Richard

That's exactly right. There are basically only two types of people out there who are, as you put it, really wise to the current installations. The first are people who have already been to the park. The second are basically people interested in theme parks, e.g. members of sites like this. The second is a negligible group in terms of overall attendance breakdown. The first however is the main group new attractions target, unless the new attractions are designed to go after a demographic not previously catered for such as with Wiggles World, which new water slides do not. Theme parks want to build on their attendance by getting as many repeat visitors as possible. If it weren't like this the parks could just as easily spend the millions spent on attractions to advertise to bring in new visitors, who won't necessarily be swayed by a single new attraction so much as the overall product offering (as was the goal of the initial marketing of WWW). The reality is that a new attraction that is visually identical to another already in the park will not be a significant drawcard to the key group new attractions like this should be attracting. Hence why this comes off more as drawing out the initial plans for the park over a year rather than something designed to boost the park's profile.

That's more or less it. The orientation of the bogies on an Intamin/B&M is dictated only by the track it's touching. Its rotation point is is at its own centre, which is at the centre of the track. The Vekoma/Arrow rotation point is about the hinged point between cars and so what the assembly wants to do is at any given time a left to right movement rather than rotation. In this image, it shows a very extreme example of the effect of trailering. The green line is the hinge point (perpendicular to the track), the red line is the axle behind it showing the effects of trailering while the blue line is how an articulated axle will be oriented. In reality the curve is never that tight and the distance between is a fraction of that, but it shows how there is disagreement between the train and the track. Because riders are directly fixed to this point, they feel every movement made by the bogies as the train rounds turns. Rider movement and bogie moviement on Intamins and B&Ms are two independent things. Rotation of the bogies to follow the track happens without influencing rider movements unlike on Vekomas. Spring loaded wheels help ease the train through a turn, but any well designed coaster should be able to provide the same quality ride without them; their benefits largely lie in the long-term maintenance of the ride. They are often cited as the single defining factor in a coaster being smooth but in reality it all basically comes down to good track design and comfortable trains. Superman Escape for instance is a well engineered coaster in every way, but its restraints can cause an uncomfortable ride (I believe Intamin rushed these through as a quick remedy for their previous restraint problems, but that's a matter for another topic). The SLC has very well designed layout that you'll find Werner Stengel's company had involvement in, but it's let down by rubbish trains and even worse restraints.

Well I've posted it all before. I've never ruled it out, as in this industry predicting anything on more than a monthly basis is dangerous. They don't yet have the long-term figures to be able to actually see if expansions at this early stage will have any impact whatsoever on attendance. New slides at this stage may drive per capita spend by providing another (much needed) 5 minutes of entertainment to keep people in the park longer (their usual strategy here seems is selling food portions half the size of what you'd get elsewhere for twice the price). It seems to me they may have been held over from the original opening due to budget or time constraints. A forth slide off the Temple of Huey tower was definitely planned. The fact that they already have a Bowl attraction negates almost any unique or marketable factors so to me it's not ringing as an expansion yet, so much as a delayed opening. It's just not coming off as a move to keep the park at the forefront of Australian water parks so much as stretching out their original plans for the park by a year.

The Vekoma trains are utter garbage. From a track point of view, there is no reason that the ride can't be just as smooth as any B&M for instance. Spring-loading the guide wheels won't fix a whole lot as the bulk of the problems come from the bogies which simply can't track properly on the rapid layout SLCs are known for, causing the jolting. The trains are trailered with fixed axles like the old Arrow Corkscrew trains (see Cyclone, Corkscrew), which basically means that each row of seats has a single set of wheels joined to the previous row via a universal hinge, much like a trailer is hitched to a car. Basically what this means is at any given curved point on the track, the trains are not following the exact curvature of the track, but rather being influenced by the rows in front and behind. Instead of the wheels following the track, they are pulled in such a way to attempt to create the shortest distance possible between where the wheels are now, and where the ones in front are. When turning with a trailer on your car, it will create its own path to attempt to get to be completely parallel with the car, not follow the radius of the turn used by the car to get there. Basically then the track wants to do one thing and the train wants to do another, and for the duration of the ride it's a matter of the train trying to do what it wants to, but being forced to do something else by the track. The rails want each set of wheels to be exactly perpendicular (90º) to the direction of travel in that exact section of track, but the wheels want to be parallel to the sets in front and behind (which, to add problems, are rarely ever perpendicular to each other). The roughness is then caused by the track forcing the train to follow the course. Spring-loaded guide wheels would only help if roughness were caused by the train seeking the outermost rail in curves, which they are, but the banking and curves have been engineered to reduce this to be barely noticeable. Intamin, B&M and other modern coasters have articulated axles, which follow the track regardless of what the row in front or behind want to do, so there none of this shuffling as the train tries to correct itself as at any given moment, the axle is totally perpendicular to the track The easiest fix would be to replace the restraints with something much more forgiving. Riders heads hitting the restraints isn't inherently a problem. Hitting restraints made of hard rubber is on the other hand. Cyclone for example isn't by any means a smooth ride, but its restraings are soft enough that it's not in any way an uncomfortable or painful ride. The most logical and long-term solution would be for Vekoma to finally sort out a train that is up to the engineering and comfort standards of B&M or Intamin. Every few years they unveil new trains for retrofitting, but until they articulate the axles it'll fall short of what's needed to make them truly smooth rides. There's a reason every park out there with an SLC hasn't jumped at their newer trains; and you can guarantee that providing a smoother ride is very much in their interests financially when you factor in insurance premiums etc.

