Starting to Decode 2014

[YoungStud]

Probably before you were born

Mantis, 1996.

Raptor, 1994.

Some say Gatekeeper, 2013 (I disagree, though).

Those three come to mind immediately. I was born in 1987.

Correct early 90's. BTR is the most intense b&m ever made and it was their first invert,,,

1996 is not "early 90's [sic]". For that matter, neither is 2013.

Gobble, you have said Gatekeeper is forceless on more than one occasion. I don't understand you claiming now it is forceful.

[Ride On_17]

He didn't claim he personally found it forecful. He said, "Some say Gatekeeper, 2013 (I disagree though)."

[shrillcaptinspike]

Ive been reading this post for a long time now and i finally made a account and all i got to say ia what if it turns out to be something other than a intamin or a b&m (which i love both) but honestly what if isnt either of those companies, but i highly doubt it will be from some other company, but you never know

[BavarianBeatle]

There are more than two roller coaster manufacturers in the world.........

And before anyone asks me what I think they are building, my answer is, "footings."

[shrillcaptinspike]

B

Bolliger & Mabillard‎ (1 C, 8 P)

F

Fabbri Group‎ (1 C, 3 P)

I

Intamin‎ (3 C, 7 P)

R

Rocky Mountain Construction‎ (1 C, 4 P)Roller coasters by manufacturer‎(68 C)

S

S&S Worldwide‎ (2 C, 12 P)

V

Vekoma‎ (4 C, 10 P)

Z

Zamperla‎ (2 C, 3 P)

These are more companies that it could be from but my bets are on a b&m or intamin

[invertedgirl]

I'm still stuck on the warren county site that shows project 2014 foundation $250,000 it says CC next to it but I don't know what the CC means. The only one I could think of would be Custom Coasters but that company is defunct since 02. I don't even know if it means the company it could be something else. Do any of you know what CC would mean?

[savesonofbeastfb]

So I have my 100% conclusion as to what the ride is going to be Blue track B&M Invert! Call me crazy but that's what is going to be.... Just wait.

[YoungStud]

Did you not claim last night that you saw green invert supports?

[savesonofbeastfb]

From a far distance it seemed to look like supports, even someone claimed earlier today they did until they got right next to the fence and saw they were pipes. At least I didn't make something up. I just believe it will be a blue invert, just a gut feeling.

[silver2005]

I'd like to throw in my 2 cents (or 2 dollars worth due to the length of this post) for trying to decode this thing and put some sense back into this topic.

Okay, first of all, lets not forget what this ride is replacing. A ride as big as Son of Beast coming down with the following it had (hence the sale of the SOB parts) might call for a coaster of a similar stature, and given the fact they started pretty early is an indication that this will be pretty big, which to me, rules out an Intamin Blitz or anything of that nature. Also, Kings Island needs another line chewer.

I'd like to pull out physical evidence at the park for this and not go by Don's Twitter speils or anything else of that nature (including the signs on the fence, owls and scarecrows) and no looking at silly things like footers shapes or bolt patterns (all steel coaster manufactures share those things with each other in one way or another).

So we have footers in a big square shaped pattern on the ground, which indicate a likely spot for a train shed. The train shed, at least how I see it, is that rectangle consisting of footers in a pattern 4 across by 3 wide. The 4 footers which outline a similar size square to the shed's would probably be the transfer track area. Next to that are what most people see in the paired footers lined up next to them. The reason I bring that up is this would be the section with the final brakes. I would like to compare those with Diamondback's for a moment. Diamondback has alternating single and double footers. This one has all double footers at the specific final brake area (and likely station) which to me, looks like it'll be for the A-frames of an inverted coaster. I'll give some people the benefit of the doubt there as the land might be where it needs double footers for track with the train above the track, I.E. a standard sit down coaster, which given what this is replacing, give the impression of a giga coaster.

