Another MS rollback?

With Ghostrider and Shivering Timbers now part of the Cedar Fair Family, maybe CP will rethink their wooden coaster ideas.

I can understand MS souring them on woodies, but not all woodies are bad, maintenance nightmares. And as much as I hate to see MS torn down, if they could replace it with something from CCI, I'd be ecstatic. Shivering Timbers is by far my favorite wooden coaster (so far).

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

Several of us have asked but no one has reponded yet. What is Monty's explaination ??

Now that I have my Kentucky Kingdom trip report complete (yes, that is a shameless plug), I can start work on my CoasterMania report, which will basically be a transcription of the Q&A session.

The basic answer is that the ride tears itself apart, but that's not quite how he put it...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'm sure someone has it on video tape, but he said something to the effect that high speed causes structural problems and excessive wear.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

Yes, what is his explaination? Now I have heard Dick Kinzel making quotes about Ghostrider and Shivering Timbers and how how loves them. He probably hates MS because its a poorly design piece of (insert you favorite naughty word here:-)) You'd think with a SMART CEO that LOVES airtime as much as me he would replace it with a CCI and yes I've talked to him on my last visit to CP and reported that VF was killing all the airtime on Wild Thing and High Roller with brakes and he said that it was too bad and also quoted "I love airtime!" With an attitude(sp?) like us I'd think he'd rather replace it (MS) with a Ghostrider type woodie. After all look what he got us in Magnum with the MOST EXTREME airtime on any coaster I've ridden!!

Jeff, I also think you should go to management and tell them your suggestion about going to HW and ride their 2 world class woodies. With all of the problems of MS I can easily believe that the maintenence costs hit a $1/2 million per year but I can not undertsand is why doesn't HW seems to have a problem spending the money to maintain their 2 woodies? Surely Raven & Legend together must cost close to the amount of maintaining one Mean Streak? And CP makes at least 5 or 6 time the amount that HW makes so you would think spending a million a year would be nothing for them and beside like I've said before if the ride was laways running good it will do well and keep having long lines. A good example would be Viper @ Six Flags Great America because it is a very smooth airtime and lataral filled woodie yet it will not beat you up and have a good balance for the GP. Also I've been to that park at least 3 time and the line was never less than 20 minutes!! If CP can have a woodie like that you can be assured that it will ALWAYS have a steady line. The GP is SMART enough to know that MS is JUNK! And Viper was ALWAYS MUCH BETTER than MS when I first rode it in 1991 which was supposely the ride's best year! And I'd be very please if CP would put one of those in!

BTW Shivering Timbers IS my #1 woodie and that is what I REALLY want @ CP more than anything else in the world (next to the Intamin hyperwoodie version of that ride)!

What about Blue Streak? It is one of the smothest coasters out there and a great coaster with alot of air time. CP didn't go wrong there? John H

I must commiserate--quality over size is important.

I often wonder, with their apparent allegiance to coaster diversity, if Cedar Point shies away from building another wooden coaster because they already have two of them. If this were the case, I would like to see a "Berlin Wall" pulled on the gosh darn thing. Inasmuch as top executives rode an impulse coaster and said "hey, we could use one of these" I get the impression they ride other, superior wooden rides, enjoyed them thoroughly only to say "oh wait, we already have a few of these."

Blah. I am just not a fan of the ride anymore.

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I am still the Geminazi!

rawr!

A lot of parks have as many as 3 wooden coasters. Hershey, Kings Island, SFWOA just to name a few. CP shouldn't shy away from more wood because of one bad apple.

I'm not sure I buy into the bit though of MS not being fixable. Anything can be fixed, it just depends on how far your willing to go.

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I was super before Superstew was cool!

Who came up with the basic idea of Mean Streak? Who designed the ride? Who built it?

Have they made other mistakes like this one?

Sorry about all of the questions. I am just curious.

Maybe a little to do with the "New Attraction" for next year, the worlds largest bon fire to welcome in the new woodie in place of Mean Streak. Who would all go to witness that? LOL! I still don't mind riding MS, i know its not the best, but its a coaster. Come on, you can't beat all those re-rides at night when everyone moves to the front of the park, especially on the nights when they are open til midnight. Ending the night on MF of course. "Just Ride It"

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When you visit CP, visit my Mill, est. 1835

To answer your questions Travis.

