Nice so it’ll have tighter maneuvers than the other wings
I’m sure they’re planning for a full themed queue experience
Project 2025/Caldera: Rapterra (Launched B&M Wing Coaster)
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I’m sure they’re planning for a full themed queue experience
Even 20 passenger trains from B&M wouldn’t be different capacity from something like Pantheon, assuming the same ride duration.
Actually let's clear something up about Volcano's capacity, particularly right before it closed. For those of you that do not know, I was a Ride Operator and eventually a Team Lead at Kings Dominion from the 2016 to the 2018 season, leaving mid summer 2018. My assigned ride location was Volcano/Scrambler, but I was know to float all over Safari Village (except Flight of Fear) and Neptune in Planet Snoopy. With that out of the way...
Volcano ran 2 trains with 16 seats. If you absolutely pushed Volcano to the max, dispatching a train every time the block system would allow, you can get a max of 43 trains in 1 hour. That would be a paltry 688 pph max. Volcano did that exactly once for one hour the entire time I was there. With a good crew, you could expect to get about 30-35 cycles an hour. That would reduce capacity to 480-560 pph. Now if you rode Volcano in her last years you'd know that the last two rows were perpetually closed. Maintenance tried many times to get the old girl to run full trains but she wasn't having it. Anyways that would bring capacity down to 360-420 pph.
If you compare those numbers to the boiler plate capacity for Thunderbird at Holiday World, you'd see that it's not even close. Thunderbird has 2 trains with 20 seats, with a stated hourly capacity of 1,140 pph. That would make it 57 cycles an hour. That is a 65% increase over Volcano at her best, and a 171-216% increase at her average. There are literally shuttle coasters with higher capacity. Hell, a good operator could do better at Scrambler by themselves. Equating any coaster's capacity to be anywhere near Volcano's is laughable at best, and disingenuous at worst.
Volcano ran 2 trains with 16 seats. If you absolutely pushed Volcano to the max, dispatching a train every time the block system would allow, you can get a max of 43 trains in 1 hour. That would be a paltry 688 pph max. Volcano did that exactly once for one hour the entire time I was there. With a good crew, you could expect to get about 30-35 cycles an hour. That would reduce capacity to 480-560 pph. Now if you rode Volcano in her last years you'd know that the last two rows were perpetually closed. Maintenance tried many times to get the old girl to run full trains but she wasn't having it. Anyways that would bring capacity down to 360-420 pph.
If you compare those numbers to the boiler plate capacity for Thunderbird at Holiday World, you'd see that it's not even close. Thunderbird has 2 trains with 20 seats, with a stated hourly capacity of 1,140 pph. That would make it 57 cycles an hour. That is a 65% increase over Volcano at her best, and a 171-216% increase at her average. There are literally shuttle coasters with higher capacity. Hell, a good operator could do better at Scrambler by themselves. Equating any coaster's capacity to be anywhere near Volcano's is laughable at best, and disingenuous at worst.
Has Thunderbird even been able to meet 57 second dispatch rates during normal operation? That’s assuming a train dispatches when the train ahead exits the in-line twist before the brakes. That leaves a rather long interval between one train dispatching and the next train returning to the station, and little time for riders to be loaded and unloaded safely and efficiently. So I doubt T-bird would be able to do that consistently. El Toro Ryan’s pointed out a few instances where advertised capacity is greater than the actual capacity.
Do I think 20 passenger trains is okay for the Volcano replacement? Absolutely, I’ve seen worse at the park. It wouldn’t be a Dominator though. Honestly I thought Volcano was capable of doing 800 pph according to the ops manual, but that was bad memory. Around or under 600 is surprising but understandable.
EDIT: please disregard certain parts of what I said above. It turns out I made a major mistake in calculating the dispatch rate and assumed that was 57s, which is actually the number of dispatches per hour. It would actually dispatch every 63s, so when the train ahead has slowed down on the service brake. There would still be a noticeable stretch of idle time between dispatch and next train arrival but wouldn't be as long. But still, can Thunderbird actually do 63s dispatches consistently?
Do I think 20 passenger trains is okay for the Volcano replacement? Absolutely, I’ve seen worse at the park. It wouldn’t be a Dominator though. Honestly I thought Volcano was capable of doing 800 pph according to the ops manual, but that was bad memory. Around or under 600 is surprising but understandable.
