Painting Coasters Questions?

How much does it cost to paint a roller coaster? Let's say Batman the Ride, or Top Thrill Dragster.

The second question is what is the better color to paint? Should parks be painting rides darker, or brighter rides? They both have good sides to each. Brighter rides can be seen better while darker rides can be seen, but they aren't as visible as darker.

Darker rides paint usually lasts a whole lot longer than brighter rides. People are less likely to see those black smudges compared to yellow.

Do you think there are particular places where you can insert darker rides, and insert brighter rides? For example, sometimes I think that brighter rides should be near the highway if there is one, or are the tallest rides in the park so everyone can see them. To me, it doesn't matter if a wooded area roller coaster is black.
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For me, I just think that it's better to paint brighter rides ONLY when they attract outside people. There might be a street near the park in which people can see rides. If I knew the price of paint, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe, the price of painting every 10 years is really cheap, and not in the millions. I don't know.

I think it's really sad that only after 8 years of operation, they have to paint Batman the Ride again at Six Flags Over Texas because of the yellow paint. The ride did look HORRIBLE. They didn't just do it because they want to paint it something different this year. In my opinion, it looked really faded, and the lifthill was rusting bad.

I was at Magic Mountain 2 years ago, and there Batman paint was just fine. That would be 12 years old. The Batman at Great America also looked fine even when they painted in 2004 which was 12 years after it opened. They really just wanted to reinvent to ride with new paint.

Sometimes new paint=new coaster. People are tricked by it. That's why they are repainted X^2. Hey, it's something different.

I think enthusiasts sometimes get mad when a ride is painted a darker color because some parks don't change the paint on those rides a lot.

I don't have an answer to your statement as far as which is better to paint as far as dark vs light colors, but I can tell you that red is the most eye catching color. I work as a retail manager and we are constantly told to display red as it catches customers attention more than any other color. If you translate that into the amusement industry, lots of hyper coasters are painted red or some version of red (orange). All of the SROS, Magnum, Dragster, Steel Dragon 2000, Steel Force, Titan, Goliath, Behemoth etc.

I'm not sure if they use the same type of psychological ideas that retail people do, but I do know that red and orange catch the eye best, hence the tallest thing in the park is usually (not always) red or orange

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Spinout said:
I think enthusiasts sometimes get mad when a ride is painted a darker color because some parks don't change the paint on those rides a lot.

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What?

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I'm not sure if they use the same type of psychological ideas that retail people do, but I do know that red and orange catch the eye best, hence the tallest thing in the park is usually (not always) red or orange

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Often that's for aviation's safety as well.

Another thing to worry about when painted is how it is done, air brush vs. roller. I've been seeing a lot of people making fun of the work no X currently because it is being done with a roller instead of air brush. Airbrush actually may be quicker to apply, but it doesn't last as long as the roll paint. Using rollers to paint will increase the amount of time a paint job is good for.

I think the cost to paint a coaster depends on how long it is,and also the color I work at a car dealership and have heard the sales people saying that the color yellow cost the most to make cuz its harded to blend.

In the article on the tunnels for X2, it said it will cost $600,000 to repaint the ride.

Dark colors do not do well outdoors. Think about wearing all black in August with no shade. You're going to roast and get burned much more easily.

Another example I have is the lighting gels used at my job. With one-thousand watt par cans, our blue and purple gels have to get replaced much more often than our other gels. If we used our red gels more often, they would suffer the same fate.

So while the darker end of the spectrum might look better, it means that the original paint color is headed for an early grave.

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Spinout said:

I was at Magic Mountain 2 years ago, and there Batman paint was just fine. That would be 12 years old.

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Magic Mountain's Batman has always been the same color - silver track with black supports - if that's what you meant. It's now 14 years old, and surely it's been painted at least once already.

I think I would call what's on Magnum orange.