Summers and Dinn built and designed the ride, you may have ridden another one of there flops. Raging Wolf Bob's at SFWOA.

The one saving grace is that Charles Dinn's daughter is the head of CCI which makes the best wooden coasters in the world and would be a much better choice in my opinion then an Intamin fake woodie.

Although I have never rode an Intamin woodie but plastic wheels on a woodie just doesn't seem right. If I want a smooth air filled ride I'll go ride MF. If I want a rough and tumble (but not too rough) ride I'll go to WOA and ride The Villian.

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Welcome back Magnum riders how was your ride?

I agree about the plastic wheels. I would only want Intamin to rebuild the ride if they used the steel wheels on the train. It would take so much out of the "wood coaster experience" if they were poly wheels. I think the only reason everyone is suggesting Intamin, is because of the low maintenance. The track is prefabricated in sections like steel coaster track, and if there is a problem, they just order a new section from what I hear. I think CP would want to eliminate as much maintenance as possible after all they've had to do to it over the last 11 years.

I know but that just doesn't seem like a wood coaster to me. But I haven't rode it so I really don't know, it could be great. Anyone know what the maitainance is on a big CCI like say the Boss?
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Welcome back Magnum riders how was your ride?

A few things to note...

First of all, I am not convinced that the Intamin track would be the way to go. It seems that their laminated track may have its own set of problems that are not well known yet. One of the nice things about a wood coaster is that if part of it breaks down you can fix it in-house easily. When Kings Island had a roll-back in the big helix of Son of Beast their fix was to use butcher saws to chop out the track where the train had come to rest, hoist the cars out, then re-build the top layers of the track in that location; they had the ride running the next day and you'd never know they'd had to re-cap one rail. With the Intamin track, if anything goes wrong with any track section, the track section has to be replaced with a new manufactured section. I don't know if Intamin's trains fix the track-following problems of the PTC trains, but if you run PTC trains (or PTC-style trains) on Intamin's manufactured track the result would be just as much track replacement but it would cost more. I don't think that's the solution for Mean Streak.

Regarding Raging Wolf Bobs, there are a few things to bear in mind. First of all, I don't think that ride has had any significant track maintenance since the day it opened. Second, it's got those awful trains on it that will automatically shuffle like crazy on any curved track. Third, it has the word "Bobs" in the name, but from the day it opened people have slammed it just because it isn't just like the old Riverview coaster (no, it's bigger and faster, for one thing...). Personally, I think fixing the trains would do a lot for that ride, and once the trains are fixed, fixing the track (and with fixed trains, fixed track might stay fixed for a while...) would turn that thing into a good solid performer. Just not the Riverview Bobs.

Getting back to Mean Streak, there are a few known problems. The trains are apparently scientifically engineered to beat the living crap out of the riders. Let's start by fixing that. Get the rider wear issues out of the way, so that attention can be directed not to making it a tolerable ride, but to making it a functional ride. Next there are structural issues. I'm no structural engineer, but if the ride is inadequately supported in some of the crossover areas, then why have they not gotten creative and done some CCI-style stuff to try and fix it? For instance, on the second hill, how about building a steel-truss bridge structure (as on the Hoosier Hurricane) over the crossover to carry the load of the upper curve? If there is inadequate lateral support to hold that curve in place and inadequate space to brace it from the outside and take a cue from thousands of classic designs and use a cable-stay arrangement to keep it under tension from the inside.

I am certain that the ride could be fixed. Thing is, it's going to require some creative thinking, a good engineer, construction labor, and materials.

Trouble is, there is no guaranteed return on such an investment. So while it might work really well, it seems doubtful that Cedar Point would actually do it.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Too bad MS has beaten the crap outta so many people that there is little support to FIX it rather than tear it out and put in something else.

