texcoaster

^^ are you talking about the part of the queue that winds between the boulders between the entrance sign and the zig-zag ramp? That's the only part of the queue I like. The zig-zag ramp isn't too bad, but those switchbacks in the station are terrible. Claustrophobic, hot, and they're in the way of allowing enough room for people to queue for the seat they'd like.

Also, in a Q&A session with park president Steve Martindale, I mentioned that I had ridden the 385ft Starflyer in Vienna and they ran it at a slow and liesurely rotation speed until it was almost back down to the ground, then they kicked it in to a faster rotation. I had spoken to others who had been on 200ft and smaller versions and they said it rotated at the faster speed even at the top. I asked him if he knew whether that was a factor of the extreme height, or whether they'd be able to spin their 400ft one at full speed up top like the parks with smaller models. He replied that as far as he knew, the ride they're getting will be fully programmable and they'll have several preset ride programs in place that can be used depending on the crowds. On busy days, the rotation speed and the speed up and down the tower will be maxed out to increase capacity, and on slower days they can do a more varied cycle with differences in rotation speed and up/down speeds that can give a longer ride cycle. He said that in any case, the ride will need to lift up "about 50 ft" before it begins rotating in order to have safe clearances over nearby structures. He also added, "I'm a rides guy, so we're going to spin that thing as fast as we can." I saw him a few times during the day interacting with the guests, asking questions, and sweeping up trash with a broom and dustpan(!) Nice to see a park president who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty to make the park better.

^ Sorry, FORMER gray/navy paint scheme.

A couple of the above posts mentioned queues, so I'll go ahead and add this to the mix: SF tends to utilize space by doing compact cattle pen queues, zig-zagging folks back and forth in tight areas. (Notable exceptions include a few of the Batman queues with the garden section at the beginning) Kings Island, several years ago, had a different concept. The queues would stretch out single-file down the midways, painted on the ground as a small path with the ride logo (or in the case of The Beast, paw prints) every so often so you'd know which queue it was. On busy days, you'd come upon the end of the queue well before you could even see the ride. I'm guessing that they got away from that because it was far too easy for people to cut in line. I totally get that. But I'm wondering... if a park could fence off a queue path to hinder line jumpers, would you rather wait in a line that stretched out down the midway single-file, or would you prefer the zig-zag compact area cattle pens? I'm kinda torn between the two, actually. The path queues are much less claustrophobic, usually offer better breezes/ relief from heat, and the scenery changes as you make your way down the midway. Also, you tend to imagine that the line is moving more quickly since you're actually getting closer to the ride rather than just going back and forth the whole time. However, it makes even a relatively short line appear REALLY long and can be discouraging when you start walking from the ride to the end of the line and just keep walking and keep walking... by the time you get to the end, you might decide to skip it entirely or you'll be in a crappy mood - even though the line might move along pretty quickly, it still SEEMS like it took forever. The cattle pens can disguise the real length of the queue pretty well, and they can be housed indoors or under shaded canopies, which is crucial in parks with hot weather. Theming the queue is much easier in a small area, if that's important to the ride. Line jumping is more difficult with people packed into that space like sardines. Also, switchbacks can easily be added or subtracted by simply hooking up a chain, offering easier walks for folks who want to get multiple rides on slow days. The drawbacks are that they are claustrophobic, can be stiflingly hot and uncomfortable on warm days, and can give the impression that the line is barely moving, making the guests cranky and impatient. Thoughts?

Lone Star Coasterthon was this past weekend and one of the cool things was a backstage tour through the deconstruction zone of Flashback and Chute Out. Flashback's already being dismantled. The station is gone, the queue area is gone, most of the cover panels for the lift motors are off, a couple of staircases have been detached and are lying on the ground. We got to wander around the ride and get some interesting shots. I got one of myself with my head sticking up between the track rails right after the loop. SFStL is going to have an interesting time with getting this thing to look "new." You all might want to buy stock in companies that make degreaser chemicals, as they'll be needing a lot of that stuff, especially in the areas with brake runs. This thing is FILTHY. Aside from grime and age, it looks to be in pretty good shape. As for Chute Out, the tower sections were welded together many years ago. It's not likely to be disassembled neatly. We got to see inside the tower control area and they let us write farewell messages on the bricks of the center structure. SFOT really understands how people have memories of a ride, especially one that's been around for so long, and they go the extra mile in hospitality. JRS was running well in the Sunday morning ERT session with a light rain falling. Wheel seats were still brutal, but front and center seats were fine. Shock Wave will be repainted in the current color scheme of gray/navy. No word on La Vibora's colors, although as long as it's named for a snake, I'd expect the same snake color theme. Back in the old days when it was called "Avalanche" it was a single color. Nobody understood why there would be an "Avalanche Bobsled" in the Mexican section, though. Titan was hauling serious azz and NTG was its usual "sluggish in the morning, screaming in the evening" self. Nighttime ERT was fantastic, with the oil derrick fireball really noticeable in the dark. I'll post some pics after I get home. I went straight from the LSCT to the airport to catch a plane to Calgary, so I won't be back for a week.

