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Six Flags Darien Lake (SFDL) Discussion Thread


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Will Six Flags Darien Lake begin running second trains on the rollercoasters now that they repurchased the park? The single train coasters were a big downside of going there on days when the park was packed.

Ive been to the park three times, and all three times, lines weren't long enough to even justify a 2nd train. Its not a priority of the park, and it sounds like alot of other six flags parks, don't care about two train operations either

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I think the only coaster in this park where I could see having a second train would be Ride of Steel. The lines they get don't really justify an expense for Predator, Viper, or Motocoaster in all honesty, even on a busy day I can't see those lines ever over 45 minutes.

 

Except...they would probably have to upgrade to a newer restraint system and buy two trains if they did upgrade for Ride of Steel, for consistency. So I am all for this park not having two trains for anything and spending that money on new attractions instead.

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I think the only coaster in this park where I could see having a second train would be Ride of Steel. The lines they get don't really justify an expense for Predator, Viper, or Motocoaster in all honesty, even on a busy day I can't see those lines ever over 45 minutes.

 

Except...they would probably have to upgrade to a newer restraint system and buy two trains if they did upgrade for Ride of Steel, for consistency. So I am all for this park not having two trains for anything and spending that money on new attractions instead.

 

Honestly in my experiences, Viper is the one that needs it the most. Almost always a long wait when I’m there, even if the line is in the station. It just has such a long ride duration to the point where the line barely moves.

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I've only been there once this season, but Viper had no one in the station at all and I just walked right on. If there were more people I could see Viper being slow because of length. One would think there should just be random spare Arrow trains around at one of the Six Flags parks that could be fixed up and added to Viper if needed (as you can tell I don't know the logistics of how this works due to my extreme over simplification).

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^ First and foremost, they used the orange train last year. They're using the blue train this year. Not sure where you got the 4 years from. (EDIT: After clarification I am now sure of where you got the 4 years from.)

 

Second and more importantly, I was pleasantly surprised when I visited SFGAdv this past Tuesday/Wednesday to see how much less crowded that place can be compared to SFDL.

 

To put it in perspective, every single coaster at SFGAdv had less than a one train wait the entire day, whereas even on a crummy weather day at Darien Lake, RoS almost always has at least a crowded station. Not even El Toro had that and its one of the best wooden coasters I've ever ridden. Their brand new ride, Wonder Woman, had at most 3/4 of the ride full, whereas every time I've visited SFDL since SkyScreamer opened, it has had a full queue house with at least a 3-4 cycle wait, again, even on crummy days that thing has a line.

 

Now that the full season is beginning to kick into high gear with daily operations and the park closing at 10pm nightly until September, it should be exciting to see how the attendance numbers do. I think its safe to say there will be a positive shift - especially thanks to the new memberships Six Flags offers.

 

Also, one more note, SFGAdv was running multiple trains on all applicable coasters on Tuesday, with reduced capacity on Wednesday for what I assume would be weather related reasons. I'm not sure where the idea of Six Flags not caring about running multiple trains is coming from, because it seems like that is a distinctly Darien Lake issue. Even when I was at Knoebels last year and they were running single trains, no one seemed to care about it nearly as much as folks at DL do. It's strange.

Edited by SbSteveZ
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^ First and foremost, they used the orange train last year. They're using the blue train this year. Not sure where you got the 4 years from.

 

Two trains at once. Like I said, there are 3 trains, but they havent run two train ops since 2015.

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You're all pretty right on about that. And I agree. However, on Saturdays when there is a concert at night the park is absolutely packed. The wait times become in excess of 45 minutes for Ride of Steel, Viper, etc. It would be nice for an "as needed" day.

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On the Brown concert day I ran a personal record of people through Slingshot (Almost 30 per hour) it was pretty insane.

 

So far Predator is running decent but Silver Comet (Hey look who got a 20th anniversary sign) is running way better. The reprofiling of the last turn made the ending way more fun but the same can't be said for the rest of the ride.

 

Also worth noting Six Flags is treating Viper like the flagship

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^ there really has never been a comparison between Predator and Silver Comet. The comet has almost always been the better of the two. Fantasy Island has maintained that ride very well, plus it’s based off of the comet from Crystal Beach so it has historical ties to the area as well.

 

Predator opened in 1991 as the “9th best coaster in the world” according to some publisher but by no means has it maintained that status.

 

One of the biggest issues that shows just how unfortunately the ride has degraded is the Holiday World trains from the Voyage and how quickly they fell into disrepair. I don’t think it took much more than one season before the second train (the B train) was cannibalized for parts. And as of this year they’ve just relabeled the train so it appears to be one of a set, which it no longer is.

 

I give the maintenance team credit, they’re doing what they can with what they have. Darien Lake did also buy new trains for predator as I just mentioned, a new train for RoS, did some wheel replacements on Boomerang and has done some refurbishment for the viper trains as well. It’s not to say the park is perfect in how it’s handling it’s operations, but it is worth noting that on what appears to be an extremely limited budget they’re running all of their coasters in some capacity, and they’re maintaining them as best they can, even if it means taking a train out of commission to keep the ride running.

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Defenetly, what theyre doing with the park is amazing. The new wheels on Boomerang make the back nice and smooth. Also on a slightly busy day Viper gets at least a 30 minute line, so trains will help. A ride op from Vipers 3 train operational phase says that only a few teams of ops cpuld handle 3 trains. But now Viper has a permanent crew so they might be able to do it.

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Predator opened in 1991 as the “9th best coaster in the world” according to some publisher but by no means has it maintained that status.

 

The Predator first opened in 1990 so Predator must have been ranked “9th best coaster in the world” in 1991.

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^ Ya got me there, looks like I was off by a year. I was close.

 

It may be a *little* late but I just got around to uploading the 2018 edition of Ignite the Night to Youtube for all the geeks out there who may also enjoy seeing the show archived through the years (Im working on fixing 2017 and the Laser Spooktacular since thy both have copyright claims that won't allow public viewing - whoops), in the mean time, enjoy last year's main production of ignite the night! (2019 coming soon, hopefully)

 

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Also worth noting Six Flags is treating Viper like the flagship

 

What do you mean by this? I’ve seen the park post multiple photos and videos of RoS on their social media accounts like crazy recently but have seen literally nothing about Viper.

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A ride op from Vipers 3 train operational phase says that only a few teams of ops cpuld handle 3 trains. But now Viper has a permanent crew so they might be able to do it.

 

Are you high right now?

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Damn can I say anything without Bill b*tching?

A lot of Vipers crew has worked with Tantrum getting use to multiple train ops, and Viper like I said has its OWN crew this year, and their dispatches are the fastest in the park next to Tantrum. Keep in mind I work at SFDL. So I know whats going on.

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