I don't see CP tearing it out. But I'm saddened that CP might just keep running it the way they are. They are slowly losing MS lovers who are disappointed in it now, and not gaining the respect of new riders because it's simply not exciting enough.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

I know this may be simplistic, but is it a coincidence that nearly all of the great woodies in the world are at smaller parks? Ghostrider and maybe the Georgia Cyclone are perhaps the only possible exceptions - that is, if you don't consider the Beast or SOB great, which I don't. I'm thinking of coasters like Tonnere de Zeus, Phoenix, Raven, Rampage, Megaphobia, etc. - all favorites of mine, at smallish parks.

My "simplistic" reasoning has to do with the wear and tear that large parks and constant three train operation inflict upon their rides. I mean, the Mean Streak will probably give more rides this weekend than Megaphobia will all month - no wonder it's a maintenance nightmare. I'm sure much of it has to do with structural/engineering flaws (having been on many Summers&Dinn rattlers) - but it has crossed my mind how a coaster like the Raven would stand up to the pounding that takes place at a major park.

And I have to believe the people that make the decisions at the largest parks share the same concerns - some of the most popular ones - BGW, Disney, IOA, etc. - have NO wooden coasters, while the others may have one or two unremarkable, heavily-braked ones.

As well, much of what makes a ride like the Raven or Megaphobia (or the Legend or Boulder Dash etc.) great is its use of the terrain/natural surroundings - I'm sure the higher ups at CP would love their rides on the Raven, but I just don't see a Raven-type ride translating to Cedar Point. For one thing, it would have to be twice as long ... I dunno, maybe that's a poor example. Shivering Timbers - a fine ride, to be sure - may be the type to work ... I just don't see it happening.

Not that I wouldn't want them to try ...

Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

Your logic doesn't work quite right though. A well engineered wood ride would be fine. Look at Viper at SFGAM. The best non CCI coaster I have ever rode and lord knows Great America gets tons and tons of people.

How bout Gwazi at BGT? How bout Roar at SFA and SFMW? Villian at SFWOA? Sonny and Papa at PKI (I know you say they aren't good but most would disagree.) Ghostrider at KBF, GASM and Cyclone at SFoG? The Boss at SFStL? How bout all the awesome wood at Kennywood that has been putting out great rides for 50,60,70,80 years? The List goes on and on.

I think the number of great wood coasters is so much higher because they cost so much less. A small park may be able to handle a 4 million dollar investment on a woody and the yearly amount for upkeep where they wouldn't be a ble to afford a 15 million dollar steely from B and M or Intamin. Also CCI is the company that builds all these great rides. Most of those coasters you mentioned are all CCI's. Awesome woodies small parks can afford.

Then we go into the issue of Larger parks not wanting to put in wood. The GP goes for Gimmicks. Wood coasters don't have many gimmicks unless you are on Sonny. Steel coasters have 300 foot 80 degree drops or 7 inversions or launches etc etc etc. That is what the GP likes to hear.

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Welcome back Magnum riders how was your ride?

*** This post was edited by Magnum Force 7/5/2002 2:50:46 PM ***

I did mention Ghostrider and Cyclone as exceptions ... as for the others you mentioned (Roar, Gwazi, Boss, Viper), I'll have to take your word for it, as I restricted my comments to the coasters I've actually been on. I still don't think those give anywhere near the amount of rides per day that they'd have to at CP, which is basically my point. Maybe if they dispatched one train every 10 minutes or so on MS like I hear they do on Gwazi it wouldn't be falling apart so fast ... but I digress.

You may have something about Kennywood, save for two things. Thunderbolt and Jack Rabbit couldn't possibly be emulated at any other park, as the terrain is integral to their design; and an important part of what makes woodies like the Rabbit special are their restraints, or lack thereof. The best coaster in the world (IMHO) - the Phoenix - earns that title in no small part because the single position lab bar allows you to enjoy its incredible airtime to its fullest. Move the Phoenix to CP (which could be done - heck, Sandusky's a lot closer than Texas) and you'd have individual racheting bars along with seat belts and huge headrests. Not the same ride at all, my friend ...

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Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.
*** This post was edited by spewey 7/5/2002 9:33:52 PM ***