THIS. God, I love that coaster. Granted, I only rode it after the OTSRs were removed. I can't even imagine how that would've been... kinda like every bad Vekoma you've ever been on combined into a 5-minute ride. Ugh. With just lap bars, though, the total mindf*ck of that sweet little first half and that butt-kicking back half is well worth a bit of brutality just for the "dafuq did I just do?" thrills. http://coasterguy.squarespace.com/the-ultimate/ My review of it several years ago, which I really need to move to my updated site. I seriously need some better pictures of this, though. If anyone has any they wouldn't mind me putting on a blog review of this coaster, please let me know.

I've got to give mad props to the ride crew at the Galveston Pleasure Pier's Iron Shark. It's a Eurofighter with a top of lift - to - brake ride time of just twenty seconds and they run THREE CARS and almost never have two cars stacked behind the station loader. They announce in the station that the person heading for the right seat should collect all the loose items from everyone in their row, so only one person heads to the cubbies (usually a ride op collects them from that person so they don't even have to go). When the car comes into the station, the lap bars pop up and the main op says "exit quickly please" and then "step into the car quickly, please" as the other ops collect the loose articles from the right seat riders. "Pull down your lap bars" is said while loose article collection is happening and each seat has an indicator light to let the ops know if the bar is down far enough and locked. A quick visual check of the lights, plus seeing that the bars are touching laps, a call of "visual scan" (the accompanying ridiculous left-right-left head twist) and the car is gone. It's a slick, efficient system and even on a Saturday afternoon with perfect weather, I've never waited more than three cars for that ride... while the flat rides were posting 20-30 minute waits each.

The only possible way that your cousins aren't full of crap is if they've got their rides confused and they got stuck on a different ride. I'm betting it was Flashback.

The trains used on opening day were the same style of Morgan Mfg trains that were used on the TxCyclone the last few years of its life (as well as other coasters). They have no headrests, but they do have molded individual seats and individual ratcheting lap bars. I don't recall whether or not they also included seat belts.

^Yes. As much as I'd have loved for them to use steel wheels on iRat, the polymer wheels make New Giant a ride experience unlike anything I've ever been on before. It's the smoothest coaster I've ever been on - which is saying a lot, considering that badass layout. I loved the epic length of Rattler and Giant and when I first saw that Giant was losing the second helix, I was disappointed. In the long run, though, I'll take 90 seconds of pure adrenaline over a three minute ride with two minutes of boredom. (Referring to Rattler there, not Giant)

^ 63 ft lower, if I recall correctly. It was a massive change to the one part of that ride that was seriously the best on earth at the time. Of course, having such a good first drop just enhanced and showcased the mediocrity of the stuff that followed.

^ It might be best if you didn't ever experience the 2009 version of Tx Giant. I took my boyfriend on it for the first time in 2009. For maximum effect of what follows, it helps to know that he is a masochist - but I'll spare you the details on THAT any farther. Just trust me. Anyway, after we pulled back into the station he looked at me and said, "I can't believe they let people ride this. I enjoy getting roughed up, but not like that."

They could've even enclosed the whole helix section... put a giant iron snake head at the entrance. Inside the building, have lighting effects, smoke, fog, lasers, music... kinda like an updated Chaos from Opryland, but with overbanks. Come to think of it, that kind of addition could've even made the original helix better.

Actually, I'd have loved for them to keep the helices on iRat - even though that section was generally hated, it was iconic. They could've gone with the barrel roll right into the upper helix. None of the little wavy hills, though, just a smooth circular helix that got more and more banked (and maybe even with a tighter radius) as it went down. By the bottom layer, it would be hauling a$$ and banked at nearly 90 degrees before shooting out into some bunny hops, the last of which careened over the edge of the cliff and down into the tunnel. But HEY, I'll take it with the hills and overbanks, too.

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/files/rattler.jpg ^Here's a shot showing how the horseshoe turnaround lost the double-down element in later years. Compare that to the pics I posted today and it's a pretty dramatic change, completely altering the ride experience on that section.

Make no mistake, as awesome as the one-two punch of the first drop and horseshoe turn were and as good as the tunnel drop was, the Rattler as a whole always felt like it could've been, should've been much better. Much of that sentiment had to do with the helix, or as a late friend called it, "Le Monstre plateau". I saw Rattler as the coaster equivalent of a really hot, nasty sleepover date: Wild, crazy, rough, dangerous times followed by a period of sleeping, followed by a slightly lesser version of the nastiness from before.