EDIT: please disregard certain parts of what I said above. It turns out I made a major mistake in calculating the dispatch rate and assumed that was 57s, which is actually the number of dispatches per hour. It would actually dispatch every 63s, so when the train ahead has slowed down on the service brake. There would still be a noticeable stretch of idle time between dispatch and next train arrival but wouldn't be as long. But still, can Thunderbird actually do 63s dispatches consistently?
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I certainly wouldn't say nobody appreciates the idea. The thing is, it's important to keep in mind that to date, Cedar Fair has built a total of one Infinity coaster, and it went into a plot of land that couldn't fit anything bigger without removing something else. Kings Dominion has a LOT of undeveloped areas that would be perfect for an Infinity, such as the area sandwiched between Twisted Timbers/Apple Zapple and the water park.
Volcano's plot of land, however, is large enough to accommodate almost anything Cedar Fair could have reasonably wanted to build, save for something like a hyper or an out-and-back wooden. It's just too large to justify an Infinity coaster, and considering how loved Volcano was, I can only imagine the CF would want to replace it with the most ambitious and impressive looking thing they can get for the money (whatever that amount may be.)
Even if it was running at 30 trains per hour (2 minutes per dispatch) it would still have a higher hourly capacity than 90% of Volcano's life.
Dominator regularly floats around the mid-20s in dispatches per hour, if it's lucky it gets a 28 or maybe a 29 if the crew's awake. When I had a broken wrist in 2018 I'd regularly time that ride getting 22-23 dispatches an hour from Eiffel. If it didn't have the floors adding to the dispatch timer the crews could probably squeak out 2-3 extra trains an hour at their usual pace, it adds up quite a bit.
Also adding on as I've stated elsewhere on here a few times. Capacity costs money, no park wants to spend an extra $5 million for a ride that could theoretically get 1600 riders per hour when realistically it's probably going to be operating close to 700-800 like every other major coaster in their park. The closer the hourly numbers are to the theoreticals the better it looks for the park operationally, and from an investment standpoint.
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I haven’t seen anyone bring this up (my mistake if they did) but in the “launch tunnel” picture, there seems to be lil sections for a pre show… THATS MAJOR. I just know the theming is gonna be good, hoping to see lots of rock work with near misses. I also wonder if they’re gonna pay homage to volcano in the story telling or in the ride itself, or if it just has its own story, either way I’m a happy camper.
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Nice. I’m expecting something like Mystic Timber’s shed which isn’t anything crazy but still cool and unlike anything KD’s done (at least in the last 20 years)
Seems like Copperhead's launch preshow is the most similar to what we should be expecting, yeah?
I believe so, either some kind of physical set or screens (or a combo of both like Copperhead).
Seems like anybody could have faked these images, no? I don't know this. I'm asking. But they seem so simplistic and it doesn't show anything but the launch. I'm curious why seeing these images say, "matches what we heard"? They don't show much of anything.
The plans would be incredibly difficult to fake. There are details throughout that make them highly convincing.
And yes, all rumors I've heard point to a launched B&M wing for KD for 2025. These plans match with that.
And yes, all rumors I've heard point to a launched B&M wing for KD for 2025. These plans match with that.
Different contractors handle different parts of these projects. In this case, this contractor in particular has a long history of designing coaster stations so it's likely they were tasked with that aspect of the project specifically. It would make sense for their documents to reflect that.
They definitely had access to more comprehensive plans while designing the station, but their work product (what leaked) wouldn't need to reflect that larger picture of the project.
They definitely had access to more comprehensive plans while designing the station, but their work product (what leaked) wouldn't need to reflect that larger picture of the project.
I see. Thanks for the clarification on what the situation is in these things.
Kuruka would be a pretty badass name
2025 shaping up to be a very interesting 50th anniversary of the two Virginia theme parks. Just have to get through the "Loch Ness is being renovated! and now KD has the prestige pass!" season first, not that we should complain as Virginia parkgoers I'm sure everytime we complain about something on here, a teenager in West Michigan reading it gets closer to being a supervillain down the road. I guess in the meantime, it'll be a good year to go up to Dorney and Great Adventure or Hershey if you didn't go there this season for Wildcat's Revenge.
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