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The Beast and Thunderhead...two of my favorite wooden coasters. Disclaimer...I grew up on The Beast. I took my first spin in 1985 as a 10 year old, and become a coaster nut. So many great memories of riding The Beast with family and friends, in the day, night, rain, and even fog. I rode Thunderhead last summer, and again last month. These coasters are so very different. Here are some categories I use to compare wooden coasters: 1. "In the woods" feeling The Beast, obviously, has this in spades. Though much of it is in "clearings", you are almost always deep in the forest. Thunderhead is set against a beautiful hill of trees, but you don't really go "in" the woods. 2. Out of control feeling The Beast is like driving 100 mph on the interstate. Thunderhead is like driving 50mph down Lombard Street. Both are fun, but I gotta admit that I prefer the latter. Besides the lift hill and station flyby, Thunderhead does not travel 12 inches without changing direction up, down, left, or right. Much of The Beast's track is quite linear, and the curves have large radii. This is the biggest difference between these two coasters, in my opinion. 3. Mystery From the public walkways, one can see pretty much every part of Thunderhead. So there are no big surprises along its course. On the other hand, every part of The Beast (except for the first lift-hill) is hidden from view. Even views from the Eiffel Tower, Diamondback and Vortex only offer glimpses of the second hill. Of course, now one can check out Google Earth or YouTube to learn what really happens out in those woods, but when I was a kid, you went into the ride blind. Added fear factor. 4. Trains All of my rides on Thunderhead were quite comfy. Over the years, my rides on The Beast have ranged from comfy to washboard road terrible. 5. Tunnels I really enjoy coaster tunnels. The abrupt differences in sound and light, plus the "head-chopping" effect, never get old for me. The Beast has 4, while Thunderhead has one: the station flyby. It feels a bit different since it is so open compared to the tunnels on Beast. 6. Airtime On my rides, nearly every hill on Thunderhead offered airtime. I'm not sure I've ever had any on The Beast. 7. The "voyage" feeling I used lowercase "v" because I don't mean the coaster in Santa Claus (though that coaster excels in this category) but rather the way a coaster layout takes me on a literal far away trip. These coasters have it: The Racer, Magnum, Millennium Force, Voyage, and The Beast. These, not so much: Vortex, Mantis, Firehawk, and Thunderhead. This "voyage" aspect is not a requirement, just a nice bonus for me. 8. Emotional pacing, adrenaline For me, Thunderhead stays between 10 and 11 (on the Spinal Tap meter) until the brake run. The Beast is all over the place, dipping to 5 on the straight sections, and somehow reaching 12 at the entrance of the double helix. What can I say, I love'em both. So there you have it. Much more than my two cents. If I had to move to a deserted island and take one of these with me, it would be...Thunderhead. But The Beast, especially running at top form, would be a fine second choice. I'm glad that I live close to both of these great coasters. They show how different and great wooden coasters can be.

It's the Enquirer. You're lucky, that's actually one of their better articles. There weren't any misspellings in it.

I rode The Crypt once, then I got a new cat.

Anyone else catch the error that you can take a right at the end of I-Street with the kids and go towards Little Bill's Giggle Coaster?

Or, you could try actually reading the thread before you post. Honestly. And welcome.

I don't really know that I can point-blank rate Thunderhead as being better than Beast, or vice versa, though I realize I've got a top 5 on my "About Me" page* that doesn't include Beast. The coasters are great for their own reasons, and if you try to apply those reasons to one another, you're sorely disappointed. The Beast is the model for how to appropriately pace a roller coaster, even with magnetic trim brakes. It doesn't have airtime, and, quite frankly, I don't think it needs it. From the top of the first lift to the bottom of the second, the ride literally facades itself. It's wide, almost lateral-free turns and long stretches of straight track that lull the rider into believing the ride is tame. The pacing increases slightly over the course of this first half as you start to encounter the tunnels, the trains making this tremendous roar as you pass through the concrete portions to increasingly sudden turns. Then, just as the speed hits its peak--you hit the second lift. With how far you've come and how big the lift is, you almost expect it to be the end of the ride, until you remember you saw the double helix from the top of the first lift. You reach the top of the second lift and see the park in its entirety, but then you're turning away from that--the ride's teased you with the idea of being done, but its "worst" is yet to come. You're heading down this long stretch of track with a minuscule 10-degree downward angle towards this ominous tunnel mouth buried in the trees you thought you'd escaped, and the train is bucking like crazy and picking up speed. I honestly like the trim on this drop--it's like the ride's last-ditch attempt to let you "save yourself" before you get swallowed by the tunnel and go through the crazy intense helix. And only after that does the ride decide it'll let you go. Night rides only amplify the theatrics of the pacing, which is why people tend to like night rides on The Beast more, in my opinion--instead of The Beast toying with you, it's like he's chasing you through the dark woods. The helix tunnel becomes this pitch black hole that literally devours you, thus increasing the impression that you never really escape The Beast; he decides to let you go... for now. (The Beast is basically the Chuck Norris of roller coasters.) Thunderhead, on the contrary, only vaguely relies on pacing in comparison to The Beast. I don't mean that in a derogatory way; I'm just saying that the pacing starts on "fast" and ends on "very fast," where The Beast goes from "intentionally slow" to "fast." I see Thunderhead more as GCI's attempt to stuff as much airtime into a somewhat limited area as possible by using the terrain, and the results were these crazy fast banking/G-force transitions and high-banked turns that only increase their frequency the closer the train gets to the brakes. Does that mean it's a bad ride? Definitely not, but it's very difficult for me to appreciate it the same way I appreciate rides like The Beast, Kennywood's Thunderbolt, or Holiday World's Raven or Voyage, all of which also place a higher emphasis on pacing. I love me some Thunderhead, but it's not in the same way I love those other rides. It's a great ride, but there just isn't as much depth in the design as it feels like there is on The Beast, which is something that seems to be common on the GCI rides I've been on. The only ones that come close are Hersheypark's Lightning Racers, but not very. The Beast lulls you into a false sense of security then wows you with its double helix; Thunderhead throws everything it's got and the kitchen sink at you from the top of the lift to the brake run. It's almost apples and oranges. (Again, just to stress this: GCI makes fantastic rides. I don't mean to hate on them, as they're easily some of my favorite coasters to ride. I've just never seen a GCI that made me think, "Wow, they're really switching up the pacing like crazy on that guy.") By the by, guys, have I ever mentioned I really get into dissecting design elements and themes in rides? *My top 5 functions more like a "top 5 rides I'd most like to ride right now" list than a "top 5 rides I've ever been on" list. The only reasons The Beast isn't on there is because I've ridden it so many times and because it's so close to where I live. I might only get to visit Holiday World and Kennywood once each per year, so that's why they get a slightly higher priority. I can't wait to ride The Beast in a week!

