And those permits offer a valuation of around $100,000 for the project. Apparently KD is replacing Volcano with a 1974 Pinfari Zyklon.
YAY WE ARE GETTING GALAXI BACK
Volcano Goes Extinct
- Thread starter b.mac
- Start date
YAY WE ARE GETTING GALAXI BACK
I mean they’re taking out a beloved ride that could have been saved had they gotten manufacture-recommended parts for it. I think at least Cedar Fair deserves everything they get at them.
Source? Because everything I've been told directly contradicts that claim.
Disclaimer up front: I'm one of those Virginians who has a rather binary opinion on our two major parks... and KD isn't my park. Haven't been there since around the time this thing opened, and I have no desire to go even though I'm offered steeply discounted tickets every year. I only stumbled upon this thread because of the Intamin tie-in to a rumor announced at the same time, i.e. updates to BGW's 2020 attraction. With that, no offense taken if you think I don't know what I'm talking about.
BUT, from my completely outsider, detached view... I think removing the Volcano is fair game for any redevelopment. Given what appears to be an unplanned decision, I doubt there's been much serious analysis yet of what to do with the thing... However, my "gut" is that the cost to remove the coaster with the mountain in the way, then repair the swiss cheese of holes in the thing, then have the volcano as a cost-generating design constraint on site redevelopment...would be far outweighed by the cost of just razing the whole site...and rebuilding the volcano if you really wanted it. The Coaster Studios people made a similar argument I believe.
It appears [at least from photos/Google] to be very much a facade, and not necessarily even a high quality one....and not sure how many lives this thing has. Though the ride doesn't make good use of the mountain, it is built all through and around it...and I doubt there's a good market for reselling the coaster (given 1st gen, and the parts discussion)...so you'll probably scrap it. Then there's no care needed to demo the ride, so why add costs to save an old facade you can always rebuild, perhaps better tied into a replacement attraction?
Plus, no offense to those who feel the same way about KD that I do BGW, but I don't see that structure as being that "iconic." Not in the way that the mountain is to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Mouse parks. They didn't theme a whole land around it (like FrontierLand), or even incorporate the feature into the ride anywhere near as well as the Mouse did, respectively, with Big Thunder. Same for Splash Mountain. KD just doesn't theme that way... So I'd offer most of that iconography is from people's memories, which is fair, but I doubt CedarFair looks at things that way. If they can cheaply reuse it in future plans, fine, otherwise, they can replace it with some other amusement attraction. And my guess is it's SBNO in 2019, so they've got a season at least to decide whether to raze the whole site.
BUT, from my completely outsider, detached view... I think removing the Volcano is fair game for any redevelopment. Given what appears to be an unplanned decision, I doubt there's been much serious analysis yet of what to do with the thing... However, my "gut" is that the cost to remove the coaster with the mountain in the way, then repair the swiss cheese of holes in the thing, then have the volcano as a cost-generating design constraint on site redevelopment...would be far outweighed by the cost of just razing the whole site...and rebuilding the volcano if you really wanted it. The Coaster Studios people made a similar argument I believe.
It appears [at least from photos/Google] to be very much a facade, and not necessarily even a high quality one....and not sure how many lives this thing has. Though the ride doesn't make good use of the mountain, it is built all through and around it...and I doubt there's a good market for reselling the coaster (given 1st gen, and the parts discussion)...so you'll probably scrap it. Then there's no care needed to demo the ride, so why add costs to save an old facade you can always rebuild, perhaps better tied into a replacement attraction?
Plus, no offense to those who feel the same way about KD that I do BGW, but I don't see that structure as being that "iconic." Not in the way that the mountain is to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Mouse parks. They didn't theme a whole land around it (like FrontierLand), or even incorporate the feature into the ride anywhere near as well as the Mouse did, respectively, with Big Thunder. Same for Splash Mountain. KD just doesn't theme that way... So I'd offer most of that iconography is from people's memories, which is fair, but I doubt CedarFair looks at things that way. If they can cheaply reuse it in future plans, fine, otherwise, they can replace it with some other amusement attraction. And my guess is it's SBNO in 2019, so they've got a season at least to decide whether to raze the whole site.
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You are right secrecy is to strong of a term. Perhaps vagueness would be a better term. The park has never really been forthright about the issues and that has led to many conspiracy that I don't personally have belief that there is any basses to those theories I do think that being more strait forward as to what level of issues it was having might have prevented some of these.
Disclaimer: This is by no means endorsing what madmax has said. However, this article does indicate that CF is looking to get third party manufacturing on board for parts.
It doesn't say what parts or for what attractions/purposes. It does however, specifically mention that CF has particular problems getting parts from overseas. It even mentions that CF should already have a shipment of these reverse engineered parks heading to them now. This is a new partnership.
I don’t see the value in keeping the mountain. There’s an extremely limited number of rides you can put in there and the area needs a huge revamp anyways.
I remember riding the Haunted River on a day with moderate rain. The ride's inside scenes leaked rainwater in numerous, and I do mean numerous, places. Quite a lot of rainwater. It seemed to be beyond the park's capability to keep up with the scale of the issue. This was back in the 1980s and early 1990s. By now I can't even imagine how much patchwork-over-patchwork-over-patchwork remediation of various kinds has been visited upon that structure.