This is an Internet message board. If you don't want baseless speculation you're probably in the wrong place. So long as no one tries to pass off speculation as fact or falsely implicates anyone by misrepresenting or misquoting them there is no harm done. As for no one here knowing what's going on, you might find that what people are discussing and what they actually know are two very different things, dictated by confidentiality agreements or professional courtesies. People are most welcome to come here and post what they think, that's what this place is for. Actually, that all makes perfect sense now.

Very recently Dreamworld has contacted Intamin for a last-minute redesign of their latest roller coaster. It will no longer be a motorcycle coaster, but rather the world's first pushbike roller coaster. Teams of riders (each trainload) will join in and pedal the coaster's way around the course. Its theme will be Tour de France, with the yellow track representing the esteemed Yellow Jersey of the race awarded each day to the top positioned rider. Your top speed will be determined by the collective effort of fellow riders, an homage to the team spirit of the Tour. (The above may not be true, but we do have a new Construction Update on the main page now.)

Awesome to hear. Can you do something about the show eating into Letterman's slot? Catching those 2-3 minutes of Uplate after 1:15am makes me question my (sane) decision to stay up until 2am...

Management at all the Gold Coast parks and many others around the country do frequent these forums, so you are being heard. Whether or not they're actually listening is another matter however. As you can imagine there's a lot more to running a theme park than appeasing Roller-Coaster.com.au members, however correct everyone here may in fact be.

It is absolutely 100% relevant here when you suggest that rides can only close when they're either unsafe or if the park's owners arbitrarily tell the management team that it must close. It's never as black and white as that and to suggest it's like that with Eureka Mountain or any other ride is simply false. No one said that the conversation is 100% restricted to Eureka Mountain Mine Ride. Previous decisions made by Dreamworld and other parks in relation to ride closures are absolutely relevant because in situations like this where the reasons for the ride's indefinite closure aren't entirely publicly known, the best anyone here can go by is what parks have done in the past. If you don't think anything but Eureka Mountain is relevant here then by all means ignore discussions pertaining to other rides, but don't suggest that it's totally irrelevant to the conversation when it's clearly not. It certainly is relevant given that you yourself have mentioned other rides and more general situations as Swanny pointed out. You evidently have a wealth of knowledge about the operational side of Dreamworld, and it is great to get that side of the equation; especially considering we haven't had any ride operators from DW post here in a long while.

But I wasn't commenting on Eureka Mountain specifically and never indicated as such. I was speaking generally, citing some common reasons for ride closure at theme parks anywhere. You suggested that a ride's closure is basically black and white - a ride will operate until it's not safe to do so anymore. There are many more reasons for a closure than that, which is all I was demonstrating with those possible reasons.

Well, you missed my point completely. If Dreamworld's management had decided to throw in the towel on the ride and cease to operate it, i.e. if they knew it would no longer be operating at the park, then they would have indicated that from the start. When Thunderbolt closed permanently it was indicated that it was permanent, despite the ride sitting dormant for several months. That's not what has happened with Eureka Mountain, which was my point all along. Most rides have a finite lifetime. There comes a point where they simply cease to be financially viable as attractions in a theme park. What about when a ride simply becomes too expensive to source parts for or they become too difficult to procure, what if it needs to be removed to make way for a new attraction, it isn't popular enough to warrant its operating costs? There absolutely are ways of just 'knowing' a ride cannot function anymore. Of course this isn't going to just happen one day without extensive thought given to the situation by management and engineering staff; no one would try and suggest that. When a ride becomes unviable it should be closed, and anyone with a modicum of experience in theme park operation could make these decisions very easily and with great certainty.

