Dorney park laser at it's new home.

Here are some pictures of the dorney park laser being set up at it's new home in Germany.

http://freizeitparkweb.de/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=7480&forum=DCForumID4&viewmode=all

It does not look like a amusement park, but maybe a carnival.

Man, it's looking real nice with its new paint job. Shame the US keeps losing these classic Schwarzkopf rides, though. RCDB claims it was sold to German showman Rosenzweig, I assume a travelling fair.

I've gotta say, that makes me a little sad. That was really a fun ride (only got two laps, back in 2001). Although as I remember being fascinated by its portability, it's interesting to see it in practice.

It's interesting to see HOW it's transported. It looks like the parts are on some sort of flatbed intermodal container or a swap body of some sort.

In Germany, large rides go from fair to fair by train. Then, the showmen crews are so used to doing it that they can assemble it in a few days. Fairs there run anywhere from 1 week to a month and the showmen are not stupid. If say Laser is at Fair A, Olympia Looping will go to Fair B. The only exception to that will be Oktoberfest in Munich, where EVERYONE bring their big toys!

Seems like a lot of work to get a coaster of this size up and running just for a few weeks. I guess they must make a lot of money to justify it though.

Some of those container pieces are part of the base of the ride.

Lots of money? For a ride like this, the showman who owns it may charge 4-6 euros per rider. No POP here! So, each train that go around may make 100 euros. Did Laser have 2 or 3 trains?

The capacity on those german fair rides is scary! We're talking 5 trains with 28 seats per trains on Olympia Looping and 14 ride ops in the station, each checking only 2 restraints! Eurostar was a Giovanola-Intamin-Gerstlauer project that ran 4 trains on its 2400 feet long course with no stacking. It was the largest portable Inverted coaster until it was sold to a russian park.

And to think...Holiday World could've had this coaster for a song, with one verse!! :(

Oooh, I'm going to be in the minority again, I'm afraid. I had a chance to ride Laser late last season at Dorney and besides getting the "credit" I don't think I would have missed anything if I hadn't.

I think my trip report indicated I thought the loops were fun enough, but after that it kind of killed me. It just wasn't enjoyable for me, overall.

I miss this ride so much. It was my first adult steel coaster and first looping coaster. It also introduced me to the magic of Schwartzkopf, although at the time I didn't realize how rare that was.

I do have to say the new paint job is absolutely beautiful. :)

Absimilliard said:
Lots of money? For a ride like this, the showman who owns it may charge 4-6 euros per rider. No POP here! So, each train that go around may make 100 euros. Did Laser have 2 or 3 trains?

It had 2 trains, unless one was in storage. The American operators were so slow that I never heard of it running more than one.

I think that particular model was able to run 3 trains when it was on the German fair circuit, but with 2, they'll make the line fly! First thing they'll do is take out the seatbelts. The only rides with seatbelts in Germany are Expedition GeForce, Colossos, Desert Race and the 3 Intamin freefalls.

The assigned seating also didn't help capacity-- especially when half the people in line ignored what they were told and the other half had to find an empty seat when the one they were assigned was already filled by some kid who ran past them. Not to mention the people who'd decide to sit in separate rows.

Laser was also the slowest lift hill I've ever been on. I think Steel Force could complete a full circuit in the time it took Laser to get to the top of the lift. Other than that, it was a really fun coaster to ride.

On the german fair circuit, Laser will run the way it should've for all the years it was at Dorney. Waiting riders equals less money being made, and the ride operators will have none of that. They want maximum throughput, for the maximum amount of money they can make.

I've never seen anything at Dorney come close to perfect timing other than Steel Force one day, but Laser was always the worst unless you count the mouse.

I don't think the seat belts were the major part of the problem, the operators just seemed to not care about getting the restraints checked quickly, much like the Hershey Comet.

Single-training encourages ops to "dilly-dally" regarding dispatches.

Also, considering BGT's Scorpion and SFoG's Mindbender - I think the Antons just run SO hard and fast that parks slow the loft to a crawl in the hopes of reducing maintenance. Of course, once you've read "the definitive guide on MForce's top speed", you recognize that the slow lifts aren't helping to slow the rides as much as the parks might think. ;)