HW 6/16

After SFKK, I drove further west to Holiday World. It was less than an hour drive, but seeing as HW is in Central Time Zone, (barely) the drive had me travel seemingly back in time! I entered the park at 4 PM, using their after-4 discount, and had 5 hours of riding until 9 PM, which I hoped would be dark. To my delight, the skies were dark purple at 8:30, and pitch black on my final rides past 9!

Howler - (Very Front)

The scariest kiddie coaster I've experienced. On the left side, the train wasn't even above my waist, and seeing as the layout was all right turns, there was some difficulty keeping my hands up! I could of very well fallen out if I had not had my partner to keep me in the seat!

Legend - (Very front, Very back)

I love Larry Bill designed CCI woodies, and I hate Gerstlauer designed woodie trains. There was definitely a contrast with a fantastic layout, and restricting trains on this coaster. While with PTC trains it could quite possibly be my all-time favorite coaster, with these trains it's just a great ride. I LOVE tunnels, and this has some of my favorites. My personal hot spots were the very steep first drop, the spiraling drop, the double up, the underground tunnel, the double helix, and the great swooping finale. Why the Gerstlauer trains? If parks are favoring maintenance over quality in trains, we're going to see some magnificent layouts ruined by terrible trains. Astonishingly, Legend remains a fantastic coaster.

Raven - (3 Very front, 3 Very back)

Ok, how do I begin about this ride? I'm sure you know all there is to say about this ride, but I can't keep quiet about my new favorite wooden coaster. At day, this is one of my all time favorite rides, but at night, this beats even my loved Ghostrider. The difference is amazing, I clocked a 3 second difference from 5 pm to 9 pm, from the top of the lift to the brake run. That's significant, and that's a woodie for ya! The trains are my personal favorite, 2 bench PTCs with no headrest. The experience, like Ghostrider, is orchestrated extremely well. The ride starts off with a solid drop into a fast tunnel, followed by some more airtime filled hills, a fast turn over the lake, and a steep drop down to a ravine, but the ride really takes off there. The diving s-bend after the 5th drop is extremely fast, and the swoop turn that follows borders on shaking you to pieces. Rising from the turn, the train twists as it crests a small hill, resulting in more airtime, and twists up into the brakes, shaking the entire station building. A masterpiece of the wooden coaster!

Like it was possible to follow, I slept on the border of Missouri, heading to SFStl the next morning.


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Musician, snowboarder, member of ACE and the ECC

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Ed said:
"Legend - (Very front, Very back)

I love Larry Bill designed CCI woodies, and I hate Gerstlauer designed woodie trains. There was definitely a contrast with a fantastic layout, and restricting trains on this coaster. While with PTC trains it could quite possibly be my all-time favorite coaster, with these trains it's just a great ride. I LOVE tunnels, and this has some of my favorites. My personal hot spots were the very steep first drop, the spiraling drop, the double up, the underground tunnel, the double helix, and the great swooping finale. Why the Gerstlauer trains? If parks are favoring maintenance over quality in trains, we're going to see some magnificent layouts ruined by terrible trains. Astonishingly, Legend remains a fantastic coaster."

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I'm the exact opposite of you regarding coaster trains. I *love* the Gerstlauers, and hate PTC trains. Seat dividers, seatbelts, lousy tracking,
high maintenance, slow loading times, headrests,
and the weak return springs on the lapbar are just some of the reasons I dislike PTC's. The only PTC train I can think of that I like is Kennywood's Jack Rabbit train, but even Jack Rabbit fights and shuffles around the turns, like the rest of the PTC's.

Gerstlauers, on the other hand, have no seatbelts, seat dividers, or headrests, and their lapbars have
a return spring to prevent stapling! Not mention
that fact that they look fantastic, not boxy like
PTC's, they track *beautifully* and they cut down on maintenance costs, once the friction issues
are resolved.

The only thing Gerstlauers suffer from a bit is a bit
of a lack padding. And the Gerstlauers are no worse than say, Cedar Point's Mean Streak, Blue Streak, PKI's Beast, PKI's Racer, Dorney's Hercules,
SFOG's Georgia Cyclone...which are among the WORST coaster trains of all time! Not to mention
their hard foam padding (same as Gerstlauers..but
even more unforgiving!) they aren't molded or curved in *any* way, so they are always plain uncomfortable. Not to mention the weak spring,
stapling lapbars, seatbelts, headrests, and seat dividers...you have a horrible train!

The thing I've discovered with people who dislike Gerstlauer trains fall into one of the following categories:

(A)- They ride with their hands up...

(B)- They are tall...

(C)- They are, ahem, wide or lastly,

(D)- They are PTC snobs...

So, which one are you? *** This post was edited by RobCoasting on 7/8/2001. ***

Everyone has their own view of the Gerstlauers trains. I think they have their pros and cons, but I think we should respect each person's view instead of trying to use categories to classify them.

Just my view on things.

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