Track has arrived!

Pete's right. When they built Magic Kingdom in Florida, they built the utilidor structure, then Main Street, Fantasyland, etc on top of that and piled dirt around the sides. (It's my understanding that no trees = utilidor below.)

Few people realize that gentle slope leading them to MK is taking them to the "second story" of a structure.

A "hill" with a tunnel would be easy. If wide, to accommodate the wide trains.

And while they're at it, maybe they could also give the same treatment to Millennium Force tunnels for some aesthetic upgrading.

That would be pretty much impossible for the second tunnel, given its proximity to Panda Express.

It would also be pretty pointless, in my opinion. By the time you reach MF's tunnels, you're pretty much traveling horizontally. At over 90mph.

With regard to the possibility of a tunnel on Dive Coaster 1, how would they handle a valleyed train?

The same way they would handle a valleyed train outside of a tunnel. The possibility of a valley didn't stop them from putting tunnels on MF and Magnum.

Thabto said:

The same way they would handle a valleyed train outside of a tunnel. The possibility of a valley didn't stop them from putting tunnels on MF and Magnum.

The difference being that those are above grade. Hence the question.

Anyhow, looking at Oblivion at Alton Towers, it appears they have stairs and presumably catwalks that allow egress, which makes sense. Though that would require that the tunnel be fairly wide, well beyond the clearance envelope of the train itself. That in turn would require a pretty substantial hill.

With that in mind, I would be surprised to see an Oblivion-style tunnel. I would expect to see something more along the lines of this:

It's been discussed before that due to the high water table, that a tunnel would likely end up being above ground.

I'm very aware of that. There was a discussion (you know, like a few posts back) about the grade being raised so that the tunnel would go below the new, higher grade.

Personally, I'm opposed to artificially boosting the grades for all these tunnels. Sure, it might help their self-esteem now, but later in the tunnel real world they'll suffer for it...

And no more participation awards for tunnels, either.

I'm still holding out hope for a double whammy announcement; Dive coaster AND dark ride. Two separate attractions built in the same space allowing the coaster to utilize some of the structure of the dark ride's building. There's a lot that can be done by stacking rides.

Before you all start telling me that I am crazy, just think of the options it would offer. While not likely, it would be pretty cool.

I don't think you're crazy. I think you're not paying attention when Cedar Fair announced that no new dark rides are ready to be built yet and you have hope for one next year anyway..

That would be a wise use of space and capital improvement expenditures. The current management seems to already like to capitalize on this, such as demoing GTT while equipment was there for the Breakers refurbishment.

Doing a medium/high cost coster ($15M) and a decent Dark ride/ family ride would also allow for the continued focus on the family friendliness of the last few years.

Then 2017 a focus on Soak City, with a moderate capital investment, since the coaster and family ride folks would be happy from the year before.

topthrilldragster4lyf said:

I think you're not paying attention when Cedar Fair announced that no new dark rides are ready to be built yet and you have hope for one next year anyway..

Forgive me for posting without knowing about every Cedar Fair move and announcement. I'll do better next time. Can you point me towards this information?

Of course I can! However, based on the tone of your response, you don't seem interested in finding out. Heaven forbid someone point something out that you didn't already know! :o

However, just to humor you, check out this article.

With no Amusement Dark projects currently in the pipeline, it’s unlikely we'll see any new dark rides added at any Cedar Fair parks in 2016 — but that hasn’t stopped Ouimet from planning for 2017 and beyond.

"We have blank spaces and empty boxes at every park," Ouimet said.

While the April 2015 article says there are not any in the pipeline for 2016-

It doesn't preclude one for 2016, given the nature of corporate speak:

-They do not want to let their competition know when and where they are installing improvements so as to maximize the ROI from any installation.

-The current management team seems a lot more nimble and willing to move quickly on new ideas and improvements, along with responding to customer reactions to improvements at other parks.

-Maybe they just didn't want let it be known for the enthusiasts here at Pointbuzz and purposefully put that in to throw off speculation.

Anyway, i'm not counting on it... just was a maybe, it would be a neat to speculate idea that I agreed with.

I disagree. There was no reason to dissemble on the subject.

It makes more sense, to me, to add one high-profile attraction in a year. Why dilute the PR message?

Approximately the very last thing on Ouimet's mind during that interview was throwing off enthusiasts on Pointbuzz.

topthrilldragster4lyf said:

"We have blank spaces and empty boxes at every park," Ouimet said.

Would you call the Pirate Ride building an empty box?

If I may jump in, I'd say Pirate Ride isn't so much an empty box as a bit of land Cedar Fair could build a multi-story building on to house a Triotech attraction.

Building up land for a tunnel would take longer than the time they have. You have to build up the land and let it settle into place, then form the tunnel through it... it's just not as easy as plopping land down and digging a hole. The best bet for an above ground tunnel is to make an artificial land/rock structure.

The Pirate Ride building is the emptiest box I can think of at the Point. With that being said, I was also under the impression that it was used for storage so maybe not as empty as we thought.