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Also, the park rarely uses all three trains, if all trains are used and the ride is working correctly, a lot of riders can get through.

They should run 3 trains and make an attempt at getting people loaded in a expedient manor.  Sometimes loading can become lengthy and drawn out.
Great rides but the waits are becoming more frequent.

Yeah I have noticed that trend as well. Seems worse than it was in '07-'08 or even after it was new.

If they are concerned about reliability and capacity, and potentially adding 2 new coasters in rapid succession like this, it makes me wonder if Powderkeg is in danger of being replaced by one of these possible B&M coasters or by something else shortly afterward. That ride always has huge lines and has issues being fickle with operating. While I do like the ride I can understand their reasoning if this were the case.

That would make sense for two coasters. And the rest going for landscaping and theming.

Okay I just went over this thread. $30-$40 million is quite impressive. Wildfire (my favorite coaster at SDC) was only in the teens when it was built.

If I were to make a guess based on trends from other B&M coasters in recent years, I could see them trying to top Banshee or Thunderbird with a 4000+ ft long track. Perhaps a launched Wingrider or an Invert with a 180-200ft drop with the first inversion being made as you take the first major drop along with several theming/pass thru elements and several subsequent inversions as you progress along the track.

Judging on how clean it looks, I am guessing it's somewhere in Firemans Landing. lol

If I had to choose a new coaster on that side of the park I would rather have OzCat back anyways. That was a fantastic compact wood coaster. With Dollywood having two great wood coasters now, why not SDC? It was just $4 million to build right? With the Herschends pretty much abandoning Celebration City as an amusement park while having SDC absorb that parks assets and its concept as a night time family amusement/carnival park, I don't see why they could not just modify the design slightly and rebuild the coaster by the entrance to the Grand Expo and retheme that area around it with the new and improved OzCat as its centerpiece. It seems to be the pattern they are doing already since they basically did that with the shot tower in Fireman's Landing. I am sure it would not cost much more to modify the design from the original blueprints and construction documents to fit SDC's terrain, they could even redo the original coasters station area and do it like they did Wildfire by having it on a pier on the hillside. As for the Expo retheme, they could turn the Expo into an area to celebrate the Ozark's local wildlife since they already have animal themed kiddie rides over there which I felt were way out of place, the frogs and insect rides are okay but they could change the Elephant ride into Hawks or Owls and the Teacups into Snapping Turtles or something. The ship themed rides and the larger carnival rides are somewhat acceptable as they are but I could see some slight modifications being applied to them as well.

EDIT: Just saw the post made when I originally wrote this. I would love to see what kind of new B&M they do install. I Love their coasters. I was just looking over the 2017 thread. $40 million you say?

Understandable. It just seemed like good fit due to the space requiring a fairly compact coaster/thrill ride to complement TNT, Firefall and the Expo Coaster and be able to re-use the tower/station area from the former WB ride.

No problem. Glad you guys liked them. I haven't taken the time to do any full ride thru videos at the park since the early 2000's. haha

Thanks a ton for the photos sdcfan88! You have a great eye for details. Sometimes it takes me a couple trips to notice what has actually changed.

I'm so glad they rebuilt the TNT tressel instead of just replacing it with something cheap, and I'm glad to here things have actually been fixed a bit on the Flooded Mine, even if the changes may be a little wonky. It gives me hope that it will stick around longer. What would really make me happy is if they would give it a darn entrance sign so people could actually find it.

The plaque of Pete and Jack has actually been there for a few seasons, but it certainly pops out more without all the normal foliage around it.

Thank you! And I agree about the classic rides getting some much welcomed love by the maintenance crews this season. Flooded Mine is so unique (with or without the shootout feature) and ThuNderaTion is the best Mine Train coaster in the world. It would be highly tragic if they were removed.

I will say Fire in the Hole is really getting rough. My father worked at SDC when it opened and knew it inside-out and he even said there is something definitely wrong when he last rode it. This has me worried that its days are numbered since it was this bad last year and apparently this issue hasn't been addressed.

We arrived at the City around 12:30 on the 16th.  Had to park in lot 5.  Waited forever for a tram only to have to wait some more getting in.  Bag check is not that bad once you get to the table....but it does slow down the entrance time a bit.  Immediately noticed the new split rail fences all over the place.  Basically walked around and tried to get in some rides.  First time I saw a line to the FM in a long time.  Line extended out to the racks next to the entrance.  I thought we just caught the time right after the train, but the train station was full with a line extending to about Reed Springs!  The train was just coming back into the station, so the FM was just that long.  Since there are only a few shows and shops open....lines are long to all the rides.  We strolled around and took everything in until I had enough of the crowds where it was time to leave.  After all, we were going back the next day....

