SonofBaconator

I'm praying for some flat rides to hit rivertown in the distant future. Canada's Wonderland has an awesome selection of flat rides that would fit well at KI

Only running for eleven short years from 1991 to 2002, this company pumped 34 wooden coasters out of our own backyard. Individual designers broke off to form new companies that we know today as The Gravity Group, GCI, and S&S as a result of bankruptcy. CCI left behind great coasters like Legend, Raven, Boulder Dash, Ghostrider, and many others. Do you miss Custom Coasters International?

Maybe they're keeping the lockers for just that purpose...

Kind of on the lines of Mystic Timbers. Can someone answer me this question- does Kings Island decide what they want to put in their park or does Cedar Fair ultimately decide? I know Cedar Fair has a rule about how many coasters they can dish out in a year depending on what type of coaster they are as well as budget and things like that. But can someone explain the process of planning which park gets what and how much individual parks have a say in what they want?

The "Lew Brown" style entrance you're referring to is when the engineers open up the cylinder cox to expell as much steam as possible from the locomotive for visual effects. You'll notice that Kings Island purposely hosed down the station platform so that when the steam hits the water you get a good looking picture. They do this for events like Coaster Stock

I tried to mimic what was done to see how it looks on the map. It fits just like a puzzle

Just as a side note, I think the train ride itself is something a lot of people are over-looking. Look at MT's placement and how the train surrounds a huge chunk of the ride. Even on the night when Kings Island announced Mystic Timbers to the public, the Engine #19 was parked right next to the crowd the whole time instead of being put away for the night. The railroad is mentioned on the MT back story after all. I don't know, I just feel like we're discovering more and more little details that weren't given to us back in July.

The name got an extension grant on May 2nd of 2016 so Cedar Fair still has plans for Centurion. Now to figure out where it'll go..

This is an idea I've had for a while and its so strange that I've debated on whether or not I'd even be posting it. Here goes... Enclose BLSC into a natural looking hill or something like a mountain and re-theme it. Then later on down the road, keep on adding attractions to the existing structure. The main reason why I'm saying this at all is because I was looking at Wonder Mountain on Google Maps and realized that it houses three coasters (Yes I'm aware Vortex only interacts with Wonder Mountain but still.) I honestly thought it would be a cool idea for Kings Island to mimic this technique and possibly improve it. I'm not saying erect a giant mountain behind the Eiffel Tower blocking the views of the coasters behind it, but maybe make it tall enough to enclose BLSC and some other rides in the future. Will it happen? Probably not. I'm not saying it's the greatest idea in the world and I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me but I think its a cool concept that could give KI a different edge against other parks.

With the way Kings Island and Cedar Fair are taking it's guest feedback nowadays (bringing back Winterfest and adding another wooden coaster), I think it's a not too far off that The Racer could go backwards again. Perhaps when they have their next big coaster drought they might consider making it go backwards again. Maybe Cedar Fair will do the same with Rebel Yell and Gemini.

While Maud L was sent to Disneyland, I believe Vortex may be referring to the locomotive known as "Davenport." Disneyland traded the Davenport for the Maud L because the Davenport engine was too big for Disneyland and too small for Disney World. Maud L was the perfect size for Disneyland as was the Davenport for Cedar Point.

Like what I said earlier, WDWRR is the same gauge as KI and many other park trains. The trains at the Magic Kingdom have significantly longer boilers than a typical crown locomotive, mainly to accommodate more driving wheels. See the Walter E. Disney for example However the Roy O. Disney has the exact same wheel arrangement as a typical American style locomotive that Crown Metal Products based their designs off of. Notice how spaced out the driving wheels are to accommodate a larger boiler.

For those of you who don't know, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World has 4 live steam locomotives that were all built by the Baldwin Locomotives works based out of Pennsylvania. When planning the Magic Kingdom Imangineer Roger Broggie discovered 5 narrow gauge steam locomotives down in Mexico ready to be scrapped. The company bought all five and took them to Tampa for restoration, (it should be noted that one of the locomotives was beyond repair and was thus not restored.) That being said, the other 4 locomotives were finished in time for the grand opening of the Magic Kingdom in 1971. I have seen endless videos and read tons of articles saying that Roger Broggie and fellow imagineers searched the whole continent for steam locomotives and were unsuccessful, for the most part, in doing so. Now after 45 years I thought of something I've never thought of before- why didn't Disney hire Crown Metal Products locomotive company to design their railroad? Though larger in length and size, the WDWRR's steam locomotives run on a narrow gauge line just like Kings Island. All I know for sure is that Roger Broggie wanted to have the locomotives designed to his specification so he hired a steam ship manager, go figure! He said, "If I hire a railroad worker they'll make them how they want to make them, I want them made my way." But still, I feel like Crown would have been very flexible in working with Disney Imagineers. My only solid theory is that Disney wanted to find original steam locomotives that were already existing. What do you think? Though I'm a coaster critic, I also know a great deal about steam locomotives as well.

