A place to talk about roller coasters and parks that have them. Everyone is welcome here to both learn and to celebrate these magnificent machines designed to scare you.
Here are some important resources:
Images are welcome if they are of high quality and it doesn't get out of hand. Please use PostImages to upload your image and then use that link in the URL field of your post (other image sites are permitted but Post Images has the best policies and compatibility).
Some basic rules:
Opinions, theories, and facts are all welcome – but be clear about what you’re saying.
Back up facts with sources as much as possible
No spam or sell-promotion. Linking to your own media or site is permissible only if it’s specifically related to a topic/post that someone else created.
No photos or videos taken on the rides. This is dangerous and shouldn't be encouraged.
Limit political discussion. When discussed it must be park related.
No fictional coasters (models, no limits, planet coaster, etc)
No posting personal information.
No shaming of anyone. We all can continue to learn and not everyone knows everything -- and that's ok.
With no raptors built last year, one ground up and one conversion, which coasters are you hoping for RMC to look at for next year? I don't have high hopes for RMC/Boss with Selim but, I can only hope. It's so rough even with the trackwork that gets done on it. I think it has the potential to be the best RMC conversion yet. Or do y'all think titan track would be a better route? I'm also hoping for a park to get a custom/terrain raptor but ehh.
No matter how bad a wooden coaster is it can be fixed if done properly. There are some pretty terrible coasters that would be extremely good if fixed correctly. I personally think that we have so few examples of properly maintained wooden coasters that the majority of riders have (understandable) reactions that there's no hope.
I also have another fear..... I think the I-box conversions are kicking the can down the road. The thing about I-box is that even if the structure is struggling the ride still feels smooth because the steel rails cover for the imperfections in the structure. Watching parks cop out by reusing the same wood is troubling because that wooden structure still needs to be maintained. SteVe has made this obvious (as has Lightning Rod which wasn't even used wood) because of all the structural problems both coasters have had. Maybe they can skirt around more stuff because the ride remains smoother but they still need to maintain that structure despite being told that the end result is an easy to maintain steel coaster.
To be clear, I'm not saying that parks are necessarily running unsafe coasters - I just don't think the long term plan is as viable as people think. It seems that RMC (and others) might be learning what Gravity Group (and GCI and a few others) realized long ago..... Use a steel structure for better maintenance reduction but when it comes to wooden conversions that's not an option.
Also one less thing I want to be clear about.... I don't categorically hate RMC.... They make insanely good rides. I just often think that they sell parks an easy button that encourages chain parks to slack off on proper wooden coaster maintenance because when it gets beyond a certain point they can just "RMC it" .... But I also do recognize that there are cases where a coaster was going to be destroyed regardless so this is a metric that's hard to judge but you had to admit is there.