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The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread


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Modifying existing ride vehicles and purchasing new ride vehicles are 2 different scenarios in terms of "approvals." Purchasing new trains just maybe wasn't in the budget until this year.

Definitely. I'd guess its more difficult to remove pieces than add them too. Also consider the unique way they're going about procuring these new vehicles - by essentially having the original train parts remanufactured - thats likely something that wasnt technologically or logistically possible in the past, or may not previously have been thought of, and being that its cheaper, doing it that way may be just what made it financially possible to do now.

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Also consider the unique way they're going about procuring these new vehicles - by essentially having the original train parts remanufactured - thats likely something that wasnt technologically or logistically possible in the past, or may not previously have been thought of, and being that its cheaper, doing it that way may be just what made it financially possible to do now.

 

I just hope not buying from an "Amusement Ride manufacturer" doesn't bite them in the ass in terms of reliability and maintenance.

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I just hope not buying from an "Amusement Ride manufacturer" doesn't bite them in the A$$ in terms of reliability and maintenance.

I don't see how it would..they aren't just telling a metal fabricator "Build us a Revolution Train", they're using the original Schwarzkopf plans. These trains will still be the original design, if you think about it it's not much different from some amusement ride companies that design the trains and then contract someone else to do the actual manufacturing.

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I don't see how it would..they aren't just telling a metal fabricator "Build us a Revolution Train", they're using the original Schwarzkopf plans. These trains will still be the original design, if you think about it it's not much different from some amusement ride companies that design the trains and then contract someone else to do the actual manufacturing.

 

I agree. I'm sure the park isn't just having the trains made by some guy in his garage.

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Modifying existing ride vehicles and purchasing new ride vehicles are 2 different scenarios in terms of "approvals." Purchasing new trains just maybe wasn't in the budget until this year.

 

In the state of California's eyes, they are the same. They both qualify as major modifications. However, buying new trains will obviously require more extensive testing before the state will buy off on them.

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"Magic Mountain was forced by law" is a statement that was backed up for years and told not to be questioned in spite of the fact that literally no one has ever been able to produce the law in question preventing them from making an alteration to the ride like removing OTSRs. Going back to the date of the announcement...

 

But...But...Hasn't SFMM Management told us it was ILLEGAL for them to put lap bar only trains on Revolution MULTIPLE TIMES?!?!?!

 

Assuming that's true and maybe the shin guard is the reason it's okay now (and I don't know enough about local laws or the legal end of the industry to even begin to speculate on it), how is it okay on Montezooma's Revenge to just have a lap bar?

 

I have no idea how this stuff works but I'm curious so if anyone has any insight that would be great.

 

It's almost certainly BS that they used to justify why they put on the OTSRs. The real reason was likely to reduce insurance costs as new, more restrictive restraints would probably justify lower premiums due to "reduced risk" and over a period of a few years, it would save enough to have paid for the "improvement" and then some. The changeover also probably reduced overall operating costs as people stopped riding the stupid thing and overall capacity and operations costs for the attraction could be reduced in kind, which since attendance was generally stable or occasionally still increasing for most of the last 20 years, was totally OK to management. Now to repaint the ride, put some lights on it, and buy new trains means they can market it as a "new attraction" for not much capital expenditure and justify reverting the ride to, you know, ride-able condition.

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Perhaps they just kept saying this answer to keep the coaster enthusiasts quiet. It's not like they told the press or said on the news that was the reason why they didn't remove the OTSR. They probably have had it planned for years to change the trains on the 40th Anniversary of the ride but used that excuse to not give away the surprise for 2016.

 

Also, I don't believe they could have just removed the OTSR restraints because the existing lapbars were not very protective. Also, didn't they add the OTSRs because people were able to wiggle their way out of those old lapbars and were standing on portions of the ride? Now that there are these newly designed lapbars with the shin guards, they can finally remove all the old restraints and just add these new ones.

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Perhaps they just kept saying this answer to keep the coaster enthusiasts quiet.

 

Of course. Who was going to call them out that had any pull? ACE could have but then they'd risk losing the ability to get people into ride openings or book events below cost. So they let them repeat that.

