Mean Streak being torn down?

I actually have come to enjoy mean streak.

The speculation was that workers were cutting off bolts with a torch. One of the pieces fell and smoldered for a while before catching on fire.

SSL488 said:
I actually have come to enjoy mean streak.

Me too. It does a great job of keeping people off the midways & other ride queues during Halloweekends. :)

Does anyone know when it is supposed to be shut down for the season. I have always been a fan and have even gotten the rest of my group to enjoy riding it since the repairs from last off season. Last Saturday we waited in a line that actually went back into the old ques. It was kind of interesting to be back there since I never had before.

Mean Streak closed early last year before the incedint you guys are talking about ocurred, trust me i was there when we were told it was closing that weekend. the incednt ocurred the week after we had closed the ride. also Mean Streak is closed for the rest of the season ..it WILL reopen next spring.

Coasterkyle said:
Mean Streak closed early last year before the incedint you guys are talking about ocurred

That would make more sense. I was suprised to hear they were working on it prior to it closing. But, thet's what was infered in this article.

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/2010/sep/22/meanstreak092310tjxml

Finally got on the New Texas Giant this weekend, and while it was a much improved and more fun ride, for the money spent on the improvement could have been much better spent on a GCI wooden coaster that would be fun and exciting.

Still too bad those buttheads put out the fire last year on Mean Streak as it'd be a huge plot of land they could build something awesome on.

The thing is though...New Texas Giant will likely deliver the same great ride 5-10 years from now with minimal track maintenance.

Had they invested in a new GCI, it might be a blast at first, but become rough after 5-10 years with improper maintenance. Maybe I'm thinking too much along the lines of every other wooden coaster I've ridden over the years though...do GCI's tend to hold up better with time?

Anyway, I think CP should carefully analyze what wooden coasters stay smooth and enjoyable the longest, with minimal maintenance. If that means going with Intamin pre-fab, I'm all for it. From what I'm gathering, El Toro seems to be delivering the better ride than The Voyage this year...

Dunno I haven't ridden the GCI at Hershey, but they've been there a decade now. I'd imagine they are still working well.

Lightning Racer and Wildcat are amazing. They are both very smooth, fast, and pretty wild. GCI delivers great rides. How is Renegade at Valleyfair? Is it still running smoothly?

Yes I t was closed down for season this weekend I as there.. But what is GCI? Sorry for my stupidness but I can't figure it out lol

Here, let me google that for you...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=GCI+Roller+coasters

Thanks, I did google it before asking as I always google everything before asking, still could not find it,, Great Coasters International Inc. Correct ;)

coolkid said:
Lightning Racer and Wildcat are amazing. They are both very smooth, fast, and pretty wild. GCI delivers great rides. How is Renegade at Valleyfair? Is it still running smoothly?

It's still the best ride at Valleyfair and running very well.

Alexander Jones said:
Thanks, I did google it before asking as I always google everything before asking, still could not find it,, Great Coasters International Inc. Correct ;)

I figured, but i was just gettin' your goat.:-)

Well, then it sounds like GCI may be a winner. What I don't understand is how PTC trains became the norm in the wooden coaster industry. From my limited experience, it seems like the roughest coasters are always PTC trains, particularly when they look just like Mean Streak's type.

Well, PTC survived.

Dayton Fun House/NAD/IAD got out of the coaster business.
Arrow only built one, maybe two sets of wood coaster trains.
Morgan built a bunch, then sold the design and the wood coaster operation to PTC. Morgan's wood coaster trains are common mostly in California, and they pretty much suck, although they aren't as hard on the track as PTCs.

Once we were down to new coasters being built by independent companies, really PTC was the only option. There were a couple of alternatives out there...Gerstlauer built some wood coaster trains, but their trains are basically bad copies of PTC trains. Premier Rides came up with a wood coaster design, but again, it's basically a bad copy of a PTC with bigger wheels.

When GCI built Roar West, they also built a set of trains modeled after the classic Prior & Church cars, but updated to modern sensibilities. They are trailered, that is each car has only one set of wheels, and unlike the PTC trailers, they have the hitches and axles in the right positions to handle curves properly. It was the first completely new design for a wood coaster train in about 20 years (as opposed to a bad copy of what PTC was doing) and was basically a single-bench version of what Morgan had done, but with a more classic design, a much tighter set of tolerances, and no Fiberglas. The result was the nicest trains in the business, but to get them you have to buy a GCI coaster.

Meanwhile, older rides like Mean Streak suffer other indignities. Invariably, parks that have problems with their wood coasters seem to respond to those problems by slowing them down and tightening up the structure, which is usually the exact opposite of what the ride needs. On Mean Streak, the rough running is made worse by the low speeds, especially on the high curves, and the bounce, shuffle and vibration is transmitted directly to the riders through seat cushions that are entirely too harsh to sit on.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

First off, thank you for this very informative and interesting reply. This is the norm for you, but I just needed to point out that I always appreciate them.

That makes sense; most coasters are PTC simply because they were the surviving monopoly. So by what you're saying, it appears to me that I've made a valid observation that the train design is an important part of the smoothness of an aging wooden coaster. So, while I see Cedar Fair being bashed repeatedly for the care/maintenance of their wooden coasters, maybe Mean Streak, Beast, Hurler, Grizzly, Shivering Timbers are more cursed by the PTC trains than their owner?

I made my first trip to Kennywood this summer, and I was expecting Thunderbolt (NAD trains?) and Jack Rabbit (? trains) to be very rough by looking at the old-style trains, but it was just the opposite...they were remarkably smooth. So, this has left me wondering about train design and roughness ever since.

Now I know Son of Beast had many inherent problems and was never a good layout. In hopes of making it smoother, Cedar Fair attempted lighter trains, which was logical. But, they went with Gerstlauer after Premier trains. So by your take, SoB always had bad copies of PTC trains that were rough on the track by design. So, I wonder if the extreme roughness had a lot to do with the larger-scale ride magnifying the inherent problems in the train designs...

Do you think Timberliners would solve the problems of many existing rough wooden coasters out there? Apparently Holiday World was one of the first to realize the PTC trains might be the main problem, and they're taking a shot at them (Timberliners). I can't wait to see how that turns out.

@williejs3. Better not be the goat thats supposedly operating the Maverick tomorrow evening.....

You all cool br0 we all friends here ;)

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned it yet. But, while at the park this past weekend, I saw a work crew's water cooler sitting at the bottom of the 2nd valley. That in my opinion was the roughest spot left on the ride, followed by the 1st valley, then the 3rd valley. If they do as much work this year as last year, it should be almost brand new (aside from the trim on the first drop).