I don't get anyone thinking there will be the turn right next to Delirium with the lift right next to Sling Shot. The footers don't indicate a lift of any kind, and the fact there isn't a room for a lift anyhow there (yes, I'm saying lift, I don't think this won't be a launch coaster). The lift would end up going extremely close to Sling Shot and over Adventure Express' entrance or out into the Oktoberfest lake at that angle, which you couldn't put a first drop from a giga or an inverted coaster there (or for any type for that matter). I'm fairly certain the station will be in the gap between Adventure Express and Flight Deck, whereas it'll have a final turn or something coming behind Delirium. The lift would go out behind Adventure Express or somewhere into the area where Son of Beast used to be (there could be a turn before the lift, Leviathan has a turn between the station and the lift, too). Heck, with the station that high up, they could pull a Hydra and put a pre-lift inversion there.

Also, to the giga speculators, I have to ask you at this point; where is the clearing outside the Son of Beast area? They've only been working in the old Son of Beast spot. Do you guys realize how much room a 300+ ft lift and drop takes, even if its a curved drop, not to mention the rest of the layout? Go take a look at any giga coaster and see the distance from the base of the lift to the bottom of the first drop, including on steeper hills like I-305 and Millennium Force. You'd have to have the bottom of the first drop WAY at the end of the old Rose Bowl section, and from there, it'd probably have to go behind X-base or behind Flight Deck (I'm not sure how much land the park owns between FD and GWL). Even a compact course like that of I-305 would take a HUGE amount of room, probably surpassing SOB's old footprint. That's just after the first drop. Giga's also average around a mile or more of track spread out over a pretty large area to burn off that speed (90+ mph). You'd probably need track all the way out by Dinosaurs Alive to accommodate such a monster. Right now, there's no extra clearing around the perimeter of SOB's old grounds. I'm seeing it that the project will be substantially smaller than what most people are expecting, at least not to the scale of a giga coaster. With an inverted coaster, you can get creative with inversions as turn-arounds that use less space than that huge hammerhead on Leviathan or the massive overbank on Millennium Force. Cobra rolls and immelmans take up much less room, plus if you want any evidence of a large compact inverted coaster from B&M, look at Pyrenees. 147 ft tall, 6 inversions, over 4,000 ft of track in a pretty tight space.

I know there are other manufactures, but frankly, I look at their current products and most of them don't have things that meet something that would fit Kings Island at the current moment. I get the feeling Kings Island wants to stay away from prototypes given the trouble they've caused the park in the past. Some have new stuff that could work, like Intamin's and Vekoma's new 4 across seating, Mack starting to build bigger with new train designs, Mauer Sohne has some neat spin off's of their X-car, but most of that stuff either hasn't been tried or hasn't been used a lot, which Cedar Fair generally stays away from. Gerstlauer doesn't come to mind as most of their designs are more compact than what we're seeing at Kings Island. But even something as big as Takabisha @ Fuji Q wouldn't have the capacity Kings Island is looking for. Premier has made a comeback recently with the likes of Sky Rocket, Superman and Full Throttle, but with my thoughts that this won't be a launch coaster (Premier's bread and butter right now), I don't see them either. S&S is ruled out as aside from launch coasters and 4D's (which they layout doesn't indicate, most are clones of X2) they're really small (Steel Hawg at Indiana Beach for example) and again, are newer designs. Zamperla or Pinfari- no, just no. That leaves B&M and Intamin, which the only Intmain I see is a giga (though they do have a full circuit inverted design, but only 3 have been built, a looper like Thorpe's Colossus would be too redundant IMO with Vortex doing its thing) and with my thoughts on the lack of clearing, I'm ruling it out. With that said, I don't see this as a prototype coaster in any way, shape, or form.

