Frisco Silver Dollar Line

[marolinesdad]

I was talking to some of the conductors and was told that the train robbery will be ending in the next 2 years.  They have already stoped it at Dolly Wood.  He said that the next new area of the park will be out there and a new Depot will be put in.  You will then ride the train to get to the other section.  Since the only reason for the Robbery is to build up steam the new Depot will give the train time to do that.

[krash9924]

WOW that maybe the worst news I have heard in a long long time. The train and Alfie and Ralphie are a big part of memories and one of my fav times in the park. Does this mean that Grandpa will also be gone? It seems they will be getting hate mail like never before if that happens. Sad to see one of fav parks changing the classics. Kinda like Disney and its a small world.

[sdcforever]

I thought they might be putting the new area out there by the Giant Swing.  It sounds like their idea is to change the train ride from an attraction to a mode of transportation within the park.

It seems like the robbery is fading away anyway.  I got a feeling it might be on the way out when they had to build another cabin due to the noise of the Giant Swing.

[Coaster]

This is sad news. A childhood memory gone.  I guess it was expected though...

[shavethewhales]

Sad indeed, though a new area of the park out there will be exciting. The robbery scene was always fun, even after several hundred times. It was just a part of the experience... I kinda hate to see the train ride turn into just a shuttle, it's been such a fulfilling experience all these years, and so many families consider it one of the best rides in the park.

[Joy]

The only reason we ever go on the train is because we know we're going to be entertained. It's why I've ever only gone on the Worlds of Fun train once because it was so BORING.

I wish there was some way to keep the robbery, even despite the new area...

~ "Becky" Joy ~

[History Buff]

The train as a shuttle?  Look at it this way:  isn't that more historically accurate?  I'm more interested in the new world to which the train will shuttle us.  Maybe the train could even shuttle us to the new resort we've talked about in another thread.  Or put more than one train on the tracks and shuttle us back and forth to Celebration City.

[Coaster]

So would the train be the only way to go to get to this other land or could we walk there also?

The train as a shuttle?  Look at it this way:  isn't that more historically accurate?  I'm more interested in the new world to which the train will shuttle us.  Maybe the train could even shuttle us to the new resort we've talked about in another thread.  Or put more than one train on the tracks and shuttle us back and forth to Celebration City.

I love the idea of the train taking us to the resort. I don't think it'd be that logical (or needed) to take us to CC though.

[sdcforever]

WOW that maybe the worst news I have heard in a long long time. The train and Alfie and Ralphie are a big part of memories and one of my fav times in the park. Does this mean that Grandpa will also be gone? It seems they will be getting hate mail like never before if that happens. Sad to see one of fav parks changing the classics. Kinda like Disney and its a small world.

I'm actually not too concerned about the robbery ending in the next two years.  I've seen it so many times it's gotten a little old for me.  However, if Grandpa leaves I will be sad.  It's a tradition for us to go to Grandpa and Grandma's and hear the Christmas story every year.  I wonder if they'll be able to have Grandpa somewhere else in the park?  SDC is very Christian (especially during the Old Time Christmas festival) so I can't imagine them just ending Grandpa's telling of the Christmas story.  That attraction represents SDC's values of the Christian religion and the importance of family so perfectly.  Although, they'd still have the Living Nativity and the Wilderness Church.  I just don't want to see Grandpa leave!

On a different note, I also wonder, like Coaster, if you'll be able to walk to the new area.  The train holds a lot of people, and if they run two trains it would be able to shuttle a lot of people back and forth from the new area in an hour.  But people still don't like to wait even 10-15 minutes for a train, so maybe they'll have a walkway as well.

[Dukefan]

IMO this is very sad news.  The Frisco Silver Dollar Line has had a robbery show since it's inception and I think turning it to a transportation ride would take away it's uniqueness, kind of downgrading it to "just another park train".  I mean that's something that pretty much every park has.

I know there's been a lot of rumors that Dollywood is also going to add another station to their train ride, degrading it to just a mode of transportation.  If they end up doing that I imagine SDC could be considering it too.

They have already stoped it at Dolly Wood.

The reason Dollywood stopped their robbery show a few years back was because of capacity issues.   With the robbery it took their single train about 35 minutes to make one trip, without it takes about 20 minutes, hence the train can now make two runs an hour.  It was necessary since the Dollywood Express is the most popular attraction at the park after Thunderhead.

