New Concrete at Skyhawk

I noticed Monday that where grass and plants once grew behind the loose articles bins at Skyhawk now lies new concrete, and those loose article bins have been relocated on either side of the new concrete. Anyone else notice this or know what the purpose of this change was? I snaped a pic of it on my phone but there was an error in saving it for whatever reason.

While I'm asking questions I'll throw this one out there. While walking up to the CCMR station I noticed a large unused footer with bolts under the track that leads into the final helix. Anyone know what this was used for? I have an image below.

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The crane they brought in to work on it needed more room so they had to do away with some grass.

Or so I've been told.

Thats it, more concrete added to the Point!

Im getting a SP to Charmland ;).

^^That's the jist of it. The cranes were tearing up the grass and was probably a headache to keep resoding.

The pad under the Mine Ride is for a winch. There used to be one mounted there permanently, but that only lasted for half a season.

There used to be an anti-rollback and a set of brakes on the track up there, as it was one of the ride's block brakes. When the new control system was installed, the two mid-course brakes were eliminated, along with the anti-rollbacks that went along with them. Unfortunately, sometimes the train just doesn't have enough energy to make it up there, so they had to install a winch so that they could recover trains during pre-season testing.

Finally they added a brake up there, so if it looks like the train isn't going to make it they can close the brake and hold it, presumably until they can get people to help push (or something like that) so that the winch isn't necessary and could be taken somewhere else. Such as Gemini's final helix....

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Just more random concrete for 2008. ;) If you haven't noticed yet, Wicked Twister's front low zone is now almost completely concrete where it used to be sand. I actually like it, though. It makes things much easier to find/clean up at night....though cell phones and such have a harder time surviving the launch without that sand to break the fall. ;)

The blowing sand in there has been a real comfort issue since the beginning, as far as I'm concerned. Unless it was wet, you could potentially get a face full of it.

Have they poured concrete between the station and the back spike? That is where I always get drilled by sand when in the queue on a windy day.

I rode WT opening day and never noticed any new concrete by the station, front nor back spike areas. And I was in the front seat too. I never saw any concrete in the sand box area under the back spike, just the same as it was last year and the year before that and before that......

Josh M. said:
Have they poured concrete between the station and the back spike? That is where I always get drilled by sand when in the queue on a windy day.

Sadly, they have not. They really need to pour concrete on that part for sure. On the actual subject of Skyhawk, I feel they put that there becasuse more items were flying out of the pockets of the riders and falling into the grass and it's kind of hard to see these items. Lets just hope there are no rabid seagulls this year like last year :P

I'm going to guess that the crane maneuvering reason is more likely than they had a hard time finding lost items in the grass.

Miss_Maverick07 said:
I rode WT opening day and never noticed any new concrete by the station, front nor back spike areas. And I was in the front seat too. I never saw any concrete in the sand box area under the back spike, just the same as it was last year and the year before that and before that......

You clearly did not look that hard, then. There is new concrete at WT, and I can tell you that with 110% certainty. The only part of the front low zone that still remains sand is directly under the front spike. The entire middle section of the front low zone that was originally sand is now, indeed, concrete.

Unfortunately, the back low zone hasn't been touched, and I get hit in the face every 60 seconds or so, daily, with sand. :-\

He would know. Thanks! :)

There's plenty of garbage cans to go with all this new concrete, right???