 

Also, I don't believe they could have just removed the OTSR restraints because the existing lapbars were not very protective.

 

California had two roller coasters with inversions and the same restraint system. I could be wrong, but I think the OTSRs on Schwarzkopf were brought to the table as a response to the the Edmonton Mindbender killing a bunch of people when the train derailed and threw the lapbars open. The reason why you don't see this at Texas and Georgia on their looping Schwarzkopf rides may very seriously have to do with the ownership situation of those two parks within the chain vs. that of Magic Mountain. Actually, that's true for a lot of why those parks have historically been far superior to the rest of the chain, but that's a long discussion and entirely speculative.

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On the surface of it, it looks like the cheapest and most unoriginal thing to do. Putting lap bars and some strobe lights on it and call it new? Big effing deal.

But with SFMM notorious for investing in great ideas only to abandon the maintenance of it two years later, it's really refreshing to see them put in some much overdo TLC. I love bashing SFMM as much as the next guy, but it's equally great to finally say something genuinely good about them. Hopefully this trend continues!

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On the surface of it, it looks like the cheapest and most unoriginal thing to do. Putting lap bars and some strobe lights on it and call it new? Big effing deal.

But with SFMM notorious for investing in great ideas only to abandon the maintenance of it two years later, it's really refreshing to see them put in some much overdo TLC. I love bashing SFMM as much as the next guy, but it's equally great to finally say something genuinely good about them. Hopefully this trend continues!

 

anything they do to brighten up any part of the park, i'm all for. bringing back revolution to a point where it's a solid ride in their lineup is something i'm all for. i sort of hope they trim some of the trees so we will be able to see more of the ride from the pathways.

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On the surface of it, it looks like the cheapest and most unoriginal thing to do. Putting lap bars and some strobe lights on it and call it new? Big effing deal.

But with SFMM notorious for investing in great ideas only to abandon the maintenance of it two years later, it's really refreshing to see them put in some much overdo TLC. I love bashing SFMM as much as the next guy, but it's equally great to finally say something genuinely good about them. Hopefully this trend continues!

 

anything they do to brighten up any part of the park, i'm all for. bringing back revolution to a point where it's a solid ride in their lineup is something i'm all for. i sort of hope they trim some of the trees so we will be able to see more of the ride from the pathways.

 

And get rid of those damn trim brakes while they're at it! To be honest though I actually like the trees around the coaster. Gives it a quasi-Boulder Dash or Beast kinda experience, specially at night.

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So what is Ninja like these days at SFMM, Is it a bare hillside or are you at least swinging/flying trough shrubbery? My friend finally got a SF:DK pass with me so hopefully we'll head down to magic mountain during the "off season". He's never been there before and IMHO Ninja is almost a must for someone who's never been there let alone never been on that kind of ride.

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So what is Ninja like these days at SFMM, Is it a bare hillside or are you at least swinging/flying trough shrubbery? My friend finally got a SF:DK pass with me so hopefully we'll head down to magic mountain during the "off season". He's never been there before and IMHO Ninja is almost a must for someone who's never been there let alone never been on that kind of ride.

 

i didn't think it was so bare. i finally rode it recently since the accident.

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Seems that for people that might be arriving early for WCB that might really need some SFMM there is a private event Friday the 11th 6pm-midnight with free parking and tickets available at walk up for $40.00 or order online at SixFlags using code listed for $35 with no fees. If nothing else drive to park and get some good viewing of Twisted C or Scream in the dark. Six Flags more info on event.

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On the surface of it, it looks like the cheapest and most unoriginal thing to do. Putting lap bars and some strobe lights on it and call it new? Big effing deal.

But with SFMM notorious for investing in great ideas only to abandon the maintenance of it two years later, it's really refreshing to see them put in some much overdo TLC. I love bashing SFMM as much as the next guy, but it's equally great to finally say something genuinely good about them. Hopefully this trend continues!

 

The project reads like they're simply catching up on all the maintenance that should have been done in the past 20 years, but to SFMM, it needs to be marketable like this or the money won't be spent on it. I'll take the hokey ads if that's what it takes for Revolution to receive what it needs and not look so sad anymore.

