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[PLC] Cascadia Park


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I'd like to preface this by saying that this isn't going to be a massive timeline park, it's simply a small little side project I did because when I first got my hands on PLC and started playing it...I enjoyed it THAT much that I just had to build something with it right that moment!

 

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Anyway....For this park I built in PLC, I kind of wanted to build another park in what I would consider a pretty "coaster deprived" part of the United States, like with Kings Paradise in Wyoming or Six Flags Adventure Kingdom in Nebraska. Cascadia Park is a Cedar Fair property located near Olympia, Washington, and this first post serves as a brief history and overview of how the park looked like during the 2002 season.

 

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Cascadia Park opened it's doors in July of 1970 as a small, family owned park. Among one of the few first rides to open was Falcon, a John Allen built out and back woodie! Falcon was very acclaimed by critics when it first opened and to this day, it is still regarded as a timeless classic with it's high amount of intense airtime hills and relative smoothness for a wooden coaster!

 

FALCON STATS:

Type: Wood-track Out And Back

Year Built: 1970

Builder: John Allen

Designer: John Allen

Height: 77 feet

Largest Drop: 67 feet

Speed: 44 mph

Length: 1,642 feet

Inversions: 0

 

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Also, one of the first rides to open at Cascadia Park was a clone of the famous Wonder Wheel at Coney Island! This clone is known as the "Star Wheel".

 

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Four years later, the park got it's first steel roller coaster. Canyon Runner is an Arrow Development built mine train roller coaster that's filled with shallow dips and tucked within an area with a lot of trees. Canyon Runner was built to be much more family-oriented than Falcon and proved to be very popular with the families!

 

CANYON RUNNER STATS

Type: Steel-track Mine Train

Year Built: 1974

Builder: Arrow Development

Designer: Ron Toomer

Height: 45 feet

Largest Drop: 36 feet

Speed: 32 mph

Length: 1,824 feet

Inversions: 0

 

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The 1980s brought forth a new wave of thrill rides to the park, putting Cascadia Park on the map for adrenaline junkies! Case in point, being the addition of a medium-sized Arrow-Huss looping coaster by the name of Cascadia Screamer in 1981, which was actually the first roller coaster in the state of Washington to feature inversions!

 

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One of the more unique parts of Cascadia Screamer is the fact that it's the only coaster built with consecutive "In and Out Corkscrews" facing opposite directions as opposed to a normal double corkscrew.

 

CASCADIA SCREAMER STATS:

Type: Steel-track Looper

Year Built: 1981

Builder: Arrow-Huss

Designer: Ron Toomer

Height: 88 feet

Largest Drop: 56 feet

Speed: 45 mph

Length: 1,842 feet

Inversions: 4 (two loops, two in-and-out corkscrews)

 

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In 1988, the family that owned Cascadia Park made the decision to build a coaster that was somewhat more on the "radical and cutting edge" side. Originally, they had made plans with Togo to build a standing roller coaster, however after the original plans fell through, they made the decision to contact the famous Switzerland-based coaster company known as Intamin about their plans to build a standing coaster at their park. Intamin agreed and Python was the result!

 

For the fledgling coaster enthusiast, it might appear that Python was built by B&M, but don't be fooled by it's outside appearance! It is indeed an Intamin! Python was positively received by most coaster fans as a smooth and exciting ride!

 

PYTHON STATS:

Type: Steel-track stand-up

Year Built: 1988

Builder: Intamin AG (Subcontracted by Giovanola)

Designer: Werner Stengel

Height: 90 feet

Largest Drop: 81 feet

Speed: 48 mph

Length: 2,448 feet

Inversions: 1 (one loop)

 

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About two years later, the family decided to undergo another massive undertaking....This time, it was to build not only their second wooden coaster, but also the tallest and fastest coaster at the park! After getting into contact with Charles Dinn and his company, they agreed to design and build an absolutley massive wooden coaster in the leftmost corner of the park. The result was Thunder, a massive wooden mountain of a coaster! While it wasn't the tallest or fastest coaster in the world, it did break a record of having the steepest drop of any wooden roller coaster at that time! When it opened, Thunder was extremely acclaimed by coaster critics, calling it one of the best modern wooden roller coasters! Unfortunatley, as it aged...it begun to get rather rough and painful.

 

THUNDER STATS:

Type: Wood-track oval/out and back

Year Built: 1990

Builder: Dinn Corp.

