Great Coasters International

According to the Ace News Bulletin, GCI is currently

involved in rehab work on both Mean Streak and Blue Streak

with possibly more to come in 2010.I do not,however, see

these projects listed on their website. Anyone know

anything about this? If it is so, do you think it will

make a significant difference in operation smoothness for

these coasters?

If they are re tracking the coasters it can make a significant difference in smoothness of the rides. The Beast this year was re tracked on part of the ride and you can really tell a difference in the ride through those parts of the ride.

However if they are doing something else than it will not make that big of a difference. Either way it will not make a difference on the overall operation of the ride I don't think.

As for that 2010 project. I'm hoping for a GCI woodie to go into that place where they are clearing out on Millie island. How sweet would that be?

Ryan

^^One of the blog entries mentioned some rehab work on MS. I think they re-tracked at least some parts of it.

Cedar Point's wood coasters get partially retracked every year, as needed. My understanding is that on average no track section on a CP wood coaster is more than about four years old.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

^^ I have been hoping for a GCI for a few years.

All wooden coasters get rehab work done every off season. If they didn't, they would probably fail and collapse after years of running on the same wood. Stuff doesn't last forever.

How did the rumor of GCI getting involved with Mean Squeak fester into a fact? Aren't they busy building new rides?

My personal want is to see the Gravity Group's new trains on Mean Streak. If they perform as well as everyone hopes, perhaps they could ease the pain (literally and figuratively) on that ride.

Jeff, I don't think it would be a great way to spend money to get the new GG trains on Mean Streak. I mean, if it was actually a good ride to begin with, I would say by all means get those new trains to make it smoother. But it's just not even that exciting of a ride, so I honestly don't think it would make a huge difference anyway. I just think the trains go through the course too slowly, and if they took the trims off, then bye bye structure. It's a crappy catch 22 if there ever was one.

I think part of the problem is we are kind of spoiled in this area with coasters. Both wooden and steel. I mean at Kings Island we have the Beast and Son of Beast. Then up at Michigan's Adventure there is Shivering Timbers. Also, if you go quite a bit further away you have the Lightning racers and Voyage.

Mean Streak is a great ride. Granted it is not up to par with pretty much all of those I listed but considering we have the best selection of steel coaster in the world at our park I don't think we should just jump to fix it. I mean I know I still enjoy it anyway.

I dunno, maybe that is just my distorted view.

Ryan

Wouldn't new trains that can articulate the track, save on the structure ? Then maybe the trims could go bye bye and bring the ride back to life.

I think they should tare it down and put in a Intamin wooden pre fab track coaster like T Express

When it comes to Mean Streak, the horse was buried long ago, but we still hit the ground with the stick...

It's a so-so layout. New trains, no trims, etc... will definitely help the ride, but I don't see it ever being world class. While I loved what I saw of the Timberliner trains taking a spin on Raven, I don't think we will see them on the peninsula for awhile.

One thing that is interesting is that Mean Streak's southern cousin Texas Giant is getting a 10 million dollar refurb this summer. To put that into perspective... Ravine Flyer 2 cost 6 million to build new, and when Texas Giant was built it only cost 5.5 million. Mean Streak cost 7.5 million. If CF wanted to put 10 million dollars towards a wood coaster, I really think they would build something new (although I do realize the cost would be higher to account for the removal of MS)

Long story short.... given the so-so layout, I just don't see CF pouring that much money to completely makeover Mean Streak. Either we will see things continue as they are now (minor track replacement, etc..) or we will see it replaced in the future.

Its important to note that while MS cost $7.5 million, that was in 1991 - almost 20 years ago! Adjusted for inflation, the cost would be nearly $12 million. Texas Giant would cost $9 million in today's dollars.

So, while it is rather odd to see $10 million spent on fixing up something that didn't cost quite that much to begin with, you can't ignore the fact that both cost about 60-65% "more" on a straight dollar-for-dollar comparison.

Mean Streak is a great ride.

Stop lying.

Kevinj said:

Mean Streak is a great ride.

Stop lying.

I'm not lying ;)

The layout is so-so no doubt. But a more comfortable ride and increased speed via some re-tracking, new trains, removal of trims, whatever, would most certainly make it an above average coaster. Atleast that sounds good on paper anyhow.

Mean Streak could be improved into a pretty good ride...

The trains need to be rehabbed. Get rid of the headrests, get rid of the hard foam, basically make the trains look like the ones on the more modern wood coasters (Ravine Flyer 2, Voyage, etc) and you solve most of the rideability problems. Lose the trims on the first drop and let the trains haul through the ride, and you get back a lot of excitement that most riders have completely forgotten about.

The problem with that is that the trains will then tear up the track on the turns.

There are a lot of rides out there for which the Timberliner trains would probably not make a huge difference in ride quality. The Blue Streak is such a ride. Mean Streak, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of ride that the Gravitykraft trains were designed for.

As for Great Coasters International, I know they do a fair amount of rehab work in addition to the design and construction of new rides, so it would not be at all shocking to discover that they were working on Cedar Point's wood coasters. It would be a little interesting because in the past I think much of that work (along with a fair amount of new ride erection work) has been done by Martin & Vlemincks.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

So if they were to use Gravitykraft trains, would they be able to remove the trims without the track still getting torn up ?

Maybe, but they would need to run a lot of tests to see if it could be removed. Remember they didn't just put it there so people could complain, they did it for a reason. I would like to see some new trains on Mean Streak probably Gravity Groups which can handle a lot of turns at speed.

Yes, because it's my understanding that since the wheels can't turn, that's what tears up the track. And slowing it down with trims sort of helped the problem.