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Wow, my KIC membership is now old enough to vote! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Another great video from the archives released a little while ago.

New video dropped by Kings Island on YouTube. One of the last things Kyle worked on before he left. I’m glad I was able to help him out with it and get the film scanned. Not perfect, but it’s being worked on still. Please Enjoy.

Sorry to blow y’all up recently. In the latest “official” episode, Don and I discuss the passing of Alberto Zamperla, Iger’s back, and what we are thankful for. Audio options: https://linktr.ee/attractions_group

To clarify one of the questions listed above, the trains of the coasters, once rehabbed, along with the flat ride vehicles, are often stored in the Picnic Grove.

I believe, once disassembled, the chassis for coaster trains may be sent off property to be inspected via ultraviolent scanning. At least they used to be back in the Paramount Days. This serves the purpose of finding potential issues such as hairline cracks in the frames, or compromised welds/joints. They may now be able to do so on property, but back 20 years ago - I was told they outsourced it to a company that had the ability to "dip" them.

For roller coasters, they have two different shops. They have the wooden roller coaster shop where the trains for Racer, The Beast, Mystic Timbers (after Winterfest), and Woodstock Express are taken to. And for all the steel roller coasters there is also a shop. During the off season, the trains on all the roller coasters in both shops are disassembled completely, cleaned, inspected, and then reassembled for the next season. For flat rides, as far as I am aware of, most if not all the maintenance is done right there at the ride. I know that Monster is virtually disassembled at the end of every season and I believe the logs in the log flume are taken out and stored in the picnic grove as well as other parts to other rides. The buildings these are most likely maintained in are the buildings on the north side of Racer outside of Area 72. And the steam engines on the KIMVRR are maintained in the engine house on the railroad. The buildings at the front end of the park are office buildings as well as warehouse space for other departments of the park. Fun fact: If I remember correctly, I saw somewhere where Kings Island spends a good $100,000 on just wheels for the roller coasters.

I would hope at least Cargo Loco would be able to operate. But like IndyGuy4KI said, I would hope that any new ride installs would have the ability to operate during Winterfest, barring minimum operating requirements.

Was not included in the press info. I would hope that would be a prerequisite for any new ride added outside a coaster.

Has KI made any announcement if the new flat rides will be able to operate during Winter fest next year?

This is still my favorite flat ride to this day. I got to ride Zodiac as a kid and Giant Wheel at Hershey as an adult so I remember the experience well. Giant Wheel was removed after 2004 I believe. I loved the long cycle and great views. It was a ride just about anyone could ride unless afraid of heights. As stated above, it’s such an efficient, high capacity design since one side cycles while one side loads. The typical Ferris wheels like the one at Cedar Point are garbage in comparison. They take forever to load and the cycle is short. You spend most of the ride time not moving. Plus they have a balancing issue, so the parks never load them at full capacity. 2 memories of Zodiac- You could see it from International Street giving anticipation of what was waiting. Bi ajways think of Zodiac when I hear disco music as the Coney Island Disco was next door when I got to ride it.

Looks like there will not be a buffet at brewhouse this year. This is the year I was going to try it but this is fine too. Another place to warm up is a plus!

The turnarounds have been re-tracked recently, but I still hope they get repainted if the new sections also get repainted. It doesn’t make perfect sense that Kings Island would repaint the turnarounds after initially neglecting them, but I am hopeful anyways.

Perhaps Son of Beast can get some track work next.

Weren’t the unpainted turn arounds rebuilt in recent years? It seems the lack of paint there was budget motivated IMO as it is not a highly visible area. I agree about painting the new track. If they don’t, this years paint job was wasted dollars.

We might see Beast be painted this off-season. Hoping to see that red tinted wood come back

Baynum is in fact on the contractor list, and I wouldn't be surprised if trackwork is planned sufficiently in advance that not completing the structure was intentional, and also painting newly installed track were both in their original contract. I don't think the return run needs the Gravity Group treatment, this might be GCI's inclusion in the list to retrack with standard track like they had previously done for both turnarounds. Beast might still get additional work that hasn't been announced yet, though, as GravityKraft is on the list as well.

Maybe this explains why some parts of the structure like the turnarounds weren’t painted this past off-season. I hope all parts of the ride that were left unpainted or will be unpainted get repainted after the re-tracking. I hope it’s Gravity Group too! They have done great work on The Racer and The Beast recently!

If I'm not mistaken, blue side had one more additional hill retracked over Racer (either it was before the turnaround or the one after, can't exactly recall atm) but wonder if they're going to do that on the red side too. Really interested in all this work! So glad to see it. Looking forward to the additional intensity on the return run!

I know parts of the return run where starting to jackhammer in spots, so happy to hear this. Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

Mapped it out a bit. (sourced from google maps, lightshot for editor) Green: Possible work (toss-up [unconfirmed]) Red: Known work (currently only one side thanks to the photo from the park) edit: shift red line forward a hill; the hill alongside KMAA is unknown atm

Excellent!!!!! The track out to the turn arounds is so great!! I dread the returns every time we ride it. This is a most welcome surprise!!

Most rides I had on it, particularly the blue side, they were off anyways. It's got some decent laterals now when it happens.

I also wouldn't mind if they wanted to get rid of the trim brakes on the turnaround...

What wonderful news! Hopefully they will retrack the entire returns, especially the pothole on the Red Racer. It would be a shame if they did not repaint it. I haven't seen Racer 75 in person, but the photos show wonderful work on the structure but lots of unpainted wood, and this was after they snazzed it up for their 40th.

Great news . . happy to see the The Racer continue getting more love.

Maybe next season unless we see/the park tells us otherwise. My guess is the helix would be fully redone if they did more work on Beast.

I was not expecting this with the paintjob they did.

Great news! Hopefully they paint the new wood, and finish painting the ride overall.

More track work? Even smoother ride next year? God I love The Racer. Just make sure they paint the new track so it all matches lol

I remember joining. In think I was member number 16. I think I was a sophomore in high school.

Good news! KI really takes care of their wood coasters! I wonder if they're going to do some more work on The Beast.