The New Texas Giant

[FOFreak]

Wow! During this complete renovation, I assumed it was just going to be fix to the ride itself. But it looks like a completely new, better ride!

This makes me hope that they do something along the lines of this with Son of Beast in the future!

[bkroz]

The ride looks absolutely incredible. Those turns take my breath away.

When this was first announced, my initial thought was that Cedar Fair would be watching the outcome very, very closely. Now, I'm more hopeful for that than ever. To see Son of Beast have a double-up into an overbanked turn, filled with absolutely insane hills and twists and ejector air... Wow.

[DropZone99]

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1312926839577&oid=8696281132&comments

POV released, wow it looks absolutely INSANE!

[jdawg1998]

What will this ride be classified as? Steel, wood? What?

[Delirium13]

Steel hybrid, same as Adventure Express.

[Guest TombraiderTy]

What will this ride be classified as? Steel, wood? What?

Depends on who you ask- RCDB classifies it as steel, bu the official Six Flags Over Texas webpage says wooden.

[calakapepe]

Ugh.... the POV is gone....

[McSalsa]

Ugh.... the POV is gone....

Well, if it was, I found it again. Enjoy:

[UnrealNightmare]

I'll be riding this on its opening day. I'll do a full PTR when I return that Tuesday evening. I still need a couple other credits at SFOT as well.

[bkroz]

This ride is no more wooden than Adventure Express, or Gemini.

Think of The Villain, or Hades, or Ravine Flyer II... Steel coasters? Hardly.

Certainly the composition of the supports does alter the ride experience to a degree - that's why the "hybrid" status is applied.

If the same treatment were given to Son of Beast, the fact of the matter is that it would not be the tallest, fastest, second-longest wooden roller coaster on Earth. It would be an above-average-sized steel hybrid coaster with a wooden structure. But wouldn't Cedar Fair still try to market it with its past accolades reborn? Certainly. The public might realize the strangeness of the claim, but they certainly wouldn't care.

[coaster_junky]

If the same treatment were given to Son of Beast, the fact of the matter is that it would not be the tallest, fastest, second-longest wooden roller coaster on Earth.

it wouldn't be the world's tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster, but it would be the world's tallest, fastest steel hybrid coaster.

[jbt]

Not to bring an ancient thread back to life, but... I recently had a ride on the New Texas Giant and my immediate thought was, "Why can't they at least do this to Son of Beast?" Looks like I'm not alone.

It was a totally different experience from any other coaster I've encountered. Apparently, they're giving a similar treatment to the Rattler at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

[The Interpreter]

The Texas Giant was a ride with a thrilling layout that was tremendous fun when it opened.

I, too, have ridden the New Texas Giant. It is now an incredibly fun steel coaster, particularly in the back seat. Six Flags took an iconic wood coaster with very expensive maintenance requirements and turned it into a splendid steel coaster. It was a very expensive project, but well worth it, given what they had to start with.

[TheKlockster]

I was worried the ride would be too smooth, but it still looks very wood coastery.

I would love to see them do this to Son of Beast but don't think they will. Son of Beasts supports could barely handle the weight of its own track and trains. Remember how that ledger broke just from normal stresses from the ride? Wouldn't that steel track be much heavier than the wooden track?

Would the supports on Son of Beast be deteriorated after all this time, or would they still be usable?

Did the awesomeness of Son of Beast come from the fact it was such a huge wooden coaster? If it was turned into a steel coaster would it still be as fun? Is the layout of the ride that interesting?

[markr]

Considering the cost to re-do Son of Beast with such a makeover and considering what the ride has already cost, I wouldn't bet on any makeover. However, it would be nice if they could give such a makeover to Mean Streak.

[Joncars05]

I second what Markr said. They have already poured $25,000,000+ into this structure (SOB). With the reputation it has combined with the additional costs added on with the Iron Horse treatment I don't see KI doing a makeover. But anything is possible especially when they give out their generic response to the "what is next for SOB question." That is why the situation with SOB is so frustrating.

[The Interpreter]

To be fair to Cedar Fair, the company did not devise the idea for, purchase new or construct Son of Beast. Like the new Six Flags, the company finds itself in the position of deciding what best to do with a situation it inherited.

Six Flags made a decision and followed through...

[Joncars05]

Very true Terp. I still sometimes forget to acknowledge the fact that CF really did inherit SOB and all that came with it.

[westcoaster]

This coaster, is similar to any steel on wooden base correct?

It is a new type of steel though, but nothing like a wooden coaster, that part was taken away during the remodel correct/

Seems nice how they did it but no way a wooden coaster:

[The Interpreter]

It is a wholly different ride but for the use of much of the prior support structure. It is a different coaster. It is, as Six Flags readily admits, the New Texas Giant.

It is unlike most steel. The rails are not tubular.

Oddly, it rides most like El Toro, which IS a wood coaster.

[UnrealNightmare]

I'm tired of people saying the supports could not handle the steel track. You are incorrect the steel track weighs about half of what the wooden track currently weighs.

http://www.rockymtnconstruction.com/

[TombRaiderFTW]

I was worried the ride would be too smooth, but it still looks very wood coastery.

I would love to see them do this to Son of Beast but don't think they will. Son of Beasts supports could barely handle the weight of its own track and trains. Remember how that ledger broke just from normal stresses from the ride? Wouldn't that steel track be much heavier than the wooden track?

Would the supports on Son of Beast be deteriorated after all this time, or would they still be usable?

Did the awesomeness of Son of Beast come from the fact it was such a huge wooden coaster? If it was turned into a steel coaster would it still be as fun? Is the layout of the ride that interesting?

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...

[TheKlockster]

The ride is just drop - helix - drop - helix - turn around - brakes. In my opinion, it was a great ride because it was just insane for a wooden coaster.

Like you said, the cause of the 2006 accident was poor design. If that part of the ride was poorly designed, what's to say other parts of it aren't as well?

[UnrealNightmare]

I was worried the ride would be too smooth, but it still looks very wood coastery.

I would love to see them do this to Son of Beast but don't think they will. Son of Beasts supports could barely handle the weight of its own track and trains. Remember how that ledger broke just from normal stresses from the ride? Wouldn't that steel track be much heavier than the wooden track?

Would the supports on Son of Beast be deteriorated after all this time, or would they still be usable?

Did the awesomeness of Son of Beast come from the fact it was such a huge wooden coaster? If it was turned into a steel coaster would it still be as fun? Is the layout of the ride that interesting?

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...

Finally someone gets it!

[TombRaiderFTW]

^^ Fair enough on the layout. If nothing else, the ride's got this insanely powerful feeling when you ride it. The roughness of the helices actually added to the pacing, in my opinion.

And you make a good point. But there's also the fact that the ride had to pass design evaluation by RCCA (whatever that's worth), Paramount, and the Department of Agriculture, as well as several outside sources over the course of the incidents. With that much design evaluation by diverse sources, I can't imagine a static structure (which is what most rides spend their lives as) being that unsafe. I got the impression from the accident report that it was unexpected dynamic loading due to the trains shuffling all over the place that caused that ledger to break, but I could be (and probably am) wrong. They never explicitly said anything like that; it's just what I assumed based off the forces they found to be unaccounted for in the design.

The mid-construction collapse keeps coming to mind, but I don't know if that's something that can be blamed on design or if it was an unfortunate mix of incomplete structure and severely damaging winds.