Banky wrote:I went to the park every tuesday this summer and went on Eagle once. Sat in the front seat and got thrown around so badly in the helix on red side (blue side was only running one train that day so went red for shorter line) But anyways it beat the hell out of us so badly that I got a minor concussion.
Go ride mean streak. You just might break your neck. I think you're over exaggerating
I have ridden Mean Streak. And I won't ride it again until it's overhauled. Eagle is only slightly more tolerable. I have also ridden El Toro. And that is what Eagle can become with a redo. El Toro has consistent 2 hour lines. Mean Streak is usually a walk on. Eagle has a 10 minute line most of the time. Just because you don't think it needs an RMC treatment, doesn't mean that it is not in the best interest of the park to do so. An Eagle RMC update could keep lines like this year going for years to come.
Oh, come on. Eagle only *slightly* more tolerable? Eagle is simply the best classic wooden coaster Six Flags as a chain has. It is a classic to the people who actually care to recognize the park pre-Raging Bull. It was once the tallest coaster in the world. It is STILL is the tallest and fastest racing wood coaster. It has one of best first drops on any wooden coaster. It has some awesome floater airtime. It is an incredibly iconic structure....and you want to tear it apart...and make it like the brand new ride, 100 FEET AWAY???
Sorry man, I half to disagree. This is NOT the best interest for a park.
We got a RMC coaster. We shouldn't Rocky Mountain everything! RMC is awesome, but Eagle is an absolute necessity in our coaster lineup. With all the positives of the Eagle that I listed above, it would be an absolute disgrace to replace it with something that we don't even need.
Now re-tracking ...sure. But Eagle is still nothing compared to Mean Streak, Hades 360, Zeus, Cyclone (SFNE), Georgia Cyclone. etc.
Sorry that it is a bit off topic, but you gotta stick up for Eagle .
1. Bizarro 2. Expedition GeForce 3. X2 4. Top Thrill Dragster 5. El Toro 6. Goliath (SFGAm) 7. Millennium Force 8. Silver Star 9. Apollo's Chariot 10. Goliath (SFOG)
here are the world rankings for wooden coasters. Eagle #93 last year and that was it's highest ranking since 1997. Best in Chain??? Have you ridden anything else?
Well, he did say "classic", but he didn't define it. If you say "classic" is defined as "before 1990" or something, that's probably a stronger argument, but that's in part because there aren't too many left.
My personal opinion is that the Eagle could use some retracting to get a little less rough (like maybe to the level that Viper is), but I don't especially want a full RMC makeover. We have Goliath, and a made over Eagle would do a bunch of cool things, but lots of them would just be variations on Goliath. If the choice becomes Iron Horse or tear it down, do the Iron Horse, but otherwise keep the Eagle like it is.
here are the world rankings for wooden coasters. Eagle #93 last year and that was it's highest ranking since 1997. Best in Chain??? Have you ridden anything else?
Yeah. I have ridden a few.
For classics, which I will say is before 1990 like anewman35 said, I have rode on:
GASM, Georgia Cyclone, Screamin' Eagle, Colossus, Judge Roy Scream, Thunderbolt, Cyclone (SFNE), Rolling Thunder, Little Dipper, Comet (Great Escape) and of course American Eagle..... The only classic woodie in the Six Flags chain I haven't been on is Wild One.
Ok, I will say that Comet at Great Escape is a bit better than the Eagle. But other than that, Eagle is best out of all of those.
Overall, I am emphasizing the point that American Eagle is a classic and loved by many, so it shouldn't be changed to make it something that we don't even need. That would be a tragedy. Its not about the Mitch Hawker poll. Its the fact that Eagle is a classic and a staple to the park, it doesn't half to be a top ten woodie, that's what Goliath is for. I personally think Eagle at #93 is an outrage, and I know a lot of people on this site and other sites would agree.