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I still love the insanity that this park's B-list coasters get ignored so much when they'd be top-tier coasters at almost any other theme park. Viper, Apocalypse, Riddler, hell, even Scream would be top ticket attractions almost anywhere else.

 

Just curious, is Twisted Colossus in the top tier in terms of line length? We know it's clearly X2, followed by Tatsu, followed by Goliath in popularity and I'm sure Full Throttle can't be much further down than #4 at this point...would be interesting to see if what was their least popular coaster recently (or maybe Scream, to be honest) has suddenly become one that everybody has on their hit list.

 

Oh, and Superman's either right ahead of or behind Full Throttle. Always a ton of people still wanting to ride that bad boy after all these years. Backwards change really helped. Personally, I think Apocalypse is far and away the most under-appreciated ride there and maybe the most under-appreciated wooden coaster on the planet. It's seriously that good. Doesn't surprise me at all that enthusiasts have kept in on this list:

 

Coaster Buzz - Top 100

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Just curious, is Twisted Colossus in the top tier in terms of line length? We know it's clearly X2, followed by Tatsu, followed by Goliath in popularity and I'm sure YOLOcoaster can't be much further down than #4 at this point...would be interesting to see if what was their least popular coaster recently (or maybe Scream, to be honest) has suddenly become one that everybody has on their hit list.

 

Oh, and Superman's either right ahead of or behind YOLOcoaster. Always a ton of people still wanting to ride that bad boy after all these years. Backwards change really helped.

Actually since it runs 3 trains and right now theyre really hustling people through there it's been (relatively) kind of a people eater. Even on busy days people are reporting lines to the entrance are only about 30-40 min waits. The park originally allocated space for a single rider line and then later decided it wouldn't be necessary. Don't get me wrong, people are riding it, it's a hit, but people are moving through at a pretty good clip from everything I'm hearing. It'd be even faster if they enforced fluffy bunnies more strictly and trains werent constantly being held up for people screwing around with lose articles.

 

The line for X2 and Yolo usually dies in the afternoon, Tatsu and Goliath have more consistent wait times throughout the day. Superman is kind of a pain because it's rarely running both sides, dispatches tend to be longer than necessary for whatever reason, and now there's no flash pass on it unless you have platinum, so all those things contribute to longer waits.

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I still love the insanity that this park's B-list coasters get ignored so much when they'd be top-tier coasters at almost any other theme park. Viper, Apocalypse, Riddler, hell, even Scream would be top ticket attractions almost anywhere else.

 

 

I disagree with this.

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Would it be advisable to run to Twisted Colossus first off? Thanks.

 

No. I would go to Tatsu first and hit Twisted Colossus later in the day. Twisted Colossus is a people eater. If its running three trains your looking at a max 40min wait. Tatsu on the other hand, once that queue fills up, it stays filled, and you are looking at a 60-90min wait.

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Would it be advisable to run to Twisted Colossus first off? Thanks.

 

As Robb pointed out to me:

 

As per advice went straight to Full Throttle

Hoping the lines weren't to long for Colossus we head that way. But by then it was way out past the entrance so we headed around for the summit.
With an hour to go it was time for the final anticipation coaster of the day, Colossus.

 

While I'm glad you got on everything and things worked out for you in the park, I have to question why you would leave the "brand new highly anticipated ride" until the very last hour of they day??? That just seems so risky to me as new rides always tend to have issues, especially in their opening year. I can't tell you how many times we've been to a park with our group where we say "MAKE SURE YOU GET ON THE NEW RIDE FIRST...JUST IN CASE!" only to have something happen to it later which closes it for the rest of the day.

 

Like I said, I'm glad you got on everything, and luck was on your side, but whoever advised you NOT to go to Colossus first gave you really poor advice.

 

 

If it isn't one of your priorities then forget this.

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I still love the insanity that this park's B-list coasters get ignored so much when they'd be top-tier coasters at almost any other theme park. Viper, Apocalypse, Riddler, hell, even Scream would be top ticket attractions almost anywhere else.

 

I always think that is an important perspective to remember, whenever looking the large amusement parks like SFMM or Cedar Point!

 

However, I would seriously question whether Viper was even a B-list coaster these days! Seems like a solid C, maybe a C+ at best to me!

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