Valravn Goes Vertical--Construction Starts

djDaemon said:
Are you basing that on observation or insider information? If it's the former, keep in mind that some of the fencing in place now is temporary.

Based on observation. It's pretty clear (especially after today) that the wooden fence extends beyond the low zones. It now extends from the gate to the end of the dive loop, and my guess is it will extend further to articulate with the fence that lines the old Wildcat area, creating a partition from non-park property.

That theory made more sense before they began building another solid fence along perimeter road.

That space will be filled with employee parking spaces. Look at some satellite imagery and you'll see the same thing between the luminosity bleachers and perimeter road. This will be an extension to that.

I guess additional employee parking makes some sense, but I don't see the area behind the luminosity bleachers having ever been used for employee parking in the past. In the satellite imagery, there is an uninterrupted railing on the Perimeter Road side of the fence, so no way to get a car in there.

So it won't be an extension, but rather a new employee parking lot?

I would venture a guess and say that those "lines" were probably there under Wildcat. Based on my unscientific calculations, these "spaces" are more narrow than other parking on site. Does the lot near the marina fill up?

I think Pete has mentioned that marina parking can be scarce, and if some of the existing marina parking has been set aside for employees, it would make sense to take advantage of the infield for parking to free up more marina parking.

I previously suggested that maybe they could he a building there for a haunt. Perhaps this is an alternative as well

With the solid fence along Perimeter Road, employee parking makes sense. Or could it be an outdoor scare zone?

I like speculation! Perhaps it will be a monorail station from the new main land parking lot?

I'm not seeing parking where CPGuru mentioned and I never noticed any parking in that location when driving past. The area behind the luminosity bleachers was empty space and before that, was part of the Wildcat footprint.

I don't know about year round employees, but I know that no matter where seasonal employees lived, we had to park in either the gatekeeper lot (former VIP parking) or "south basin" which is out past pet check. And we would get in trouble when caught parking anywhere else. The area behind the bleachers for Luminosity was used as a staging area for the aerial parts of the show, not parking

You guys all made a good point, there doesn't appear to be parking behind the bleachers. I always thought those markings were parking spaces but I don't see an entry way for cars. I still believe that it will turn into parking this year, but I guess a haunt building is a possibility too.

I don't know if this was mentioned before, but i just noticed that the wall after the dive loop has some kind of an arch in the middle of it.

I saw that too.

I'm honestly shocked they haven't begun test runs yet. This thing is positioned to open in under 30 days to the public and they don't even know if it actually works yet.

Lots to be done!

Well when the temps are 40 degrees & under, and the winds off of the lake are high, test runs are likely to not happen in fear of valleying the train.

magdrag95 said:

...they don't even know if it actually works yet.

You realize they can test an awful lot of stuff without actually sending a train out, right?

For the record B&M's (while all different) are fully capable of running in temps below 40 degrees and even sub-freezing temps.

We were at Six Flags Great Adventure last January for Holiday in the Park and they ran Nitro, Batman, Superman and Green Lantern when it was 29 degrees with 20+ MPH winds.

I'm not sure if B&M's temperature limits are an insurance thing and obviously all coasters are different but Six Flags blew the lid off that theory that the rides physically couldn't run below 40 degrees (or 36 once they get going which is the number most parks go off of, including Dollywood during their Christmas event.

According to the ride ops they were running a fast set of cold weather wheels on them (Rideman can probably expand upon this) and while there were some adventure's getting Nitro going with frontloaded trains and near valleys being a common occurrence on Nitro those rides ran great once they got warmed up. On the night I mentioned Nitro's midcourse was even kicking on which it wasn't doing earlier in the day.

You're comparing a ride that has been in operation for seasons already to a ride that is brand new this year. For the record, no they can't do test runs on a new ride that potentially has low speed spots with temps below 40, high winds, and rain. They made that mistake with Gatekeeper.

Rougarou is a different story, because the park KNOWS it can operate in higher winds and colder temps. Hence why Gatekeeper is shut down during certain weather conditions while Rougarou is running

TwistedWicker77 said:
You're comparing a ride that has been in operation for seasons already to a ride that is brand new this year. For the record, no they can't do test runs on a new ride that potentially has low speed spots with temps below 40, high winds, and rain. They made that mistake with Gatekeeper.

Rougarou is a different story, because the park KNOWS it can operate in higher winds and colder temps. Hence why Gatekeeper is shut down during certain weather conditions while Rougarou is running

What mistake did they make with Gatekeepr?

Gatekeeper valleyed during test runs