I agree with you, however my point wasn't so much that it is out of the question that it could close, but rather that if they knew from the moment it stopped operating last year that it would be permanently closed, they'd have said it then and there.

There seems to still be some lingering confusion about this ride's overall classification. By the nature of this new coaster, the g-forces will be lower. Unlike conventional sitdown coasters, there is limited rider back and neck support due to the sitting position. This severly limits what can be done force-wise, and thus what can be done in terms of ride elements. Now, if you think back to the advertising of Superman Escape and Batwing Space Shot, you will notice that they extensively featured teenagers and highlighted the "extreme" nature of the rides. Looking back a few years to The Claw, it also featured a similar style of commercial though to a lesser extent. Going back to Cyclone's debut, if anyone can remember, its TV commercials very purposely featured families riding the coaster; parents and 10-12 year old kids. No one will deny that Cyclone is a thrill ride, but at the same time, no one will deny that it's not a family oriented thrill ride. By the nature of the new coaster, in terms of overall impact it'll slot in somewhere behind Cyclone. In short it should be a much less daunting attraction, and as such far more accessible to the average family. One of the most popular family attractions on the Gold Coast is Wild West Falls. That ride is 20m tall and hits 70km/hr. Too many people seem to be hearing the word "family" and writing it off like we'll end up with another Wiggles attraction. Think fun, not intense. They're not topping Superman Escape; if that's what you want you probably will be disappointed.

We've got our gallery up here too if anyone still doesn't believe. The new area is predictably bare and noticeably cheap, but no surprises there. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=182

I don't see any reason not to be enthusiastic about this ride. I think at the very least everyone should wait to see the completed layout before writing it off completely.

However painfully irrelevant it is, take a look at Rugrats during construction: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.p...02&image=28 http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.p...02&image=37 It was a much lighter colour when it opened than it currently is through fading - bright colours fade quicker, so as it currently is it's a duller, darker colour than it was when it opened. My opening day photos aren't up on this site, but they show its track as several shades lighter than the ball. As I've said before, this coaster won't be topping Cyclone in speed, height or g-forces. We're talking about a coaster being built in a small area and on a tight budget. Don't expect anything that'll come close to Superman Escape in any way.

Personally I've always looked at Reptar as dark yellow. Certainly compared with the "Nickledeon orange" covering everything in Nickelodeon Central it's not as dark. Each to their own I suppose. At any rate, they're certainly not being overly creative with track colour around the park. The colours and obvious nature of the ride point to a racing theme. Can't really see them going any other way with it.

Now that "real" construction is underway, we've got our first construction update of this coaster up. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=180 It features 29 high quality photographs showing every aspect of the construction and should clear up a few of the matters being discssed here.

The Saver pass appears to have died a quiet death; evidently Dreamworld have no idea of what they're doing with annual passes as over the past few weeks they've tweaked and retweaked just about every pass they offer. One must wonder what they're doing for customers who purchased a Dreamworld pass on the basis that they could visit the water park in the afternoons given it's now not an advertised feature. I'd hope they're honouring it for the duration of the pass.

That particular piece of information comes from a conversation I had with a source in Europe. The European amusement industry is quite different to here in that information is quite freely available and manufacturers such as Intamin will often talk openly about what is coming up for them. The sidecar information has never been officially confirmed and has never been reported as such. As I'm sure most people here know, we don't, nor have we ever, sourced news articles from within theme parks (i.e. from employees) unless it is released as part of the park's official documentation or comes directly from management. If you read something here, it's either: a) confirmed via official communication (i.e. press releases) confirmed via external sources (e.g. local council development approval), or c) confirmed via visual means (i.e. we have photos to verify it). I've gone a bit further than answering your direct question, myk, but I think it's important to stress these points in case others think otherwise.

Incidents like this at Disney parks almost invariably point to pre-existing conditions, often unknown to the rider. I don't think it's a result of more thrill rides as such, but rather the numbers of guests that their parks see through the gates. The odds are people will die at Disney parks. It's always very unfortunate when things like this happen. The families are there to have a good family time, which will now always be associated with something so tragic.

