CoastersRZ

With this frigid cold weather, I bet not much painting is being done on The Bat either. Hard to do an adequate paint job when your paint is freezing as opposed to drying.

Nice find! Some of those post cards are from Chester Park, which was a competitor to Coney in the early 1900s. It was located over off of Spring Grove Avenue. I believe that the Cincinnati Water Works now has a building on the site of what was the park.

Check out the Kings Island logo and Eiffel Tower stenciled on the trash can! Nice photo TG1993! Its amazing how many things have changed at the park over the years!

The reason it looks dug into, is that they are removing the concrete paving. That is typically 4-5" in thickness. They may also be removing the subsurface that the concrete sat on (typically gravel), in order to prepare for the new pavement, whatever that may be. And the webcam is so far away, that one cannot tell how deep they are digging anyway.

Keep in mind that what was depicted in the rendering may not actually be what gets built. Often the renderings are done prior to the finalized design taking place. So what I`m saying is that there maybe a wall built by the stairs, and there might not, if things necessitated the change in the design from the time the rendering was completed. How is that for a cryptic answer.

Very nice find! Those are some very nice renderings.

Its too bad that they couldn`t find the talent to fill out the clown band or the other band that you spoke of. I think they would really add to the experience of the park and the "best day of the summer" philosophy that Matt Ouimet is big on. Hopefully they can get something like this in place this year or in future seasons.

Kings Dominion is bringing back the clown band for this season. Once can hope that Kings Island eventually follows suit. The energy they brought to the park was electric, as they roamed the midways with their zany antics. I have found memories of the Clown band from when I was a younger.

Raining down broken parts on riders certainly isn`t good! I know that I have personally seen grease fall off of rides and land on riders.

I don`t know where you are getting that nobody likes Adventure Express from. And, they are not just covering the station with plywood. They are covering it with structurally insulated panels, or SIPs. Those are commonly used in heavy timber construction, which is what the station is constructed of.

Track pieces are bolted together. They then come back and grind smooth where the actual tracks pieces joing together, in case there were slight tolerance differences.

You can see it when track work is done. In April when the park opens. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BeBjRMYCYAAtmcW.jpg The above image was posted to KI`s Twitter. Last pieces of track leaving the manufacturing plant in Batavia.

That sign for Adventure Express was freshly painted for last season. It appears that they are working on the little dock area next to the lake that used to have the remote control boats on them. I wonder if they are going to be replacing the pavement and curbs in Action Zone and generally doing a sprucing up, much like they did with Rivertown in 2009.

It looks like it might be burlap or some sort of fabric. I imagine the covering is being caused by the wind, and is nothing intentional.

But you cannot separate the two. If it were not for the terrain, the ride would not be laid out the way that it is. And it is saying something that it has been the longest wooden roller coaster in the country, for 35 years now. It is still the longest roller coaster (wood or steel) in North America. The second longest coaster in North America is up north at Cedar Point with Millennium Force.

It still looks very vomit inducing to me.

That brings up a whole other question. At Diamondback, shoes are required to ride. Will shoes be required to ride Banshee? If not, where will guests store their shoes (especially all the open toe shoes that are so prevalent these days in the warmer months.

Fortunately, that CEO is no longer in place!

I have never been on a Power Surge. I imagine that the ride experience will be pretty intense on this new ride. One problem with Trabant is that the restraints can be difficult for guests, and even operators to release and lock. I witnessed a few results of what happens when people slam the restraints down on their fingers.

Yep. It was my understanding that phase one occurred during the 2013 season, and that phase two would roll it out to all Cedar Fair parks. Its a good thing if it leads to reduced loss prevention and improved revenues. I wonder how much they spent on this software, and what, if any, impact it has on the speed of transactions. I know that some places like the registers in the Festhaus are pretty large through put registers and have to be given the large volume of people that eat in that building everyday.

Yes, that is certainly true. I still think that the cost of a Gravity Group coaster (along with the necessary inspections and flood proofing requirements) would be more than paid off with the influx of visitors. Not just walk up admissions, but with season pass sales and group sales. It would give people a reason to go to Coney other than just for the big pool. Because right now, that is the big draw at Coney. The rides are just part of the "package" and not the attraction that draws most people to the park. Yes, there are some people that come to Coney just for the rides. But those are typically people wanting a cheap day/afternoon worth of entertainment. A regular all day rides pass costs just $11.95 at Coney. Which is a bargain compared to places like Kings Island, that charge close to $35-40 per person, if you buy online.

But to be fair, the Zoom Flume stood at Coney from 1977 through the 2008 season. Its support structure was very reminiscent of a wooden roller coaster. Not saying it can`t be done. Its just the attractions that Coney has added of late, seem a little lacking on the attention grabbing factor. In other news, I have heard that the park is sprucing up quite a bit of the landscaping this year too.

It was a fun ride. Especially when you rode it on a cycle when it was running backwards. It provided a nice pop of air to it. It will be sad to see it go. I definitely think the new ride will be more vomit producing than Trabant ever was.

While flooding is of course a concern, the bigger reason it didn`t happen was the cost to build the ride. It was too high for what Coney wanted to spend. Instead, they installed Como Cruisers on Lake Como to replace Bumper Boats. That wasn`t exactly a stellar addition either. Who manufactures battery operated boats and doesn`t make them water proof and include drains in them?

I too think that would be a wonderful addition. I don`t know if that will ever come to pass though. I know a few years back, Coney was exploring the possibility of a wooden coaster, but I think the idea hasn`t progressed much farther than initial talks.