Designer: Charles Dinn

Height: 140 feet

Largest Drop: 125 feet

Speed: 58 mph

Length: 3,043 feet

Inversions: 0

 

Thunder did prove to be a massive undertaking...unfortunatley, it turned out to be a little bit too massive for the family, as they ran into many financial issues following it's opening...Regrettably, they were forced to sell Cascadia Park at the end of the 1990 season to Cedar Fair Entertainment Company....

 

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Cedar Fair brought two much-needed rides to the park for it's inaugural season as a Cedar Fair property in 1991, a HUSS pirate ship ride and an Intamin built river rapids ride, which was the park's first water ride.

 

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And three years later, Cascadia Park got their first new roller coaster under Cedar Fair ownership. Steel Hawk was built in 1994 as one of the first "inverted roller coasters" built by Bolliger and Mabillard. Steel Hawk is considered by many to be the "sister coaster" of Raptor at Cedar Point, considering the similarities in their layouts. Steel Hawk was very positively received by the general public and coaster enthusiasts alike.

 

STEEL HAWK STATS:

Type: Steel-track Inverted

Year Built: 1994

Builder: B&M

Designer: Werner Stengel

Height: 130 feet

Largest Drop: 110 feet

Speed: 55 mph

Length: 2,745 feet

Inversions: 6 (one loop, one zero g roll, one cobra roll, two corkscrews)

 

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Four years after the building of Steel Hawk, Cedar Fair made the decision to have Cascadia Park's next coaster be the coup-de-grace of all coasters in the park....They contacted D.H Morgan Manufacturing about the plans to build a "hyper coaster" at Cascadia park.....They agreed, and the result was Rager, the tallest and fastest roller coaster not only in the park, but in the entire Pacific Northwest!

 

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Rager has a layout very similar to Mamba at Worlds of Fun and Steel Force at Dorney Park, consisting of a massive, 200 foot tall drop and speeds up to 75 miles per hour. Also, Rager also became known for it's high amount of airtime during the ride!

 

RAGER STATS:

Type: Steel-track hypercoaster

Year Built: 1999

Builder: D.H Morgan

Designer: Steve Okamoto

Height: 205 feet

Largest Drop: 200 feet

Speed: 75 mph

Length: 4,258 feet

Inversions: 0

 

 

Other than roller coasters, Cascadia Park soon became known for having a variety of thrilling flat rides, such as...

 

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Dominator, a 300 foot tall Intamin Gyro Drop tower....

 

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And new for 2002, Demon Force, a HUSS top spin!

 

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Overall, by 2002, Cascadia Park was already a very well balanced park with a decent selection of different rides and a variety of roller coasters for people of all preferences and tastes....However, that was in 2002....Nobody could prepare for what the park would look like almost 13 years later.....

 

Stay tuned....

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My OP showed what Cascadia Park looked like in the year 2002...Obviously, in a span of fourteen years, a lot can change....And a lot did change for Cascadia Park! So much has changed in fact that I don't even know where to start! Where else can I start other than the beginning?

 

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In 2003, Cedar Fair made the decision to permanently close Python, their Intamin standing coaster. It had become too costly to maintain and was waning in popularity due to uncomfortable, rough rides. The ride was put in storage in a section of the parking lot for many years as it was put up for sale after being dismantled, but it was finally scrapped in 2010 after no one bought it.

 

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The replacement for Python was an incredibly unique B&M floorless roller coaster by the name of "Tyr", named after a diety in Norse mythology. Tyr is known for having a rather odd layout for a B&M roller coaster as it is the only B&M coaster in general to have a "butterfly" inversion, as found on certain Vekoma looping coasters. Tyr soon became known as a very forceful and fun ride!

 

TYR STATS

Type: Steel Track Floorless

Year Built: 2004

Builder: B&M

Designer: Werner Stengel

Height: 114 feet

Largest Drop: 105 feet

Speed: 55 mph

Length: 2,711 feet

Inversions: 7 (two loops, one butterfly element, one corkscrew, one barrel roll)

 

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Then in 2005,Cascadia Screamer got a new green and red paint job to replace the fading and peeling blue one.

 

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2006 brought an exciting flat ride package to the park! Delirium, a Huss giant frisbee ride and Kamikaze, a Fabbri "Kamikaze 2" model attraction. The addition of these two thrill rides put Cascadia Park on the map for it's selection of flat rides!

 

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By 2007, as Thunder began to get rough, old and uncomfortable, the demand for a new modern wooden roller coaster was researched...And in 2008, Lumber Run, a medium sized GCI wooden roller coaster was built at Cascadia Park! Lumber Run was designed to bridge the gap between a family coaster and a thrilling coaster, and it did bridge that gap that successfully...

