What's the worst station you've been in

[Canobie Coaster]

I have to agree with Green Lantern and Riddler at SFMM. There are just some odd things going on there.

 

Those two stations were awful and I spent longer in them than necessary as well.

 

I'm not a fan of any uncovered station on a major coaster. I found two of these at Great America with Flight Deck and Vortex.

[singemfrc]

Riddler's at SFMM was the worst by far when I was there in 2012. It was hot with no AC inside, the station was filthy and covered in dirt, there was some piece of broken machinery which was emitting a horrible continuing high pitched squeal, the techno music was annoying, it was one-train ops and slow even by SFMM standards, it was just pure coaster hell.

 

Fortunately when I went back a year later most of that had been fixed. It still has slow ops, but at least it looked like things had been cleaned and fixed.

The mass of suffering humanity one fateful night in October 2012.

[LogBur]

I'm sure others have said it but my favorite coaster's station is both uninspired and atrocious layout-wise.

 

 

As if ugly wasn't enough, they decided that loading and unloading a four across train on one side would be adequate. Just a mess.

[DJeXeL]

^Yea that was a stupid design.

[hydra]

I agree about Skyrush. A top 10 ride with the worst station layout.

Was it Riddler's station that has the obnoxious diagonal queue lines? The longest of which being the front row?

[singemfrc]

I agree about Skyrush. A top 10 ride with the worst station layout.

Was it Riddler's station that has the obnoxious diagonal queue lines? The longest of which being the front row?

Yes that's correct. That's kind of a good design actually, as long as you know it ahead of time. Very short waits for back row.

[rcjp]

^Yea that was a stupid design.

I know they had little room but they had to come up with a way of making people exit on the other side.

[Jpizzle]

Batman at SFGA - It got ridiculously hot in the "sewer themed" queue and people were pushing into the station. Just looked bad all around.

[DaMarkSta]

I'd agree with Riddlers Revenge being awful but I actually liked SkyRush's station a lot. I thought it was simple, the bag placement idea was good, and yeah seemed organized. Now I knew going in the getting on and off on one side so that helps but I quite liked SkyRush's station.

[MagmMForce247]

Basically any station that does not have an operator controlling flow decently will bother me. It's amazing the difference controlling flow can change an experience.

[Moose]

I'm not sure if it's the worst station, but GeForce's lack of roof and arrangement made it so you were staring directly into the sun while sitting in the train. I'm glad they are finally adding a roof to the station of this great coaster.

[YoshiCraft2011]

Boomerang's (at Knott's) station is just basically a tent, which doesn't look very good. A great indication on how bad the coaster actually was!

[mike541x]

I'd agree with Riddlers Revenge being awful but I actually liked SkyRush's station a lot. I thought it was simple, the bag placement idea was good, and yeah seemed organized. Now I knew going in the getting on and off on one side so that helps but I quite liked SkyRush's station.

 

 

I agree. Skyrush's station wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The operations were pretty efficient, even with the exit on the same side as the loading platform.

 

Volcano's used to be one of the worse stations I've been in. When the line finally got to the loading platform, it would spill out where the line for the back row was and just made a big mess of lines. It was almost impossible to reach the first couple rows at times and on top of that, it got very hot in there during the summer time. Thankfully KD fixed the line so it's much better.

[King of Ka]

El Toro's station is about four feet too narrow, there's always a blockage near the front of the train which means that you can never see what kind of lines are at the back of the train, and inevitably leads to people accidentally line jumping. On the bright side the lines for the back are almost always short, but you have to push through a nice little crowd to get to them.

 

Boulder Dash's front half / back half split is a good idea in theory, but because the front line always reaches the split and the back line doesn't, impatient people waiting for the back assume that everybody in front of them is waiting for the front, and push their way past people even two or three groups away from the split.

 

I'm more interested in the flip side of the coin though: what makes a GOOD station? Is there a design that eliminates the need for a grouper but still reduces overcrowding in the station?

[DonGeorge]

Riddler's at SFMM was the worst by far when I was there in 2012. It was hot with no AC inside, the station was filthy and covered in dirt, there was some piece of broken machinery which was emitting a horrible continuing high pitched squeal, the techno music was annoying, it was one-train ops and slow even by SFMM standards, it was just pure coaster hell.

 

Thank God I never have used that ride's standby queue. I used the clever single rider queue and was quickly given a front row seat (or a sta..). I had a pretty pleasurable time on that ride, and I didn't spend that much time in the station to notice.