So let's narrow down B&M types. I'll rule out flyer and sit down looper since Kings Island has both. Stand ups are a REALLY dead type, so that's out. I'm going to trust in Ouimet's words in his interview on Gatekeeper's opening day and rule out wing coaster. I'm not convinced with the lack of clearing so I'm ruling out giga. That leaves inverted, floorless and dive coasters. I'm ruling out dive coaster as the footers in the area behind Sling Shot looks too compact for a 8-10 wide car to maneuver through, plus the elevation changes concern me as dive coasters run out of momentum quick, so I tend not to lean on dive coaster. I think floorless is a different enough experience from Vortex to work. Being exposed like that above the track compared to Vortex's tight confines would be a pretty unique experience. Kings Island is also one of the only park's of its size without a full circuit inverted coaster (which I'm surprised KI didn't end up with a Vekoma SLC instead of Invertigo), which I keep that option open as well.

[secondson]

Popping out of my hole again briefly because Silver2005 brought up something that caught my attention. Earlier this evening I was browsing around on the Vekoma website, and noticed the dueling coaster called Battlestar Galactica: Human vs. Cylon. Now I'm not going to introduce Vekoma as a possible manufacturer of the coaster, but I am intrigued by the idea of a dueling coaster that has an invert and sitdown weaving in and out of each other. If you've never seen it, check it out. It's very interesting, and I think it would be a really great choice for KI, considering it would give us a full-circuit invert as well as a family-style sitdown coaster all in one project. Do you think B&M would build something like this?

[stepheno130]

I've just spent nearly two hours finding all of HTCO's posts in the last 24+ hours in this thread and decoding them (with even more time editing).

Did we see Gatekeeper track in July?

No. We saw Gatekeeper track in October both at CSF and at CP.

Just to clear the air...

I have no idea what the rumored attraction is for 2014.

Nor am I trolling.

You say you have no idea what the rumored attraction is for 2014, but you did not say you have no idea when the announcement may be. If you were hinting at something the rest of us did not know, were you implying that the 2014 attraction will be announced sometime in October? Especially since that was one of the topics of discussion at the time of the Gatekeeper post?

[THE_BEASTmaster]

Number of bolts has everything to do with stress on the base of the support, not what manufacturer it is. Round vs Rectangular vs square footings is a moot argument too... manufacturers use many variety of shapes for their footings.

The only clue found with footers often lies in the cut-outs on the tops. Intamin and B&M use different "insert" shapes at the base of their supports. B&M requires a diamond shape cut-out at the tops of their footings. The footings being poured for 2014 have diamond-shaped cut outs.

As far as the "limited space", the park is still open. And if the coaster will extend over the midways or other attractions - footings will likely not be poured until daily operations end. This project is not necessarily limited to the space that is currently cleared.

Provided the coaster is a B&M, the dis-concerting issue is the fact that the Batavia plant does not have supports or track stored outside. However, with a later announce, one could suspect the construction of track and supports isn't pressing. Also, if the plant is finishing up a previously contracted job for another park - KI's track and supports may be next up.

Shaggy, I had mentioned this twice on here (with pics even) and I seem to be talking to a few brick walls.

http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27275-starting-to-decode-2014/page-183#entry526903

http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27275-starting-to-decode-2014/page-154#entry524912

[thedevariouseffect]

Okay, what about the elleged train storage area?

Who, other than B&M creates storage areas with trains side by side?

I don't recall Intamin doing that. MF, Maverick, Bizzarro, Farenheit, Skyrush, all have single track storage where the trains site one in front of the other.

I am sorry, but this has B&M written all over it.

Furthermore, is any OTHER Cedar Fair park have 2014 construction of this size going on?

At Gatekeeper media day, Cedar Fair said in front of God and everyone that they had B&M working on another project.

I will find the video...

B&M has transfer tables with trains side by side, but also Intamin has done this, premier rides (look at Poltergeist), Arrow, ect. To me the cleared area with many square footings to me will be the station or transfer table. Right now footers tell us nothing other than somewhere in that vicinity, track will be above it. If you took an overhead print of all poured footers, you could make a giant game of connect the dots with several different variations.

