texcoaster

^^ Trains absolutely CAN make a ride rough. Track engineering and layout plays a big role, obviously, but an uncomfortable, poorly designed, or poorly maintained train can make for a rough trip too.

...until it opens. Word of mouth on this thing locally is going to be massive. Expect an advertising blitz as well, esp with it being the 50th anniversary.

They are awful rather than awe-ful. I was pretty shocked when I heard that SFOT went with G-trains for their $10mil guinea pig. You'd think that they would go with a company that has a proven crowd-pleasing record and Gerstlauer is not it. Holiday World's Legend ran G-trains initially, I believe, and it's popularity increased once they were replaced with PTCs. Mega Zeph is the only coaster with G-trains that has ever sat in my top 10. Having said that, this is not a wood coaster. Gerstlauer also makes steel coaster rolling stock and those seem to be just fine. We'll just have to wait and see.

Another vote for the Ultimate. Not sure how long it is from the top of the first lift to the bottom of the station lift, but the total ride time was between 6-7 minutes(!) when I rode it several years ago.

A cobra roll counts as two inversions, although it's a single element... if you count a pretzel loop as two inversions (and why wouldn't you?) then this ride has 13 inversions.

This. WTF with those weird headrests? If you put your head back to try to avoid the ear boxing, the back of your head gets wedged into that oddly-shaped crack of a headrest. The only solution is to stick your head way forward and look at your knees the whole time. Then its your neck and jawling that gets battered, but that's better than your ears or the back of your head. It's such a beautiful-looking coaster, too. What a shame. Can't believe that you went six times!!! Once was too many for me.

The New Texas Giant. Haven't really planned out my trips for this year yet beyond CoasterCon at SFOT, but I imagine my season pass will be well-worn by the time that event gets here. I'm guessing that the expense of gas and lodging to SFOT all year might curtail any big trips, but I'm seriously thinking of Australia/ NZ around Christmas.

I'm seriously dismayed at some of the answers I've seen here. Someone actually said "SFMM Thomas Town" as a candidate for the Greatest Amusement Industry Achievement. It might be great for ONE PARK, but an Industry Achievement? No. While pointing to technological advancements like plug-n-play or 90 degree banking on a woodie or even breaking the 400ft barrier certainly deserves mention, I'm going to go a bit broader here and say that the industry as a whole shifting its focus from teen-oriented thrills to customer-oriented total-park experience has been the industry's greatest achievement this decade and that movement was led by the success of Holiday World. In the middle of freaking nowhere, a tiny little park transformed itself from a local also-ran into a million-plus visitors per year juggernaut. Not only do they have insane attendance figures for such a small park, but they have a rabidly loyal following - and not just from folks within a day's drive of the park. The addition of a small but intense wood coaster (Raven) got them some attention. Adding a world-class water park (and the emergence of the water park industry as a major player in the industry is my #2 pick for this category) put Holiday World squarely on the map and made area biggies like KI and KK take notice. Add not one but TWO more wood coasters, including one that redefined what a wood coaster is capable of, and you've got a recipe for ticket sales. But it's what HW does for their guests AFTER they've bought the ticket that has shifted the industry in a good way. Will Koch and his family made the place feel like you were invited to their backyard shindig rather than being just another number at the turnstiles. They were often seen greeting guests in person at the front gates and there again to say goodbye as you left. It was rare to spend a day at HW without seeing Will out and about in the park with the guests. Other perks made you feel welcomed as well. Free parking, free soft drinks, free sunscreen at the water park. Is there any better first impression to a park than rounding the corner, seeing three great wood coasters, and not having to pay a penny to park your car? It beats the hell out of the typical major park experience of inching along at a ticket booth car queue, having your arrival delayed with this first of many lines, all so you can fork over $15 for the privilege of putting your car on their precious pavement. If you want a good spot, you'll have to fork over even more for "premium parking." Bite me. I'm already paying $50 to get into your park, now I'm adding a big chunk to park, then I'll pay $5 for a soda every time I'm thirsty and $10 for a tiny bottle of sunscreen if I forgot to bring mine from home. I don't feel welcome, I feel like an ATM spitting out money all day. The success of HW and the loyalty of their patrons has been noticed by the industry. It might take a few more years for your big themers to really turn themselves into customer-focused parks, but that trend is already showing with a more balanced ride package that gives everyone in the family something they can look forward to, as well as the trend toward toning down the sponsor tie-ins (Tony Hawk, Wiggles, etc) in favor of letting the park and its attractions speak for itself. The industry is slow to change and this transition from "teen hangout" to "customer-focused family attraction" is going to take a few more years. The change might result in huge, badass thrill rides and mega coasters being installed only every few years with in-between years seeing tamer, gentler rides added. That might make us, the hardcore enthusiasts, a little bit upset... but if the end result is that the parks thrive and stay financially ABLE to put in the big stuff from time to time, then we all win. Just my $0.02