Of course the skit is missed though, considering it had been a part of the ride since before the Herschends even bought the park.

[Gilligan]

A sad, sad day will come when they take away the train robbery.  I like some of the new things about the park, but I hate to see traditions go the way side.  The train ride is one of my most memorable memories as a kid at SDC.  I took my sister and her girls to the park last summer.  She hadn't been there since she was a kid, and the first thing she wanted to do was ride the train and experience the robbery.  Her teenage girls were whining about having to sit through a train ride, but they laughed and enjoyed it as much as we did.  SOME THINGS JUST NEED TO BE LEFT ALONE!  I hope the park doesn't give up their "roots" for profit and progress. 

So, what's this new area all about?  Will it (hopefully) fit in with the theme of the park?

[shavethewhales]

^We'll have to see, if the rumors are true than this won't be happening until at least 2 years from now, and by then many things are prone to considerable change. I'm sure it will fit very well into the atmosphere of the park though. In fact, maybe this project was built off of that concept Old Guy put together so long ago...

[marolinesdad]

That would be this post from the old guy............

All right . I promised a follow up so here it is.
SDC always had a shortage of level land. Durring the aformentioned St. Louis poll, a new coaster concept was pitched tha not only involved the first coaster of its kind, not just a new area, but in fact a whole new town connected by the steam train, wagons and walkways, Williams Gap. You've all gone through it on the train. Out from that spot is long flat and very pretty ridge (including the remaines of an old 1940's cabin and tree house!) that offered a whole new development oportunity. 
It was to be a new Deepwoods kind of area, crossed with what was to become forgotten crafts, with woodchips, wildflowers, rustic, with shops like a cooppers, log cabin building, etc.  What the area needed was a big draw and it was big. My concept was SDC's first outdoor coaster. The theme was this:
An excentric inventor had recently returned from St. Louis where he had seen a remarkable new invention that sent Money and papers from one spot in a building too another by means of pneumatic tubes!. If it could be done small scale......
He needed a place to build however out of sight of compeditors so he chose the tiny town of Williams Gap to build his prototype.
It started as you walked past the giant pumping engines into the depot facing a large victiorian curved glass wall on big chains. this lifted to present an enclosed glass and wroght iron car with plush velvet seats and brass trim. the door was closed on your car which was to all viable effect (but not really) shot through a glass tube ringed with more iron through the trees, an underground tunnel, then back to the depot. In reality it was a coaster that rode on tracks on the sides of the cars and could do barrel rolls and dip into curves. ( this kind of coaster was invented several years later. I remember playing it on Roller Coaster Tycoon! ) Even though the car was enclosed,the track was really open with rings at intervels except for the firsts few hundred yards where you could see the tracks from the walkways which were indeed glass tubes.

The concept grew to making the area itsef a spot for a grand exposition with halls, rides,  a 360 soundscape storytelling theater (my concept again still untried) and games, some of which have now come to pass in the, well, Grand exposition.

The concept got the highest marks on the survey, but proved to costly to implement at the time, and Jack was reluctant to head down that coaster road. "Once a park heads that direction", he said, "your pretty much commited to a new high ticket ride every few years." He was certenly right. Eventualy the path was taken, but long after this concept was forgotten.

[marolinesdad]

I can not find it but I also thisn that one time Old Guy told us about the train bringing people into the City.  I might be wrong but I am still looking.

[marolinesdad]

Here is was..     

That is a picture of the depot where you got on the train behind "Shad's House". It was only recently torn down for the Red and Gold Hall. Picture the Frisco Barn a bit past it on the left and behind the train a 100 yards or so, the Waterboggin Tower. You got off at the midtown depot when you arrived in town. Cool way to enter town, but restrictive in capacity. The poor little trains were underpowered too. Before the track was regraided there was actualy a chain lift to pull the train up one slope. The robbery was actualy designed to give the train a place to top up on water because that would also run out before getting "Home".

By the Way, unrelated, but the waterboggen got it's name in an employee contest. My fav. entry named it after our longtime mayor, "The Heller HighWater Ride"
Wow this realy is Random Stuff isn't it?

So at one time the train was really for transportation.  So they would be keeping their history.  They would just be going back farther than most of us can remember...