 

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But due to it's high amount of headchoppers, forceful turns, and airtime moments, the x-treme thrill seekers fell in love with it!

 

LUMBER RUN STATS

Type: Wood-track twister

Year Built: 2008

Builder: GCI

Designer: Clair Hain and Mike Boodley

Height: 84 feet

Largest Drop: 72 feet

Speed: 46 mph

Length: 2,237 feet

Inversions: 0

 

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2010 brought Kids Cove to the park, a small area with small family-oriented flat rides, which was located next to the park's tiny EF Miler kiddie coaster, known as Little Dipper.

 

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2012 brought the thrills back to Cascadia Park as the park got not one, but two new X-Treme attractions! The first being Gauntlet, a HUSS Jump2 model flat ride (which is only the second of it's type in the world and the only one in the U.S) and Tiamat, a large Intamin AG Blitz Coaster!

 

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Tiamat quickly became a fan favorite amongst park-goers as it effectively combined inversions and airtime with a gigantic Norwegian Loop (I should have handmade it ) and a Zero G Roll as well as four large airtime hills!

 

TIAMAT STATS

Type: Steel Track Launched Looper

Year Built: 2012

Builder: Intamin AG

Designer: Werner Stengel

Height: 175 feet

Largest Drop: 160 feet

Speed: 75 mph

Length: 3,695 feet

Inversions: 3 (One Norwegian loop, one Zero G Roll)

 

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By 2014, it was very apparent that the popularity of Thunder, what was once considered a legendary wooden coaster, had waned quite a bit. Mostly due to it's long-standing infamy of being a very rough, rickety, trimmed and painful ride. In the beginning of the 2014 season, Cedar Fair started a viral campaign urging coaster fans to "Get your last rides on Thunder before the storm fades away in July!", sealing the coaster's fate.

 

Thunder was left SBNO from July of 2014 to the end of that season and people thought that it was going to be scrapped by the beginning of 2015..

 

Until strange, yellow I-beams started to appear in the parking lot, one by one....signaling that the storm wasn't over yet....

 

Thunder was no more....

 

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but in 2015, LIGHTNING struck the park! Lightning was the very first Rocky Mountain Construction project to appear in a Cedar Fair park and was opened to nothing but acclaim by critics, GP, and coaster enthusiasts alike! Gone were the rough and awkward transitions, those have been replaced with butter smooth overbanked curves and airtime hills! There were even two inversions worked into the layout!

 

LIGHTNING STATS

Type: Steel Track Hybrid Twister

Year Built: 2015

Builder: Rocky Mountain Construction

Designer: Alan Schilke

Height: 145 feet

Largest Drop: 127 feet

Speed: 62 mph

Length: 2,712 feet

Inversions: 2 (two Zero G Rolls)

 

You thought that Thunder was it? You thought that was "The big one"? You thought that Cascadia Park's coaster collection couldn't get any better? Well guess what....You couldn't be any more wrong....

 

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The very next year, 2016 brought an absolute behemoth of a roller coaster...CENTURION 315, A B&M Giga Coaster! Built as an answer to the positive response that Fury 325 and Leviathan had at Carowinds and Canada's Wonderland, Centurion 315 proved to be just as X-Treme and legendary as Fury and Leviathan with a 306 foot tall drop and a top speed of 92 miles per hour! Centurion 315 is also the only B&M Hyper/Giga in the U.S to feature a Figure Eight Curve, similar to Shambhala at Port Adventura. Centurion also features multiple high-speed floater and ejector airtime hills throughout it's course, securing it's spot as a legenedary roller coaster!

 

CENTURION 315 STATS

Type: Steel-Track Giga

Year Built: 2016

Builder: B&M

Designer: Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard

Height: 315 feet

Largest Drop: 306 feet

Speed: 92 mph

Length: 6,648 feet

Inversions: 0

 

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If one thing is apparent about Cascadia Park, its that a lot can change in the span of nearly fifteen years.... compare how the park used to look like in 2002....

 

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to how the park looks like now in 2016! Cascadia Park had gone from having a nearly mediocre coaster collection to having one of the greatest coaster collections of any park in the world!

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Stupid question, but does the game allow you to convert the wooden coaster to a hybrid or do you have to delete the coaster and create a new layout.

 

Basically, what I did was delete the station to Thunder and put in the station for Lightning, and piece by piece delete segments of Thunder and replace them with the new Lightning track. That coaster probably took the longest for me to make.

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