The next day, we arrived at the City around 9am.  Parked in lot 2 next to the loading area.  Crowd was just as bad.  (I was surprised that we were able to walk straight into the Mill for breakfast)  Caught the Pickers on the porch and they were great as usual.  Lines to the rides were long again.  First time I stood in line for TNT all the way out in the zig-zag area!  PK had a line that began nearly at FITH.  I caught the pickers afternoon show at the shed while the kids stood in line for the rides!  ;-)  Numbers were around 10k on Wednesday, and I never did ask, but was at least 10k yesterday.

I can echo this. I arrived at around 1:30 and had to park in lot 5 which was near full. Waited 20 mins for a tram but a white school bus arrived instead. Haven't rode in or seen one of those running around in a while as I usually manage to get a ride in a tram or one of their newer tour buses. Thought it was quite odd but I guess they were pulling out extra transports to handle the crowds. There was a bit of a wait for the bag checks too. The park was bustling in the usual areas as expected but I was surprised at how busy it was for a Wednesday. It felt more like a Friday or Sunday in the summer. All the rides had fairly long wait times (20 mins minimum) until the end of the day. Even FM WF and TNT were long. I take it they are having a really good start to the season.

Thanks and no problem all. And I did not get around to try the fry bread but I probably will next time.

I added video links to the Train and to the Flooded Mine in the video thread here:
http://sdcfans.com/forums/index.php?topic=3449.0

I was there Wednesday.

Train Ride
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBrqFXhwKUs&feature=youtu.be&a

Flooded Mine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b0u7-EtsvA&feature=youtu.be&a

I love the old paintings in the ticket booths!  Welcome to the site sdcfan88

Thank you! This is one of them! He still feels amazed and impressed that they kept them after all these years and makes it a routine to walk over and check in on them every time we go.

Hello everyone. I figured I would contribute to this discussion.




The new Frybread Stand.


The tree that was cut down near the Saloon has been replaced.


The newer style train cars are all being used. They look like they got a fresh coat of paint.
They are also using a different engine which I was told by the Station Employees that it had been out of service for a long time.
It has a slightly different whistle sound but it looks and sounds great.


I know there is already a similar picture on here but here is some Flooded Mine (Shootout) updates. Take note that they replaced all of the old dummies in the boat and on the inside. Also the lighting has been improved and a lot of the props appear to be working better than I remember in years past. However, I don't like the new guns which I guess have been installed for a few seasons now. They are not as rugged and heavy as the old ones and sound like Star Wars Blasters or something. (Pew Pew) 
Oh and some of the signage has been refurbished and they appear to have added all new roller wheels to the sides of the boats.



EDIT: I also chatted with the workers running the ride complementing them on the improvements. They seemed to be surprised and dismissed the idea of the attraction being taken out anytime soon. In fact (while they could have just been messing around with me) I was told to make sure to come back for the Christmas festival as they wanted to do something special to the ride. Could this possibly be the return of the Candy Mine from the early 90's? IMO That would be fantastic if they did do that!


New ThuNderaTion Arch



And finally the Waterfall area.


They got this plaque placed around there as well.

Still kinda new here after lurking for a while so I hope it is okay to bump this.

Anyhow, with SDC having a history of re-utilizing defunct rides/attractions to build new ones, I would like to see the old Waterboggen Tower and the ride footprint re-utilized and have a Bobsled Coaster built around it using the tower as either the station or as a theming piece for a lift hill to hide the initial drop. The way a bobsled coaster is designed, it could be made to be compact and family friendly (since SDC likes to have family friendly rides in their parks) yet still have enough intensity to satisfy the thrill seekers. It would help to also bring balance to this side of the park for thrill riders since it only has ThuNderaTion as a major ride/coaster over there now. 
(I am aware Firefall now exists over there and it is the same shot tower recycled from CC however, it is not enough to fill the void left in the absence of the Waterboggen)
Anyways the Bobsled Coaster could be steel like La Vibora at SFOT or wooden like Flying Turns at Knoebels. Plus this would be something new that SDC does not already have that would fit well into the 1880's theme if done properly.

And on another note I would love to see the park rebuild OzCat up there. Yes it probably wont happen even though a lot of people loved that coaster, but I think SDC was always a great fit for a good traditional (non inverting) wood coaster since Dollywood now has a Traditional Wood Coaster and a RMC, but hey I can dream. lol

(see attachments)

In the last attachment the coaster layouts are fit to scale using Google Maps imagery.