No formalised reports have yet been released by Kentucky officials regarding the matter. The investigation didn't conclude until very recently (the past day or so), the findings of which are not yet known -- to anyone. A gut feeling is the culmination of years of experience; an intuition based on years of experience. You can quietly skip over the fact that Six Flags and Cedar Fair have shut down all similar rides pending the results of the investigation and suggest that Dreamworld is somehow more clued in in this situation as well as try to refute everything I say but the fact is neither one of us have even a small percentage of the facts relevant to the situation. You're trying to argue with 100% certainty that to do anything but keep the ride operating is foolish; I've been arguing that without all the facts, Dreamworld shouldn't have been so hasty and assertive in their decision to keep operating, and this has been reflected in the media. I thought I'd take one quote from the News.com.au article: Now of course the media are out to misquote everyone out there and bend the truth and all, but they're waiting on the results of the investigation? Doesn't that strike you as a bit of an unnecessary risk?

My point has been so completely missed here. I never once said Dreamworld should close the ride because it's unsafe. I've said several times that there is absolutely no reason to think there is anything wrong with Giant Drop. Dreamworld made the decision to keep the ride operating without any information available from the situation in Kentucky. I have no doubts that from a safety point of view they were well on top of it, but from a PR point of view they did take a hit that could have easily been avoided. As I've mentioned, they've shut rides in the past for similar reasons, which have gained media attention, but not to the extent, nor in the negative manner of this current story. Forces and wear and tear on the wire ropes for each system would be quite consistent with each other, taking into account that Giant Drop is taller and has heavier gondolas. The two systems are fundamentally identical. Certainly to the point where if there were a flaw with the SFKK lift system, there's a good chance it'd also exist on Giant Drop. When the incident occured, and when I made that post, no information was available to suggest anything about the situation - to myself, nor to Dreamworld. Six Flags and Cedar Fair made a call that saw similar (NOT identical) rides around America immediately shut until a cause was found. This does include drop rides that use the same winch lift system as Giant Drop. That is why this issue attracted any attention at all for Dreamworld; they made a gut decision which went against the gut decision made by two of the largest theme park operators in the world. A lot of you are also conveniently forgetting one very crucial thing in this entire situation. The problem here is not that the cable snapped - it is that in the process, it cut a girl's feet off. Cables on these rides snap. It's happened before and it'll happen again. This'll happen regardless of the lifting mechanism in place, because it comes down to fatigue, a result of general wear and tear. Tell me with 100% certainty that if the cable were to snap on Giant Drop, it couldn't do similar or worse. Kentucky investigators don't yet know what happened to cause the injuries.

Intamin was indeed suggesting that the cable in question was not their own. The ride would be designed to use a specific gauge of wire rope for the elevator lift system, presumably one that is a standard in the elevator industry, allowing Intamin to cut out excessive R&D costs that would be associated with developing new rope and allowing owners to source replacements from local manufacturers. Mythbusters is so woefully unscientific that it doesn't surprise me that they didn't get anywhere with that myth. Their interest is in wowing people with building oversized contraptions and blowing things up to make viewers happy. Great from a television entertainment perspective, but not much else. I'm not convinced the same thing would have happened in the media had Dreamworld chosen to shut the ride. Rides in this country have been shut as precautions many times in the past when nothing was wrong with them other than some bad press for similar rides abroad. Giant Drop has even been closed for similar reasons in the past with less negative press than we've currently seen for Giant Drop. There's no story in taking precautions... it doesn't sell newspapers.

The way it reads in the articles is Dreamworld heard about the Kentucky incident and disregarded with "we maintain our rides well, so we don't need to worry". They haven't indicated, neither implicitly nor explicitly, that they've done anything out of the ordinary with regards to upkeep of the ride as a result of the Kentucky incident. From a public perception and a media coverage standpoint, that sends out a slightly uneasy message. There is absolutely nothing yet known to suggest that Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom were at fault in the incident, while the comments from Dreamworld imply that because they have better maintenance programmes (who's to say that's true?), such a thing could never happen. They said outright that they don't yet know what happened, but that they are confident that it couldn't happen at Dreamworld. That there shows why the media have picked up on this story - Dreamworld have created an issue where there wasn't one previously. If Dreamworld had closed the ride for a few days (again, a totally cosmetic measure to appease the media/public; there is nothing to suggest there is anything wrong with Giant Drop), along with a firm statement that they have impeccable maintenance and safety standards and that its closure is only a precautionary measure until the facts of the incident are fully understood, they would have fared much better in the situation and not received the slightly sensationalised media attention that they have. I think on the whole, most people understand much better that closing a ride as a precautionary measure is justifiable decision; not closing a ride and making refutable claims about the quality of maintenance at Dreamworld vs. SFKK is less so.