Six Flags St. Louis (SFStL) Discussion Thread

[grsupercity]

Much needed attraction! All parks need coasters for kids under 42 inches!!!!!

[jamesk25]

According to STL Dispatch the new coaster will be located next to Boss:

"The Rookie Racer will be located near the entrance to the Boss, a wooden roller coaster"

https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/six-flags-st-louis-announces-new-rookie-racer-a-steel-roller-coaster-shorter-guests-can/article_129fd996-7eed-5fe3-ba0d-1701cac1ddd9.html

"It holds two passengers each in eight Formula 1-style coaster cars, which make for a total of 16 passengers for each run. The track is 843 feet, which includes an initial banked drop, a series of s-curves and a 540-degree horizontal loop."

[Danrarbc]

A Vekoma? I see you Six Flags.

I'm excited for what this means in the future... for other parks in the chain.

 

Looks like this will be the first 247m (and this is a newer model in the family) Junior Coaster model going to North America. The other notable install is Frida at Energylandia (besides the ton in FECs in Asia).

[AmyUD06]

If I had kids, I think I'd prefer this to the Skyline racing coasters going to the other parks.  This does not leave me with any worries about consistent operations; those do.

[prozach626]

Time to give credit where credit it due. Great job Six Flags.

[grsupercity]

4 minutes ago, AmyUD06 said:

If I had kids, I think I'd prefer this to the Skyline racing coasters going to the other parks.  This does not leave me with any worries about consistent operations; those do.

plus new Vekoma's are butter smooth 

[prozach626]

Yes, Frida looked very smooth. It will hopefully provide a more welcoming experience for my little girl's first coaster. Holidog Express is probably a little jerky.

[jamesk25]

I find interesting along with this announcement that on Screamscape a few days ago has heard rumors that Dragon Wing will be SBNO. I wonder if they will be removing Dragon Wing and installing it there instead of going up against Boss, because I thought the little pond in the video with a sidewalk sitting area looked like a weird thing to also include in the video. What do you all think? Maybe this is a re theme to the area, maybe this is not the last we hear of rides being installed next to Boss.

EDIT: Also another thing to note, the station being orientated the way it is, I think them removing Dragon Wing is more a possibility. With the pond being Thunder River holding pool.

 

[Danrarbc]

I'd think if this was using the land Dragon Swing is on that'd have to be torn down by now, or at least very very shortly.

If it actually is going in right there though that would potentially open the area between it and Boss up for one or more additional rides. Potentially a small family area? Something like a NebulaZ would work in an area like that.

[bert425]

^^ your own newpaper link notes:

"The Rookie Racer will be located near the entrance to the Boss, a wooden roller coaster"


That's the old go-karts track.

[jamesk25]

On that though, I just made this up real quickly, I may be wrong on dimensions but I think you all get the idea. It could honestly fit on either side of the tracks.

1 minute ago, Danrarbc said:

If it actually is going in right there though that would potentially open the area between it and Boss up for one or more additional rides. Potentially a small family area? Something like a NebulaZ would work in an area like that.

It would be cool to have another small area for kids, maybe this area could be for the more middle school/pre-teen area?

[jamesk25]

14 minutes ago, bert425 said:

^^ your own newpaper link notes:

"The Rookie Racer will be located near the entrance to the Boss, a wooden roller coaster"


That's the old go-karts track.

I just got to thinking about other news or rumors, and yes they said next to Boss, but not exactly how close to the entrance. And also the entrance to the go carts was still a bit off from Boss, and it could work better with the orientation and the rendering on the video did show with the pond and sitting area.

[Danrarbc]

I checked the dimensions using Frida as the baseline and the footprint length-wise is 250ft or so. There's less than 225ft available between the tent and the tracks - and that's a really narrow point. The main part of the layout is 70ft wide and at the point where that'd fit you're barely over 150ft available. This has to be across the tracks - and honestly they probably have to change Boss' queue too to get this to fit.

[jamesk25]

7 minutes ago, Danrarbc said:

I checked the dimensions using Frida as the baseline and the footprint length-wise is 250ft or so. There's less than 225ft available between the tent and the tracks - and that's a really narrow point. The main part of the layout is 70ft wide and at the point where that'd fit you're barely over 150ft available. This has to be across the tracks - and honestly they probably have to change Boss' queue too to get this to fit.

