, uses a skid brake and a fin brake system, for those that may wonder. You'd be surprised on the difference between a good train and a bad one. Wolverine Wildcat at Michigan's Adventure was an OK ride, but the year the train was shipped over to PTC for its refurb, it was running the best I've ever rode on it. And there was little to no track work done on it from the previous year. Thanks for explaining that. Makes a load more sense to me since you linked that pic. I don't know if the trains will have that big of an impact, but I've never ridden a woodie with brand new trains. They're basically the same trains, (except for the articulating axle) just... new.

I think the ride will run at least slightly better then it has been (and as of 2015, Thunderhawk wasn't running that bad) with the new trains and some minor retracking, it should be a great year for Thunderhawk. Plus the new trains are probably significantly lighter than the old ones, perhaps allowing the trims to be turned down/removed completely? I'm still dreaming about this

They're actually neither. These are one of the newer articulating rear axle trains. These should move around the corners much better than the old trains did with the 2 fixed axles. So they're two axle with one fixed in the front and one articulating in the rear? Or is it more like Arrow looper trains or Intamin hyper trains where there's one axle per car that sits under the car behind it? (with the exception of the pilot car of course) After looking at the pics from PTC's site I answered my own question. Are both axles free to move separate from the car itself or is just the back one free to move? Here's hoping all that comfy (looking) padding makes the ride less rough! I dig the old school look though, with the "couch cushion" style benches without seat dividers.

If you don't have any moral objection to doing so, you can just import Possessed and Stinger from the Shuttle Park that's included with the software. Just change the colors around and you're basically set. They're almost 1:1 recreations, why bother doing more work than you have to

Anybody know if the new trains are trailered or are they the standard 2 axle trains?

From what I've been told, 2 flats will be upgraded to LEDs for 2016 as well. Please be the Musik Express. The one Dorney has is in /desperate/ need of a modernization.

Drove by the park after dark tonight, got a nice glimpse of the chaser lights on Thunderhawk. They were on for some reason, not "chasing" though, just on. It looks like they have most of the lights mounted, from what I could see from Lincoln Ave, it looked like all the lights were in place except for the lift hill and the first drop. The return bunny hills looked especially nice. No pics, I was working at the time.

I've considered it, especially since I've started messing around with NL2 around this time last year. Unfortunately, after doing some research, and realizing actual coaster designers don't use CAD programs, and instead use Excel and formulas, it kinda turned me off the whole idea. Perhaps if I get good enough with NL2 I could get a job doing contract work making simulations of proposed rides.

Every time you mention this, I agree. I will keep doing this until everybody understands how well Thunderhawk runs without trims.

I've only been to 3 Cedar Fair parks, but I'd rank them as follows. 1) Kings Dominion. Fantastic atmosphere, beautiful park, some areas are extremely well themed, I305, and Bisch-Rocco Flyers! What's there not to like? 2) Dorney Park. My home park, well rounded collection of coaster (Even if the 2nd best coaster in the park is a hand-me-down from Geauga Lake) Talon, Demon Drop, Steel Force, and Possessed. Plus Thunder Creek Mountain. People like to complain that it's a concrete jungle, but only the top half of the park is (and really only back to White Water Landing, the rest of the park is well shaded, and very nice looking) 3) Carowinds. I had an absolutely terrible experience at this park. Abysmal operations on every ride except Fury 325 (We sat on Windseeker for literally 20 minutes while the ops sat around the booth chatting instead of checking restraints, and don't get me started on the Afterburn crew!) Though Carowinds has two fantastic rides (Fury 325 and Afterburn) the rest of the lineup is lackluster bordering on downright bad. I232 was the biggest disappointment I've ridden so far. Couple this with rude and uncaring staff, and you have a recipe for a bad time. On the bright side, Carowinds has the best non-Knoebels flyers I've ridden.

Rides had them last year but they weren't really used other than a few scorchers in August. Plus when you work outside all summer, 85 degrees stops feeling hot.

