New Lives for old Rollercoasters

I am wondering why amusement parks remove a rollercoaster and then sell it. I will use my home park of Worlds of Fun as example. In 1988 they took out the Screamroller and placed Timberwolf in it's location. Obviously Timberwolf was a good choice to replace with, however WOF has plenty of land they could have used. TW did not need any major excavation as it basically sits on flat land. The old screamroller now operates at a park in Taiwan. Zambezi Zinger is another example. It was removed at the end of 97 and the lot sat empty until 2000 when they added Boomerang. To build boomerang, they had to do some evening of the land and remove the Zinger tunnel. Zinger now operates in Columbia, South America. Now you can argue that the parts for Zinger were scarce, which they were, however the new park obviously felt that was not an issue as they purchased the coaster and had to dig the trenches to house the course. WOF had six full trains for this coaster although they only used 4.

Another quick example would be the mine train from SFSL. It has been moved twice now.

Does it make better business sense to remove a coaster and replace it with a newer variety even if you still have plenty of land and the old coaster still functions efficiently and safely?

What other coasters have taken this path?

The Pheonix took the same path. I believe it was moved from Texas.

Well, the Laser Loop at Kennywood was taken out and replaced with the Steel Phantom, which was reborn as the Phantom's Revenge. So I guess I am all in favor of taking out older coasters that are not popular anymore or are a maintenance headache and replacing them with something better that keeps the crowds coming.

All you need to do is look at the coasters at SFAW to see some that have been moved. For example, the Jet Scream was removed from SFStL and moved to SFAW and is now called Viper. The plot of land eventually became the site of B:TR. But it did sit empty, coasterwise, for several years. They removed Jet Scream a year or two after Ninja was built. I guess the thought was Ninja had more loops and therefore was better, at least in the eyes of the gp. The line for Ninja would extend beyond an hour while you could walk on Jet Scream all day long. I remember doind 30 consecutive rides on it without waiting at all, but I did have to walk around each time. Man I wish they still had that ride since it was my first looper. They definately had the room and didn't have to remove it, but that's history now.