The food chains pay a pretty heavy rent for locations inside the park. I wouldn't be surprised if the money spent by the park to put those in gets returned in a season or two - assuming the franchise didn't pony up the funds to put it in there in the first place. Theming on a coaster, though, is pretty much just money spent. Make the ride better? Sometimes. Gets as big a return on the investment? Probably not. That doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, but it is certainly a consideration when it comes to budgeting a park.

^agreed, but I'm going to take a wait-n-see approach. It's possible that there could be effects in the tunnel that can also create the illusion of heightened speed Having said that, I generally prefer that a coaster achieve its thrills from the action of the coaster rather than any effects. Those effects can (and do) fail and then all you're left with is the ride itself. It looks like this Giant will have plenty going for it in that department, too, so no worries.

Since he mentioned the "Bat debacle", I'm sure he meant successful as in "didn't have to be torn down shortly after it was built because of poor engineering" By most accounts, The Bat was a bitchin' ride, but it was almost always closed and the trains couldn't handle the stress of the violent swinging. The curves in the track weren't banked and the cars often swung out to the full limit. [edited to add this video] Bat footage begins around 1:50 or so.

No, he meant what he said: first successful. As in it didn't tear itself apart. Having said that, XLR-8 was beyond meh. It took lameness to new heights. It wasn't quite as bad as Iron Dragon, but it was nowhere near as much fun as BBW. Turning the back half of the train around in later years was interesting, but nauseating. I always felt ill after a backward ride.

Almost. Astroworld's "XLR-8" opened just a few weeks before BBW in 1984.

What you're dealing with here isn't a lack of fondness for this ride, it's familiarity. Sometimes, you never really appreciate what you have until it's gone. For a lot of folks, BBW was *always* at BG. You kinda took it for granted, it didn't really garner a lot of hoopla because it just WAS. From the standpoint of a "great ride", it wasn't all that. From the standpoint of a "great ride experience" it was all that and more. Arrow suspended coasters have great potential for some wicked visuals and IMHO BBW was the only one to really go full-tilt on that. The village (esp at night) was a great touch. At one CoasterCon during the ERT session on BBW, they turned off all the lights in that part of the park. It was absolutely pitch black and the ride intensity tripled. That remains one of my fondest coaster memories (right up there with Screechin' Eagle in the pouring rain with water sloshing in the car and the Lone Star Coasterthon back in the 90s with ERT on a frozen Giant that had iced over) So YEAH, I mourn the loss of BBW. Not because it was the baddest, bestest coaster around, but because in a sea of clones and parking lot coasters, it was truly unique.

Speaking of Dexter Frebish's Electric Roller Ride.... Dexter Frebish was the first man to ride down a ski slope in a covered wagon. The band "Dexter Freebish" named itself after the coaster, which band members rode during their childhood, although they misspelled the name with an extra "e". The cover of their first album shows the Zephyr from Ponchartrain Beach. In nearly every article about the band that mentions the origins of its name, the coaster is misspelled with the extra "e". The pic below is one taken of the marquee in the opening season 1972 with me and my cousin Larry about to take a ride. It was my first-ever ride on any coaster, and the beginning of a lifelong obsession. Folks dressed up to go to the park back then. Note the long pants/sleeves in the hot Houston summer!

Texas Cyclone, the first cyclone-clone, wasn't originally planned to be a clone. Astroworld had just been taken over by Six Flags (in a lease agreement, not a purchase until several years later) and they wanted to introduce a big signature ride. They re-themed a couple of areas - the County Fair section became King Arthur's Court (and the coaster Dexter Frebish's Electric Roller Ride became Excalibur) and they expanded "Mod Ville" and rethemed it "Coney Island." Well, of course you can't have a Coney Island section without a Cyclone --- and they entered negotiations to move the Coney Island Cyclone to Houston. No, really. That was their intent. Talks didn't get very far, however, since the Cyclone is such a landmark for Brooklyn, BUT they were actually considered briefly because the NY Aquarium was planning to expand and the Cyclone was in danger of being demolished (!) at that time. Once it was settled that the Cyclone was safe from demolition, any discussion of moving it to Houston ended. Enter Bill Cobb. Astroworld hired Cobb to one-up the Cyclone with a "taller, longer, faster, meaner" version and he delivered. The Astroworld version is a mirror image so the first drop would face back into the park and the more visually interesting layered side would be showing inside the park as well, like at Coney. The Texas Cyclone ran 4-bench PTC buzzbar trains with no headrests or seatbelts. It was the undisputed #1 coaster on earth until years of SF management, lawsuits, insurance regulations, etc etc etc tamed it down into a shadow of its former self.