If you don't like the American Eagle, that's fine. I'm not trying to change your opinion, but I'm just saying that it shouldn't be RMC'd because it is unnecessary. I know you were comparing Eagle to El Toro before, and that American Eagle could be like El Toro, but why should it?? Goliath is supposed to be our world class coaster. Eagle doesn't need to be, its just a very solid, classic coaster.
1. Bizarro 2. Expedition GeForce 3. X2 4. Top Thrill Dragster 5. El Toro 6. Goliath (SFGAm) 7. Millennium Force 8. Silver Star 9. Apollo's Chariot 10. Goliath (SFOG)
anewman35 wrote:Well, he did say "classic", but he didn't define it. If you say "classic" is defined as "before 1990" or something, that's probably a stronger argument, but that's in part because there aren't too many left.
My personal opinion is that the Eagle could use some retracting to get a little less rough (like maybe to the level that Viper is), but I don't especially want a full RMC makeover. We have Goliath, and a made over Eagle would do a bunch of cool things, but lots of them would just be variations on Goliath. If the choice becomes Iron Horse or tear it down, do the Iron Horse, but otherwise keep the Eagle like it is.
I'd much rather they take it down as opposed to iron horse it because then they could make another large out and back woodie maybe that doesn't have a headache of a helix for a turnaround... And they wouldn't have iron horse as an option simply because goliath is so close... Now topper track is a whole new discussion
^ Topper Track is a good idea. I still don't think that the helix is unbearable, but it could be smoother. I don't think they can tear it down and build something else, though. Like said before, its too close to the road and American Eagle is just an exception.
1. Bizarro 2. Expedition GeForce 3. X2 4. Top Thrill Dragster 5. El Toro 6. Goliath (SFGAm) 7. Millennium Force 8. Silver Star 9. Apollo's Chariot 10. Goliath (SFOG)
I'd much rather they take it down as opposed to iron horse it because then they could make another large out and back woodie maybe that doesn't have a headache of a helix for a turnaround... And they wouldn't have iron horse as an option simply because goliath is so close... Now topper track is a whole new discussion
I was told if they took down Eagle, they couldn't reconstruct on Eagle's site even if they wanted to. Something about Washington Street or something. Does anyone have any information about that?
Jodon wrote:^ That has long been a rumor, but I don't think I've ever heard or seen concrete evidence of a ban on building in AE's spot should AE be dismantled.
Thanks! I would hope it wouldn't be true. I was looking for concrete confirmation, but couldn't find any.
I've asked the same question and nobody seems to know for sure. I could maybe see if they couldn't use some small parts of the site, but sometimes people act like they wouldn't be able to use any of the space at all and that's clearly just silly.
BLADE wrote:It's still a dueling coaster. The track will start either green or blue and then change. At least that's what is in the six flags video. It appears that the dueling part will come with one train midcycle and the other starting out. It's technically one track. The way I understand it, lets say there are 3 trains: A,B,&C. If you start out in train B, you will duel train A for the first half of the ride. Train A will then enter the station and train C will leave the station. Then you will duel train C for the second half of the ride. Confusing yes, and I have my doubts that MM can handle this. I heard it described as a mobius loop.
Wouldn't running in this manner put a huge emphasis on the ride crew running in a coordinated fashion? Seems like they have a very short window to dispatch the "loading" train so it catches up with the "running" train... This just seems like something that would end up being hit or miss from my somewhat limited experience with this stuff...
Jodon wrote:^ That has long been a rumor, but I don't think I've ever heard or seen concrete evidence of a ban on building in AE's spot should AE be dismantled.
Thanks! I would hope it wouldn't be true. I was looking for concrete confirmation, but couldn't find any.
I have heard that zoning setbacks from the road went from 100' when Eagle was built to 300' today. I don't have any concrete proof of that. It's just something I remember hearing around 5 years ago.