With all the talk of the new version of Rattler, I thought I'd post some pics of the old version. Not the crappy version of late, but some pics from opening day. Gates just opened and everyone headed for the huge beast down the hill. Unfortunately, FiestaTX had media day DURING opening day and trains dispatched at about one every 5-10 minutes. Reports later that day said that folks who didn't get there early had a 5+ hour wait. I was halfway up the zig-zag ramp and still waited 2 hours. The original drop with the rockslide shed over it. It's hard to tell from the pic, but NOBODY has their hands up. Lots of folks did at the top of the hill, though! Rattler's infamous drop was altered from the original design because of the TxGiant/Hercules lawsuit. See, TxGiant was the tallest wood coaster, Hercules had a longer drop due to terrain. Both parks wanted to claim "world's biggest woodie." FTx, in order to claim the title with no chance of argument, extended the structure of the first drop over the cliff so that one single support would go from the bottom of the ravine to the top of the structure. Thus, they had the tallest structure AND the longest drop, instead of just the longest drop. This changed the shape of the drop, making it a bit steeper and making the subtle twisting that created the "whiplash" issue with riders that eventually became the drop's undoing. Here you can see how the need to extend over the cliff wall before making the drop created the twists. At the top of the lift, the track curves left and then is extended (where the four flags are) beyond the angle the drop needs to thread the track halfway down. It angles right then at the point under the cross track, angles left again. Just past the visible part of the pic, it angles right again to hug the bottom of the quarry wall. Iron Rattler solves this issue by putting a zig-zag track at the bottom of the drop, allowing a straighter plunge to the bottom, hopefully avoiding the hungry lawyers in the process. Here, the original double-down of the horseshoe turn is shown in all its glory. Iron Rattler looks to be re-establishing this profile, but with the addition of overbanked turns at the top and at the midpoint where it dives over the cliff edge. Should be good! Second half of the original horseshoe drop. It's not difficult at all to imagine this as an overbanked turn. Entrance to the tunnel, which looks to be largely kept intact in the new version. Easier to see how the bottom of the first drop twists back in toward the quarry wall here. Opening-day riders enter the tunnel for the first time. Again, notice the lack of hands-up riders! Rattler enters the final helix after the station fly-by. I've heard some folks say that the final helix will be included in Iron Rattler's layout, but screenshots from the SFFT video seem to point to it going right into the brakes after the tunnel. Time will tell. I'm hoping for the fly-by and the helix!

^ I hope Interlink has better ride designers than they have website designers. That site is horrible.

I gotta disagree. I haven't ridden the StL version since it reversed, but I rode the SFOT version both ways and I absolutely prefer it reversed. The launch, whether pushed into the tummy bar or the seat back is good either way. The top hat gets done in both directions anyway, so not much difference there. The "killer app" for me was the vertical spike. I never got ANY kind of a thrill from it because it was impossible to tell how high up you are and falling back down was no big deal as a result. However, rolling backward up that thing looking at the ground is OMG and when the magnets grab hold and keep pulling you up, it goes right to OMFG and then coming back down head first, faster than free fall is OMFGWTFBBQ all the way. I would skip Freeze any time the line was more than 20min or so (which was most of the time) but don't mind waiting twice that long for it now. People like different stuff, I guess.

The blog is brand new. If you don't let people know about it, there's no reason to write it.

Um... Texas Cyclone, wooden cyclone made good again after getting decent trains. Viper, Schwarzkopf looper. Repeat: SCHWARZKOPF Ultra Twister. Not great, but unique to the US and better than the standup. Greezed Lightnin, Schwarzkopf shuttle. Again: SCHWARZKOPF and easily the best of the shuttles in the US. Awesome ride. There was also an indoor coaster, a kiddie coaster, a Vekoma SLC, an Arrow suspended coaster. All of them except the SLC were better than the standup.

They could put the christmas tree lights on the oil derrick. Or Titan. Or maybe even StarFlyer... with the thought that it might be too cold for people to want to swing around up there in December.

Not every ride that needs the RMC treatment should necessarily be done with Iron Horse. I think Cyclone would be a good fit for Topper Track, with a restoration of its original layout. The ride was wicked enough in its original form, it doesn't really need overbanked turns. Just bring back the classic.

That has to be the most annoying audio I've ever heard for a ride promo.

Yes, and you and your girlfriend literally helped make that boomerang a pile of crap with your initials carving and her gum deposit. Seriously, that plus your admission of scratching stuff into the handrails in the JRS queue, WTF? Have a little bit of respect for stuff that doesn't belong to you. I realize that you probably think it makes you "cool" or something, but it just makes you look like a douche.