Cost of Moving Coasters

I read where Kings Island's budget for 2007 was $10 million. I'm assuming there were some repairs and updates, but would have to assume most of that was moving XFlight to it's new location. Does it really cost that much in labor/delivery to move an existing coaster? I always assumed the high costs of a steel coaster was the steel itself, considering a wooden coaster is cheap in comparison?

The main costs are in the design & fabrication of ride components rather than the shipping & labor needed to construct them.

Since the design & engineering work has already been done & the ride in question has been operational for a few years the park can simply bypass that part of the process.

That's what he's asking... since that part was bypassed, why was their budget so high?

Though KI did really improve in the transition from FearFest to Halloween Haunt. They probably put a LOT of money into that...

If I were to guess, here's how the money would have gone:

Firehawk landscaping/moving/construction: $5 million
Halloween Haunt: $3 million
Basic maintenance and upkeep: $1 million
Other: 1 million

That's not even remotely the park's budget. You're seeing the spending amount on capital expenditures, which is for "stuff" that improves the park. Cap ex for your house would be like a deck, new roof or an extra room. A million dollars wouldn't even cover the salaries of the maintenance department, let alone materials.

There is still a ton of labor involved. Disassembly piece by piece, transport, prepping the new area (surveying, clearing and grading, mapping, new footings, etc.), then reassembly, and finally landscaping/theming. Every single one of those tasks is very labor intensive, and time consuming.

Kinzel said they pay fifty cents on the dollar to relocate their coasters. I'm not quite sure what that means. But, I'm guessing that if the coaster cost $15 million, they would pay around $7.5 million to relocate it.

The article said that the cost of moving was less than half, but that quote was not attributed directly to Kinzel.

Read more from The Toledo Blade.

One thing that I would be interested in finding out is how much Steel Venom/Voodoo is costing to be moved. Unlike a traditional coaster, impulses have massive amounts of wiring/electrical work to get it going, which I'm guessing is the bulk of the price tag on those rides.

50 cents to the dollar sounds about right. Design and fabrication have to be pretty expensive.

Good point by Gomez...if the ride calls for infrastructure upgrades the cost would definitely jump, those rides cost more to begin with, so I'm guessing the 50 cent on the dollar would still hold true.

*** Edited 11/13/2007 5:00:33 PM UTC by Tennessee_CP_Fan***

^not to mention the new paint job voodoo is receiving as well

Gomez said:
One thing that I would be interested in finding out is how much Steel Venom/Voodoo is costing to be moved. Unlike a traditional coaster, impulses have massive amounts of wiring/electrical work to get it going, which I'm guessing is the bulk of the price tag on those rides.

Speaking of Voodoo, it will be intresting to see how it runs at Dorney, with all the problems it had at Geauga Lake. You would think they will be upgrading some things.