BLADE wrote:It's still a dueling coaster. The track will start either green or blue and then change. At least that's what is in the six flags video. It appears that the dueling part will come with one train midcycle and the other starting out. It's technically one track. The way I understand it, lets say there are 3 trains: A,B,&C. If you start out in train B, you will duel train A for the first half of the ride. Train A will then enter the station and train C will leave the station. Then you will duel train C for the second half of the ride. Confusing yes, and I have my doubts that MM can handle this. I heard it described as a mobius loop.
Wouldn't running in this manner put a huge emphasis on the ride crew running in a coordinated fashion? Seems like they have a very short window to dispatch the "loading" train so it catches up with the "running" train... This just seems like something that would end up being hit or miss from my somewhat limited experience with this stuff...
I would have to assume that Magic Mt and RMC discussed these interval times to make this run in a coordinated fashion. With all the track they have to work with, they certainly could have lengthened it to keep the train out on the course longer to allow for slower dispatches.
BLADE wrote:It's still a dueling coaster. The track will start either green or blue and then change. At least that's what is in the six flags video. It appears that the dueling part will come with one train midcycle and the other starting out. It's technically one track. The way I understand it, lets say there are 3 trains: A,B,&C. If you start out in train B, you will duel train A for the first half of the ride. Train A will then enter the station and train C will leave the station. Then you will duel train C for the second half of the ride. Confusing yes, and I have my doubts that MM can handle this. I heard it described as a mobius loop.
Wouldn't running in this manner put a huge emphasis on the ride crew running in a coordinated fashion? Seems like they have a very short window to dispatch the "loading" train so it catches up with the "running" train... This just seems like something that would end up being hit or miss from my somewhat limited experience with this stuff...
Am I missing something from both of your posts? From the video to the picture of the lifthill, it looks like two completely separate tracks. It has two side by side lifthills and the video shows plenty of time when they're dueling with each other. I don't see how this could only be one track. The video shows one train on each separate lifthill going up side by side. Maybe the press release doesn't state it obvious enough but it certainly looks like it is two separate tracks. Maybe I'm wrong or misunderstanding what you're both trying to say.
EDIT- Never mind. I read the LA Times article and I understand what they're saying now. I'm not used to a coaster having a second lifthill that is the same height and such and parallel with the first in that it almost looks like two separate tracks. Interesting.
Last edited by coasterlove on August 31st, 2014, 2:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
It is indeed one track, one side of the lift you go up right out of the station, the other side of the lifthill you hit halfway through the ride, and I'm just going to guess the dueling/racing seen on the video is for illustrative purposes only, I don't see their crews consistently, any any crew really outside of Disney making it happen.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
^Yeah, I edited my post above after reading the article. As for the dispatch times, 110 seconds isn't really that difficult to be honest. Look at Raging Bull, their goal is just over a minute between dispatch so almost two minutes in between isn't that hard. Most coasters with good capacity dispatch about a minute to minute and a half between. At 110 seconds between dispatch means only about 32 coaster trains an hour. If you think about it, that's not a very high capacity. With 24 riders per train, that only comes out to 768 pph which is actually horrible now that I think about it. I'm sure that SFGAm probably beats that with Goliath when running efficiently.
Racing/dueling coasters are really mostly a thing of the past with the occasional exception. I wonder with technology and everything now if they will have the ride system automatically sync up the coasters when possible. In the video one lift is going faster than the other, this is because the one train still has a lot of speed going into the second lift. However, I wonder if based on the location of the trains (sensors would relay this info) the chain motors might adjust their speed to better sync the trains. Alternatively, 110 seconds as mentioned is not hard to hit. If the train has been cleared then the system can dispatch the train at just the right time as long as all the attendants are still holding down the buttons to signal all clear. Either way, older coasters didn't really have this technology or it was too expensive for it to be beneficial, but now it might be more feasible. It would really take a lot of the appeal out of this new version of this coaster if they were never synced correctly.
EDIT: Looking back I saw someone already mentioned the chain speed thing.
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