Thanks for the better measurements Danrarbc! It would be a tight fit indeed. Maybe a few supports over the track for the turn back if the ride sits high enough to clear the train. Even more radical would be to move the tracks for the train, but that is a very costly and I wouldn't think that be the case. But on the other hand, rebuilding the whole front entrance and queue to Boss would also be very expensive, but we shall see what they decided on.

 

Edit: Unless they bring the station up to the Boss entrance like even bert425 had pointed out?

[DILinator]

Now, I haven't personally been to SFStL since the early 2000s (hoping to remedy that finally this Summer), but from looking at the Google "street view" of that area, unless the entrance to The Boss has moved since 2011, it is LITERALLY right next to the swing ride, and where Jamesk25 is suggesting this ride may be going. I have to admit, based on the animation art  choosing to include the pond (when it didn't need to), it does appear that's where it's going, and I couldn't find the swing ride anywhere on the Six Flags park site.

[jamesk25]

15 minutes ago, DILinator said:

Now, I haven't personally been to SFStL since the early 2000s (hoping to remedy that finally this Summer), but from looking at the Google "street view" of that area, unless the entrance to The Boss has moved since 2011, it is LITERALLY right next to the swing ride, and where Jamesk25 is suggesting this ride may be going. I have to admit, based on the animation art  choosing to include the pond (when it didn't need to), it does appear that's where it's going, and I couldn't find the swing ride anywhere on the Six Flags park site.

The go-cart/dragon wing entrance is a step back from Boss entrance to the queue

[Danrarbc]

Took care to get the scale super close. It might actually fit across the tracks without moving Boss' queue. Would certainly offer an interesting view of the lift hill. The only way it works on the Dragon Swing site is if you completely remove the entire new concrete plaza. And if you do this you ruin any chance of using the area the go karts were on - and even still it only works if you build over the water. 

[DILinator]

Yeah, it very well could be across the tracks, as that "space" makes way more sense.

[jamesk25]

Interesting Danrarbc, but it does looks a lot rougher sitting next to Boss then where Dragon Wing sits in that image. But on that note, what if you angle the ride to the tracks, have the turnaround closer to The Boss lift and the station closer to the tracks, that would solve a lot of the layout weirdness for the go cart area. On the Dragon wing side, if the ride was taller on lift and into the station, then you could "jump" the tracks and have everything take place in the go cart area and have the station in the Dragon Wing area. Otherwise the way it sits on Dragon Wing looks like it could fill that land up nicely with a little bit of modification to the area.

[Danrarbc]

The only part of this layout tall enough to clear the train is the lift hill. And considering there's a helix right next to the lift hill this cannot cross the tracks.

There's plenty of room next to The Boss to do anything really.

[prozach626]

I could see them moving Boss' queue a little.

[jamesk25]

Another thought Danrarbc could be if they were to move the Boss queue, would it fit into the brake run/helix area of the Boss? That would leave plenty of room for future additions and maybe a much shorter walk up to the Boss station.

And you are right, there is a lot of possibility.

[Danrarbc]

4 minutes ago, prozach626 said:

I could see them moving Boss' queue a little.

It's a much bigger job than some other queue mods though.

If they do I do wonder if they'd just delete the long elevated queue entirely. Can't be easy to work on.

 

  

2 minutes ago, jamesk25 said:

Another thought Danrarbc could be if they were to move the Boss queue, would it fit into the brake run/helix area of the Boss? That would leave plenty of room for future additions and maybe a much shorter walk up to the Boss station.

And you are right, there is a lot of possibility.

They'd have to move the queue a lot to fit it on that side. There's still room on Dragon Swing's plot of land for 2 flats IF they were interested in a building a sort of intermediate family area. The extremely popular NebulaZ so many parks are getting are quite small.

[jamesk25]

Just now, Danrarbc said:

It's a much bigger job than some other queue mods though.

If they do I do wonder if they'd just delete the long elevated queue entirely. Can't be easy to work on.

Honestly they need to remove/ modify it though, I think everyone hates the queue the way it sits. Kinda like how they made a shortcut through Batman to when the park ain't busy.

[jamesk25]

5 minutes ago, Danrarbc said:

They'd have to move the queue a lot to fit it on that side. There's still room on Dragon Swing's plot of land for 2 flats IF they were interested in a building a sort of intermediate family area. The extremely popular NebulaZ so many parks are getting are quite small.

That's what I was wondering, I don't think they would thinking back to how they where going to fit Catwoman into the current demolished half of the go carts. Unless they have some deeper pockets now to spend.