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Off Season Maintenance


rlentless
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Just curious where do they take roller coasters and other rides for off season maintenance.  As a casual observer I see they have buildings 1) up front by the gate, where they also have offices, merchandise warehouses, maint bldg’s??  2) Buildings behind The Racer.  3) Buildings housing the trains.  Not sure if anything else is maintained back there.

 

Do coasters go to one area or do they maintain them by proximity?  Does each coaster have it’s own building, or do they share the same building?  Does the same crew do all the maint?  Or do the specialize in woodies vs steel vs flats.

 

Some of my favorite KI pictures or videos is seeing the off season maintenance of techs breaking down rides and rebuilding them.  That would be an awesome off-season tour to see the maint buildings.

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For roller coasters, they have two different shops. They have the wooden roller coaster shop where the trains for Racer, The Beast, Mystic Timbers (after Winterfest), and Woodstock Express are taken to. And for all the steel roller coasters there is also a shop. During the off season, the trains on all the roller coasters in both shops are disassembled completely, cleaned, inspected, and then reassembled for the next season. For flat rides, as far as I am aware of, most if not all the maintenance is done right there at the ride. I know that Monster is virtually disassembled at the end of every season and I believe the logs in the log flume are taken out and stored in the picnic grove as well as other parts to other rides. The buildings these are most likely maintained in are the buildings on the north side of Racer outside of Area 72. And the steam engines on the KIMVRR are maintained in the engine house on the railroad. The buildings at the front end of the park are office buildings as well as warehouse space for other departments of the park.

 

Fun fact: If I remember correctly, I saw somewhere where Kings Island spends a good $100,000 on just wheels for the roller coasters.

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I believe, once disassembled, the chassis for coaster trains may be sent off property to be inspected via ultraviolent scanning.  At least they used to be back in the Paramount Days.

This serves the purpose of finding potential issues such as hairline cracks in the frames, or compromised welds/joints.

They may now be able to do so on property, but back 20 years ago - I was told they outsourced it to a company that had the ability to "dip" them.

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