That's pretty standard, actually. Unlike a steel coaster, where a piece of complete track (both rails, cross-ties, spine) is put in all at once, wood coasters build the structure, then put in the ledgers (cross-ties), then install the rails. In the case of this hybrid, the rails are long sections that get bolted down to the ledgers, but on a regular woodie, the rails are hand-built stacks of wood. A steel top plate is then bent on-site and mounted to the wood.

Point taken, but also realize that if there are folks in here thinking things like "holy crap, those supports aren't enough to hold that thing up, are they?" then there are also folks in the GP who visit the park, see the thing, and think the same thing. Actually, listening to the GP at the park on turkey weekend, they are thinking things that are far more stupid than what's said in here. So I don't think that the external sources are going to be all that surprised to see discussion, speculation, debate, and fortune-telling in a thread like this. I also think that if they're smart enough to know what they're doing when building something as complex as a coaster like TG, they're also smart enough to read something in a fan forum and consider the source before getting upset.

I must be missing something. The opening day for SFOT is March 5, not May. Where did you read that the projected opening is Memorial Day? Even at Lone Star Coasterthon they weren't saying anything other than "spring" and when pressed about the possibility of it opening with the park on March 5th, they said, "that would be nice, but we aren't going to nail down a specific day. It will open when it's ready." [Edited to add: that came from Steve Martindale, SFOT president, not the Dippin' Dots guy] I think that folks are pointing out the areas that still need work as a response to all the posts that are from people wondering if testing will begin in the next few days.

Looking at this pic: http://www.coastercon.com/html/giant_december_3.html The pullout from the overbank seems to be sorta hanging out in the air with no support under it. Maybe just the angle of the photo. Also, there is extra, unused support structure on the lift hill just sticking up there and not really doing anything. I like it! It's kinda like the skeleton of the old Giant - I hope they leave the old wood (there are other portions of the ride with similar excess structure) on it for aesthetics.

A subject I don't think has been touched on yet in this thread: What's this thing going to sound like? Tubular steel rails are hollow, but I'm not sure if these are or not. Will there be any resonance as the trains roll around the track? Without a box beam, I don't think we'll get a 'roar' like B&M, but I'm pretty sure it won't sound like a woodie, either. Any thoughts?

I made a good friend because of that queue. He and I were next to each other in line, he hadn't been to the park in many years. We struck up a conversation and after about an hour of waiting, he mentioned that he doesn't ride "the big rides". He thought he was in line for the log flume, lol! I convinced him to ride Giant anyway, in the front seat. He (a stocky, bald, bearded grizzly bear of a man) screamed like a girl the whole time. He could barely walk when it was over and I figured that my life was about to be shortened considerably as soon as they released the restraints! I ended up talking him into every coaster in the park that day. We're still friends, and he still won't ride anything unless I'm there to talk him into it.

Giant's queue in 1990 was in the area that goes under the train tracks and that now lead to Titan. That wide, sloping area leading past the log flume was all switchback queues, then it went under the bridge and to the stairs at the base of the station. The overflow queue did, I believe, cross the path near the sign shop and continue down the midway you're talking about. There was an attendant monitoring the queue, since they had to have a gap in it to let folks through who wanted to ride the train, eat at the food stand, or find the restroom. ...at least that's the way I remember it. There have been a lot of mind-shaking Giant rides since then!

I was wondering if they were going to expand the queue for the expected crowds or if they were just going to go Kings Island old school on it and paint a path on the ground with the TG logo in it or something. If you stretched out the queue into a single file line, how far back would it need to go? Back to Spain, maybe, or would you run it towards Runaway Mtn and take that little cut through to Looney Tunes? [edited to add:] "Excuse me, sir, what are you in line for?" "The New Texas Giant." "But this is Looney Tunes Land" "Yeah, I know. This is the end of the line. See the stripe on the ground?"

Hey Tex quit focusing on the cons!!! Sorry, not feeding the troll. The only con I'm focusing on right now is CoasterCon at SFOT.