Canada’s Wonderland removing Time Warp

Raises hand as another Drachen Fire fan. I only got to ride it before the corkscrew was removed. I thought it was awesome at the time. I need to get out to Kennywood and ride Steel Curtain because its first inversion looks like a similar experience to DF's first inversion.

Back in the day, I wasn't aware of coasters being too rough. That was way before the internet, and It was just part of riding a coaster. Not being aware made me not notice, I suppose. Or maybe it wasn't rough the first few months of its operation.

(I was nineteen years old. That might as well have been a hundred years ago.)

I used to lap Viper at Darien Lake when I was a teenager and I would leave the park with a headache and think nothing of it.

I did the same on the boomerang and SLC at Geauga Lake. I actively enjoyed it.

I was going to mention it before, but my theory is that B&M coasters and modern Intamin coasters changed our perceptions about Arrow over time.

Arrow was all the rage when Drachen Fire was built; it was 1992 and B&M was in its infancy as a company (and hardly anyone had the internet at home to frantically discuss their favorite coasters, let alone all the different manufacturers in the biz). B&M had only two coasters operating, both relatively small stand-ups; the first in 1990 and the second in '91. They would open a third along with the first Batman The Ride in '92, the latter of which in my opinion is what would establish B&M as a household name. Then, in the late 90s, Intamin's popularity started rising with the opening of Superman The Escape, Volcano, and then of course the Ride of Steel trio and Millennium Force in 99/2000. Prior to the mid-90s they were known mostly for some kiddy/family coasters and a few modern bobsleds, along with a couple notable rides that utilized track with a box spine later adopted by B&M; a few stand ups, and Z-Force/Flashback (designed by Walter and Claude themselves while employed by Intamin). So it wasn't until the late 90s - early 2000s that we enthusiasts had a large selection of super smooth CAD-designed rides to choose from that challenged Arrow's archaic element design process.

The story of Drachen Fire's roughness is legendary for sure, but I always suspected its location also had to do with its demise more than many are willing to admit. I rode opening year and didn't even know it even existed until I saw it from the top of Loch Ness Monster's lift on my first ride of the day. I made my way over there and when I finally found the entrance, which was not easy, it was a walk-on. The park wasn't overly crowded, but certainly not dead, either; yet Drachen Fire's station was nearly empty all day. In the years that followed I don't recall ever seeing a line that extended very far out of the station.

Amusingly, I rode it again a few years later and was questioning my sanity. I had no idea they had removed the first corkscrew, but I "knew" it was missing something, or at least I thought it was. I didn't remember the track leading up to the cutback being so flat and straight, but I just figured my memory of it had been wrong. Wasn't until years later that I discovered (thanks, internet) that it had been modified.

It’s also possible that we all got old 😂

Hambone,

When older people say Magnum is getting rougher, I always explain, nah It's always been an ass kicker, you are just getting older and can't tolerate it as much. :)

And all the rides after it were smoother. It’s all relative.

The internet made poeple know about coasters, manufacturers and such! Just as mentionned above, in the 80's and early 90's Arrow was the number one manufacturer and most of them were rough because of their flawed designs but people just though they were bad ass intense. B&M and Intamin came in shortly after, along with the internet and then people started to realize that Arrow coasters were just badly designed.

Badly designed according to whom? They have 50-year-old rides still operating.

Badly designed old coasters or they just didn’t have/develop the technology to make them smoother like todays modern coasters?

Yes, those old Arrow coasters were always rough, but we still loved them. We didn’t know anything differently at the time.

Rick77:

but people just thought they were bad ass intense

Right. Having to remove earrings and ops actually enforcing it before riding Steel Phantom is a pretty good indicator that the ride was violent. We just thought that was the deal we had to make in order ti ride cutting edge coasters.

I had to remove my earrings to ride Green Lantern at Great Adventure (previously Chang at Kentucky Kingdom) not so many years ago, and it was a B&M.

So, it sounds like the bad design is using OTSRs, if these were lapbar rides, the earrings would not be an issue.

Steel Phantom was awesome, sad it was changed.

All Arrows, because of the track design and wheel assemblies, do "hunt" between the rails which results in the roughness we experience. Personally, I'd like to see Magnum at CP go down for a year and have B&M come in and do some more track work as well as add the unique trains they built for the Morgan in Japan. Magnum doesn't need the high capacity 36 passenger trains any more so could benefit from a slight revamp while keeping the layout and the same.