American Eagle Great America Question

^Also rode yesterday, I'll back up your review!

There was one super shiny red train sitting in transfer, on the red side (the superior side, but love em both.) That drop is like going down an avalanche, it's a mountain. Still one of my favorite drops anywhere!

I really love American Eagle, always delivers a great ride. What I don't love is the terrible layout and design of the whole county fair area, the kidzopolis section, the mile of game stalls, and all that empty space around revolution. The queue for American Eagle is ridiculous: elevated walkway with an unmarked split for the skycoaster, switchbacks, wrapping around the back of the kids zone, over the convoy ride, the train tracks, a service road, then back down to ground level for more switchbacks.

I know it won't happen, but if I could redo it, I would remove half the games, reduce the size of Johnny Rockets, scatter the kiddie rides around the area instead of clustering them all together, opening up space for a closer entrance. Then have a ramp up and over (or down and under) the tracks and service road to the switchbacks at the station. Plenty of space for lines on busy days, might give better sight lines for the turnarounds from the midway, and would liven up an area that usually feels pretty dead except for revolution.

There is a maintenance road that runs behind Demon/Justic League to the front of Eagle's station. It's such a great opportunity for a walkway. The entrance/exit is ridiculous. Same thing with Viper; the path to the waterpark could be a midway.

Raging Bull, Superman and X-Flight were designed with the station far from the midway. Six Flags stations seem to be designed to create perfect bottle necks upon exit, and take a few minutes. Makes it a little confusing when we get those new announcements "hurry we have to dispatch the train in 30 seconds." It's like they wanted the perfect storm.

The designers should spend a day pushing around a wheelchair. That Batman exit is a special kind of torture.

The station flow and entrance/exit paths at other parks seem to employ logical design (Cedar Fair parks, Busch Gardens, Holiday World, etc). Even the newish Joker at Great America you must go back and forth through the queue even with empty; they didn't install those little "pass through" gates when there is no line and they yell and people consistently. This seems a crappy time for everyone involved, come on Six Flags.

Walt S said:

Tagging onto this post. Was at SFGAm yesterday. American Eagle has only the blue side running. Looks like there may ahve been some sections with small amounts of retracking done. Seemed to be riding better that last fall. Did not look like the red train cars were in the station yet for the season.

The park president mentioned in a meeting with the county tourism committee that the park plans to run 2 coasters backwards this season, so it wouldn't surprise me if they are planning on running red side backwards later this season.

CoasterDude316 said:
The park president mentioned in a meeting with the county tourism committee that the park plans to run 2 coasters backwards this season, so it wouldn't surprise me if they are planning on running red side backwards later this season.

Interesting. I have to wonder what the other train might be. I don't see Viper running backwards as too much of an option. I seem to recall Batman was backwards at some part a few years ago. I also can't imagine Goliath backwards either... :-)

X-Flight backwards might be popular. Batman backwards was great!

Schwarzkopf76 said:
X-Flight backwards might be popular. Batman backwards was great!

Maybe we will see Vertical Velocity backwards. :-)

Schwarzkopf76 said:

X-Flight backwards might be popular. Batman backwards was great!

Swarm backwards at Thorpe Park didn't work too well, but it's an interesting idea !

Batman backwards would have appealed to me 20 years ago. Today I feel like it would be a hard pass.

Viper and Batman both ran backward for different parts of the 2013 season. So it's entirely possible they will be the two rides running backwards again this year, if Eagle isn't one of the rides.

If I recall, Backwards Batman was “on tour”. The attraction visited several of the Six Flags parks for a limited time and it required a special one-of-a-kind pieces-part or something from B&M to make it happen. I’m other words, it wasn’t as simple as flipping the train.
Not to say that it can’t be acquired again. Or maybe they still have it stored somewhere.