From todays Cincinnati paper, memories, pictures, and even a quiz got 9 out of 10 myself. Hope everybody travels down memory road. http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120422/NEWS/304220032

An IAAPA or two ago, Rocky Mountain emphasized that neither their topper track nor their Iron Horse rails weighed significantly more than the classic wood stack used on wooden coasters. I think there's also a popular assumption going around about the supports that I'd bet is a little off. Parks don't seem to regularly replace the actual supports of wooden coasters nearly as regularly as they do the track. Take a look at the horizontal beams on The Beast lift hill: there are several there that have sagged due to a long exposure to gravity at that angle. And that's with the ride being in almost daily use every summer for the past 33 years, a majority of which I'd bet those supports have seen. (Granted, you could easily argue that those certain supports don't experience much stress, and I'd agree. But the park also has replaced high-force track and support sections over the past few years where needed, and they certainly wouldn't have excluded Son of Beast from that sort of maintenance. You wanna talk about liabilities?) I don't pretend to know diddly squat about wood rot, but if The Beast, with supports like that on a structure that repeatedly bears the weight of trains hundreds and hundreds of times per day six months out of the year, passes inspection from the state of Ohio, why are people so convinced that a significantly younger Son of Beast, which hasn't experienced any sort of loading in the past three years, is a rotting termite buffet that will topple over in a slight wind? It wasn't the quality of the wood that caused the 2006 incident; the official 2006 ODoA incident report essentially cited faulty design as the cause. Solely from what I understand from other posters here, the wood used on the ride has been pressure-treated, thus preventing it from being weathered as easily as everyone is assuming it currently is. People aren't concerned that Kentucky Kingdom's/Bluegrass Boardwalk's Thunder Run will implode upon itself if someone happens to sneeze in the nearby vicinity, and it's been SBNO almost as long. From a fatigue standpoint, Son of Beast is actually faring better standing still than Beast or Racer. I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down on you, Klockster. I just don't get where people are coming from. As far as your last question goes: you make a really good point about how exciting the ride would be if the track was steel. It'd depend on what they'd change about the layout, but it sure doesn't seem like there's a lot of room for creativity if they stick with what they've got...

Even though it was not "purchased" from Coney Island, I do hope the article is correct that the carousel features the grand Wurlitzer organ. That would be a fantastic opening day surprise. Perhaps the organ has returned from its sabbatical.

Photo #111 - huge file sorry

If so, then why hasn't it already been done? The company proposing its use has yet to get its nonLIM compatible rolling stock on Voyage.

I can no more rank wooden coasters than a Momma could rank her children. There's a few scoundrels, yes. Beast is legendary. Thunderhead is incredible. And Georgia Cyclone is 20 feet away. Time to go back in. Terp, on a spring fling in the southeast.

Photo #110

I used to work on the express and viking fury. she will love it. such a fun ride and i will miss working on it

I see what you did there.

Hearing about all these kids reaching these height restriction thresholds is great. My son, Mr Saturday Nite Jr., is -4 months old, and I am looking forward to creating family Kings Island memories with him.

Ummmm, my wife just informed me that if we go to CP this year and its packed we are getting fastlane, so i guess i will tuck my tail between my legs and shut up now! lol

This would be fitting. The Crypt, quite cursed.

The skyride station in the top picture looks like the one that was in Oktoberfest, while the bottom picture is the one that was in Hanna Barbera land. Am I incorrect? I say that because it appears that the 1974 picture is slightly elevated on a hill, there is a lot of grass around it, and I do not see anyting behind it, whereas we should have seen the Marathon Turnpike, perhaps, if it was the one in Hanna Barbera land. Thanks for the great picture! And remember, no throwing objects or spitting from the goldola cars.

I'll second that. There pics are great. I just wonder what we're gonna do when you run out. I had no idea that that building had been re-purposed.

Standbyme... your pictures have been the source of a ton of lost productivity on my part to relive these memories....