The only footer conclusive evidence so far is the cutout on the top as someone already mentioned. That's all we have to base our knowledge on, we have no other information. The only other information I can say we possibly have, is we do have the manufacturer for B&M track nextdoor basically and can be watched closely to see if anything happens, however that source is quite silent.

I say this, lets relax and wait until something special happens soon, as for now it's just a bunch of leg pulling, diversions, and false hopes

[UnrealNightmare]

Man I sure miss a lot when I got to work at night.

[aj74205]

Hey all, new to KI Central but certainly not to watching and anticipating as coasters take shape from dirt & footings year after year. The 2014 project has definitely caught my notice. I'd have to concede that B&M is my favorite maker with Diamondback, Nitro, Behemoth and Leviathan all appearing on my top 10, though I also love Cedar Point's Intamin collection with Maverick being my favorite there.

Having ridden a B&M giga and hyper in close succession I'd definitely say they offer a contrasting enough experience to warrant the installation of both at one park. This is due to the different train types as well a different focus in each layout even amid similar elements. I loved Leviathan and found it to be the best first drop I'd ever experienced but ultimately Behemoth's longer ride and ample airtime win out. That being said, I may agree with the consensus that an invert seems likely at this point, and if I were a betting man I'd bet the farm on B&M - especially with the diamond-shaped footer inserts matching up so well to what has been seen on recent B&Ms. Add to that Cedar Fair's relationship with B&M in recent years (have we seen anyone else for a large-scale steel coaster project since I305?) and the writing is certainly on the wall. Could it be Intamin? Anything is possible, but I'd rather see what B&M can do with a 2nd giga or a large invert in 2014. Not to say a blitz coaster ala Maverick wouldn't be greatness, but that seems highly unlikely, as does anything from Intamin or frankly any other company.

Speaking of I305, I derped together a little aerial comparison shot after thinking on Silver2005's post...he makes the point that not enough land has been cleared for a giga, and at this point I'm inclined to agree but I think collectively the size of the current project area is being underestimated. Also, I305's footprint is more modest than it would seem. I used google maps at (supposedly) the same scale, but I think I305 is still a bit smaller than it should be. Even scaling it up 10-20% wouldn't give it a larger footprint than SoB by much, if at all.

[medford]

^^^

Nice post, I think SOBs footprint is a lot bigger than people realize. it was a chain lift woodie, so it wasn't installed at a super steep angle, it also curved out before its drop taking up even more room. On top of that, they're utilizing land that would be prior (west) to the start of SOBs layout which further expands the possible land available to more than just SOBs footprint (not that they couldn't go beyond in either case)

[kicsehlhorst]

Hey all, new to KI Central but certainly not to watching and anticipating as coasters take shape from dirt & footings year after year. The 2014 project has definitely caught my notice. I'd have to concede that B&M is my favorite maker with Diamondback, Nitro, Behemoth and Leviathan all appearing on my top 10, though I also love Cedar Point's Intamin collection with Maverick being my favorite there.

Having ridden a B&M giga and hyper in close succession I'd definitely say they offer a contrasting enough experience to warrant the installation of both at one park. This is due to the different train types as well a different focus in each layout even amid similar elements. I loved Leviathan and found it to be the best first drop I'd ever experienced but ultimately Behemoth's longer ride and ample airtime win out. That being said, I may agree with the consensus that an invert seems likely at this point, and if I were a betting man I'd bet the farm on B&M - especially with the diamond-shaped footer inserts matching up so well to what has been seen on recent B&Ms. Add to that Cedar Fair's relationship with B&M in recent years (have we seen anyone else for a large-scale steel coaster project since I305?) and the writing is certainly on the wall. Could it be Intamin? Anything is possible, but I'd rather see what B&M can do with a 2nd giga or a large invert in 2014. Not to say a blitz coaster ala Maverick wouldn't be greatness, but that seems highly unlikely, as does anything from Intamin or frankly any other company.