How long did the original crews designing and building the mountain expect it to remain in the park in the first place? If you had told them in the 1970s that their work would have multiple lives, adapting to new ride technologies and elevated public expectations, turning into a danged fire-spewing volcano in service of a totally unique, record-setting, space-age roller coaster ride, and then living to see the impossibly futuristic year 2019 -- don't you think they would have been absolutely thrilled? I do.
I really doubt the structure's anticipated service life back in the 1970s was something on the order of 40 years, and honestly I am a little bit surprised that the Intamin ride system built around it made it to 20. (I am similarly surprised by the Flight of Fear rides' continued existences, though that is a completely different story for some other time.) Kudos to the park for keeping Volcano's unique but odd combination of papier-mache scenery and quirky first-two-thirds-of-a-coaster upright and operational for so many years.
How long did the original crews designing and building the mountain expect it to remain in the park in the first place? If you had told them in the 1970s that their work would have multiple lives, adapting to new ride technologies and elevated public expectations, turning into a danged fire-spewing volcano in service of a totally unique, record-setting, space-age roller coaster ride, and then living to see the impossibly futuristic year 2019 -- don't you think they would have been absolutely thrilled? I do.
I really doubt the structure's anticipated service life back in the 1970s was something on the order of 40 years, and honestly I am a little bit surprised that the Intamin ride system built around it made it to 20. (I am similarly surprised by the Flight of Fear rides' continued existences, though that is a completely different story for some other time.) Kudos to the park for keeping Volcano's unique but odd combination of papier-mache scenery and quirky first-two-thirds-of-a-coaster upright and operational for so many years.
^ That confirms my suspicions. My [again, outsider, detached] guess is they probably abandoned hope of another dark ride after Smurf due to the state of the mountain...and decided the could incorporate it somewhat into the coaster--but as something the coaster would drape over, not seriously interact with or spend much time within.
Some other interesting notes:
Sounds like it's been a leaky mess from the start, long past its design life, and likely expensive to maintain (and perhaps cost-prohibitive to reuse as its originally-intended dark ride building). Yeah, sorry but my gut is the mountain is toast. You may want to visit and snap some pictures if it's SBNO this year.
Some other interesting notes:
Source: https://www.dalebrumfield.net/single-post/2014/04/24/Part-1-Kings-Dominion’s-Land-of-Dooz-Smurf-Mountain-Not-Just-Boring-but-Fundamentally-Flawed
Sounds like it's been a leaky mess from the start, long past its design life, and likely expensive to maintain (and perhaps cost-prohibitive to reuse as its originally-intended dark ride building). Yeah, sorry but my gut is the mountain is toast. You may want to visit and snap some pictures if it's SBNO this year.
Oh dear... same source that I found just tonight...
Source: https://www.dalebrumfield.net/singl...ominion’s-Time-Shaft-VomitusInduced-Craziness
So the thing may also be structurally unsound from vomit. Bye, bye mountain.
Source: https://www.dalebrumfield.net/singl...ominion’s-Time-Shaft-VomitusInduced-Craziness
So the thing may also be structurally unsound from vomit. Bye, bye mountain.
And... I won't even quote this guy's part 10 about the mountain.
Source: https://www.dalebrumfield.net/single-post/2014/05/10/Part-10-Kings-Dominion’s-Haunted-River-stop-having-sex-in-your-boat-please
Nearly 20 years working there and I guess he has a few stories and insight. This is really one of the only times I've ever Googled (duckduckgo, really) KD...and since I don't hang around the ParkFans KD section often, you may already be aware of his site. But if not, he has some interesting stories on KD's attractions. And while none so far endear the park any more to me, they are quite interesting to see what back stage headaches he had to deal with.
Source: https://www.dalebrumfield.net/single-post/2014/05/10/Part-10-Kings-Dominion’s-Haunted-River-stop-having-sex-in-your-boat-please
Nearly 20 years working there and I guess he has a few stories and insight. This is really one of the only times I've ever Googled (duckduckgo, really) KD...and since I don't hang around the ParkFans KD section often, you may already be aware of his site. But if not, he has some interesting stories on KD's attractions. And while none so far endear the park any more to me, they are quite interesting to see what back stage headaches he had to deal with.
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I really don’t get the Alpengeist argument for not putting in a B&M invert. Not only do Banshee and Raptor exist in the same state but the two would have different layouts and feels anyways as one is an old school and the other is a modern B&M.
Besides that it’s the most exciting model of theirs outside of a hyper plus is fairly easy to theme.
Besides that it’s the most exciting model of theirs outside of a hyper plus is fairly easy to theme.
I love B&M. None of their rides have ever felt forceless for me. I would be so down for an invert or flyer at KD
Though I will have to admit... a B&M flying coaster would get me to KD. Precious few of them around... I've been on far more inverts, plus you have Alpie & Great Bear nearby.
If they put in something like Manta however, then I'm there... Or even maybe a wing, like GateKeeper, which is also awesome. CedarFair could replicate that, and since it's not BGW, I (and perhaps most KD guests) wouldn't care that it isn't unique.
If they put in something like Manta however, then I'm there... Or even maybe a wing, like GateKeeper, which is also awesome. CedarFair could replicate that, and since it's not BGW, I (and perhaps most KD guests) wouldn't care that it isn't unique.
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