There's a few spots that could do with a bit of retracking. The turn after the first hill needs it. The final turn around needs some retracking and a reprofile, it's way too underbanked, you can hear/feel the train smashing against the track trying to make the turn. While it provides some good laterals, it's jerky and to me is just painful. Does anybody know if they've started to paint at all? I've been driving past the park nearly every day and Thunderhawk still looks the same to me (At least from Lincoln Ave and Hamilton)

Morgan didn't produce trailered trains as far as I know. I know the three Morgan hypers in the US all use the same style of trains (six seater, in two abreast) I feel Morgan is kinda like Arrow V2 (a lot of Morgan people were ex-arrow) no, their coasters are far from perfect, but using the tech available at the time, they did the best they could. B&M didn't make their first hyper until 1999 (Apollos Chariot) Morgan built their first hyper in 1996. In my opinion at the time, Morgan, Arrow and Intamin were doing the best they could given tech at the time. If you look at Darien Lakes Ride of Steel it's closer to a Morgan or Arrow hyper than say, a B&M hyper. As ZeroGravity55 said, D.H Morgan merged into Chance Rides in 2001.

Echoing what everybody has already said. Hershey and Knoebels are absolute musts. Dorney I would consider optional, Kennywood is worth it as well if you're willing to drive half way across the state. Be sure to check out Knoebels Wipeout. It's by far the most intense and crazy wipeout I've ridden.

I might be in the minority here, but I like the McDonalds color scheme (Red track, yellow supports) on I305 and a few SLC's. Bright red track with muted yellow supports is incredibly good looking IMO.

A lot of coasters with layouts I would call "bad" aren't bad coasters. Take Phoenix at Knoebels for example, it's a very boring, unoriginal, uninspired, standard double out and back layout. But it's still a phenomenal coaster. If we're talking bad coasters with a bad layout, Hurler at KD springs to mind, same with Shockwave when it was operating.

Dorney Hershey Knoebels Six Flags Great Adventure Kings Dominion Carowinds All WDW dry parks and Blizzard Beach (years and years ago, only rode Big Thunder Mountain)

Actually we get better discounts at other CF parks than dorney. we get 15% off at dorney, i got 25% off at CP if i recall. We also get free parking at all parks as well. We get all the same perks of having a season pass. When I went to KD they refused to honor the discount, same thing at Carowinds. The admissions people at KD didn't even know Dorney was a Cedar Fair park!

Checking the citation on wikipedia, I believe the windseeker numbers were reported by the park, so that might be total cost including installation. I can only find information straight from Funtime for the Star Flyers, so those might just be the unit cost sans installation.

According to the 8th page of the technical factsheet here (PDF Warning) a funtime starflyer costs 1,125,000 euros with the platform or 1,049,000 euros without. Comes out to around 1,138,880 USD give or take a few and 1,221,395 respectively. Out of curiosity I checked the price on Windseekers as well, and wikipedia reports those cost 5,000,000 USD for the first 4, and 6,500,000 USD for the next two. I would assume that's just the cost for the ride itself, and does not include construction costs.

Depending if I get hired again at Dorney, I'm either going to have a Cedar Fair Employee ID, which is good for entry to any Cedar Fair park (acts like a season pass just without a lot of the perks of having a season pass) Great Adventure, Hershey, and a wristband at Knoebels. Or if I don't go back to work there, I'll probably go with a season pass to Hershey, and just buy day tickets everywhere else I go.

If you're in Pennsylvania at all, heck, or if you're in any of the surrounding states, you need to get to Knoebels.

Is that actually enforced though? I know a lot of chains are supposed to follow that policy, but on my trip down to KD and Carowinds last year my buddy and I had no issues and we're both between 18 and 21.

First car is incredible. I knew the buzz bars were going, but it still sucks to see it finalized. I'll miss that "Going to get launched into Cedar Creek" airtime you get on the second hill.