Speaking of I305, I derped together a little aerial comparison shot after thinking on Silver2005's post...he makes the point that not enough land has been cleared for a giga, and at this point I'm inclined to agree but I think collectively the size of the current project area is being underestimated. Also, I305's footprint is more modest than it would seem. I used google maps at (supposedly) the same scale, but I think I305 is still a bit smaller than it should be. Even scaling it up 10-20% wouldn't give it a larger footprint than SoB by much, if at all.

Nice post, man. Really. Welcome to KIC!

[YoungStud]

As much as Youngstud believes in a Intamin coming to KI, I have to set myself with the disappointment of getting a b&m.

The last several B&M inverts built in the US has been major dissapointments of being forceless and bland.

People say Oziris is great, but IMO the theming makes a bland ride that much better. It is made similar to Montu.

KI will get a bland ride similar to silver bullet...

Patriot and SB are ranked 134 and 136 in mitch hawkers poll. Polls are not the best thing in the world but show a summary of what people think.

Intamin took 3 out of the top 4 spots, and 8 out of the top 10 in steel coasters in 2012.

[Rustbucket]

I prefer Silver Bullet over Raptor or Batman the Ride. B&M invert ratings for me:

Talon

Alpengeist

Mantu

Afterburn

Raptor

Patriot

Batman - SFoG and SFStL

Batman - SFGAm (I loved reverse. ) and SFMM

Batman - SFGAd

Goliath

Great Bear

[fryoj]

As much as Youngstud believes in a Intamin coming to KI, I have to set myself with the disappointment of getting a b&m.

The last several B&M inverts built in the US has been major dissapointments of being forceless and bland.

People say Oziris is great, but IMO the theming makes a bland ride that much better. It is made similar to Montu.

KI will get a bland ride similar to silver bullet...

As much as I hope otherwise, I think you are correct. The more I look at the evidence, I'm thinking it'll be just a plain Jane, non record breaking ride. At this point I'm just hoping they use the terrain similar to how Montu and oziris use tunnels and we get some unique excitement out of the back end of the ride. Not saying I will be disappointed even if it turns out to be a plain invert. But, like everyone, I want this to be something special.

[YoungStud]

If it is a b&m invert and is like the recent ones, youngstud will NOT buy a Fast Lane plus next season. You know the new ride will replace beast on Fast Lane plus next year...If it was something special than you know they would sell alot more Fast Lane plus's to the public and make a killing on that alone.

After riding it once, Youngstud will walk over to the best invert in the park and ride Invertiblow with a shorter line

[Merthecat]

TERPY WE NEED YOU

Sorry bout that, I had a caps attack.

[locostitch]

Hey,

I just realized could we possibly be seeing Millennium Force style supports. It has the parallel footers.

[KI FANATIC 37]

For me, a lot about the coaster is the way it looks. I personally think that MFs supports are hideous. I hope they are not the same as it.

[upstop]

Tunnels have been brought up several times in the last few pages.....submitted for your thoughts.....Ride Adventure Express and look at the footers on the hill side....some of the them appear to be pretty tall....maybe these are for an above ground tunnel heading down into the valley. You have to see them (although very briefly without a fly over) to understand what I'm saying.

[locostitch]

The footers all so can be intimidator 305 style supports.

[Zayzayd13]

I don't see this being a plain jane invert. Maybe something along the lines of Montu, Katun, or Pyrenees.

[fryoj]

Hey,

I just realized could we possibly be seeing Millennium Force style supports. It has the parallel footers.

Not at the brake run and station.

http://www.themeparkcritic.com/Uploads/39/MFTrain.jpg

[Shaggy]

The footers all so can be intimidator 305 style supports.

Oy

Intimidator 305 used the same square cut-outs at the top of the footings as other Intamins. Intamin uses a square cut out to fit the H-shaped insert at the base of the supports. Here's a pic (although a bit hard to see) of an Intimidator 305 footer showing the square cut outs.

The footers at KI have diamond/oval shaped cut outs - typical of B&M.