CP: Throw a bunch of coasters on a peninsula, break a lot records, focus on more thrills KI: Have a decent amount of coasters that are all great in their own way, break some records if its doable, focus on families. Let me clarify that I'm not saying Cedar Point is a bad park at all, they have great rides, a cool location, and gives a certain appeal that other parks can't match. However, I think KI has a lot going for it and has qualities that CP can't match. They have a great kids area, great rides that appeal to almost everyone, great landscaping, a lot of land, great shows, and a better water park. Cedar Point, in my honest opinion, is going down in quality and is becoming second rate to other younger parks. I believe parks like Carowinds and Kings Island appeal more to the GP than Cedar Point does. I feel like if King Island gets a giga they will certainly be put above Cedar Point.

Some predictions for the 2016 final ride count based on my visits this year. Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad will increase because of the increased curiosity of what was being added to rivertown. I think White Water Canyon will also go up, if not slightly, from years previous because of the shorter walk due to MT construction. In my opinion, rides like Diamondback, Beast, WWC, and the KIMVRR will either increase or stay around the same place. From the numbers it looks like Vortex will be continuously go down and I agree that it might be due to the smoothness of newer rides that have been added to the park in the more recent years. Other rides that I expect a big drop in ridership are Flight of Fear and Firehawk because, as I have mentioned several times before, they don't have a lot of accommodations around them ie; bathrooms, actual food vendors, other attractions. Also the fact that both rides require a locker, unless someone holds your stuff, is very unappealing to the gp and guests that come from out of town.

I've been looking into this and I've wanted to know if there was anyway to find the exact number of rides given by each attraction in a given day, week, month, season, etc. It would be interesting to see which rides are ridden more than others, how many rides are an attraction is expected to give in a day, how downtime or certain days affect its ridership, etc. In my opinion, I think Banshee has the most ridership in a day where Congo Falls is probably on the low side.

I'm sure he wasn't too happy when the train stopped

The one thing I never understood was them deciding to nix the train for haunt. I get it that obviously they can't do terror-tory because of Mystic Timbers but they could do something else. Six Flags has their Terror train which is basically just a full circuit haunted ride in the dark with some props and characters. It might not be the scariest attraction but it could certainly decrease wait times for other haunted attractions. Maybe running a train at night for a whole circuit with a large number of people might be too much of a liability for it to even be worth it. At least when it ran during haunt it only carried 3 full passenger cars a few 100 ft to the drop off point. Any thoughts?

After the addition of Diamondback I thought Kings Island couldn't possibly add another coaster to Rivertown; I was wrong. In all honesty though, what more can be added? What can be changed? At this point any prediction is fair game

What's Fear Fest? I think you've had one too many Beerman my friend.

I'm really interested to see how MT and the train will interact, especially when the coaster actually crosses over the track twice. With the absence of most of the old props and animatronics that were part of the railroad's popularity, I'm really hoping KI will theme parts of the train ride to fit the Mystic Timbers theme. Maybe some vines growing on the bridge, signs and props referring to the fictional Miami River Lumber Co., "maintain slow speeds, falling trees ahead."

Considering that Flight Commander was the name of an infamous KI ride that killed a 32 year old woman, Flight Commander would be a terrible name choice.

Bringing back an oldish topic back from the dead. I'd honestly love to see some Huss flats in X Base. If Kings Island were to "X-pand" they would have to relocate some, if not all, of those storage sheds and warehouses somewhere else. If KI ever announced that X Base would be getting expanded, it would most likely be because of a new coaster addition in the close future. One could only hope

Antique cars, Scooby's Ghoster Coaster, Phantom Theater, Kenton's Cove Keelboat Canal, and King Kobra- send them all to Coney.

This question popped into my head the other day when I was watching a Tatsu POV on Youtube. As much as I love Firehawk, I'm not too crazy on the Vekoma Flying Dutchman design and would love to see what a B&M Flyer version of Firehawk would be like. Firehawk 2.0? There wouldn't be a loud rattling chain in you ear, the sun wouldn't be in your eyes on the lift hill, the layout would alter slightly, and it would provide, in my opinion, a better ride experience. Agree with me? Disagree with me? Let me know what you think. (I apologize for possibly offending any Firehawk fans out there.)