Say good bye too, Geuga Lakes Free Fall!

That makes sense, Rob, but like Jeff mentioned with Cedar Point - ridership is part of the equation. As long as a ride gets enough riders in comparison to it's cost to run/maintain, it will stay.

If a ride is as popular as your example, there shouldn't be a problem. It's when the popularity reches a point low enough that the money spent doesn't make sense that things like this happen.

It kind of self correcting in that sense.

EDIT - your follow-up post kind of answered this post. Now it doesn't make as much sense. :(

Sometimes I don't think enthusiasts give the parks enough credit. They know what they're doing. PKI didn't think they needed the Flyers anymore. Did it hurt their business beyond a couple of angry enthusiasts? Probably not at all. I guess it was a good move regardless of whether costs, ridership or whatever factored into the equation.

*** Edited 8/17/2005 6:01:51 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

I think it has to be total ridership, not percentages. If only, say, 1% of the total rides given by all attractions belong to a single attraction---even if that attraction ran full-tilt---then the costs of that attraction can't get vastly higher than 1% of your total operational costs without some other very good reason for keeping it around. Tradition might be one of those reasons. What would CP be without Cedar Downs? We might find out someday, because that thing barely gets anyone on it compared to Back In The Day.

On the other hand, if you are running something full tilt, and it's *under* it's cost level, then go out and buy yourself another one next season!

However, high cost/rider is only one reason why a ride might get the axe. For instance, I think it's likely that the Flyers weren't relocated due to costs---if they cost too much to operate, they would have been scrapped (Schwabinchen) or sold (Demon Drop), not moved within the chain. I don't pretend to know the reason why it was moved, and I suspect this is a "those who know don't tell, those who tell don't know" situation. *** Edited 8/17/2005 6:09:15 PM UTC by Brian Noble***

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That said, there are certain broad strokes of a "preservation agenda" that many people can agree on. For example, I think most people could agree that Fallingwater is worth keeping around for its historical significance---it is perhaps the single best example of "organic architecture," designed by the master of the genre.

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Then here is one for you (thought not amusement related)...

The area adjacient to the Evergreen Cemetery at Gettysburg PA was very near the center of the Union battle line on July 1-3, 1863. In the 1960's the park service erected the Cyclorama center on that very spot. Now the NPS has decided that it will move the Cyclorama and visitor center to a near by piece of land with no historic significance, demolish the Cyclorama center and restore, best as it can, the land to its 1863 appearance. A special interest group (I forget its name) is trying to stop this in order to save the Cyclorama center because it is one of the few remaining examples of this sort of arcitechture by its designer. So... you have a "historic" piece of 1963 architecture meant to commemorate historic events that took place on that site in 1863. Which history... 1863 or 1963 do you decide to preserve?

As Brian said, a "main draw" is going to have good ridership. It would have to get really expensive before they let it go.

I also get what you mean about the loss-leader analogy, and most parks have dozens of those... they're called kiddie rides! They have horrible capacity but a lot of them require just as much attention as an adult flat ride. They keep them anyway because it brings in families, and families spend more money. Heck, I bet that's why CP just announced their cheap senior tickets. You know grandparents like to spoil their kids!

People harp on the flyer issues again and again, as if it had something to do with PKI specifically. It didn't. It was a corporate-level decision to reallocate assets. Smart move for the Viacom shareholders, even though a vocal minority was all pissed off about it. I've only been to PKI once this year, but they don't appear to be suffering!

For having such a moronic title, this has got to be one of the most sophisticated discussions I have ever read on Coasterbuzz.

Even though I am really enjoying this topic, I wish I had something to add.

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Lord Gonchar said:

With all due respect, I think you miss the point at the core of my post.

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Well that's pretty easy to do when you say yourself that you don't know where you're going with all of this. :) Actually, you've had a lot of input on this thread for someone who claims to be totally dispassionate, a let the cards (or rides) fall where they may kinda guy.

Yeah, because as I've said, I find the difference in concern and the concern in general very interesting. You won't find a single thread anywhere from the 4 1/2 years I've been registered at CB that says I think a ride should or shouldn't be saved.

I do say quite often that I don't understand the need to 'save the rides' or why people feel so strongly about 'saving the rides' - but never will you find me taking a side on any ride removal type issue. (Unless, 'I don't care' is a side :) )

I'm more interested in the sociological angle of it - the reactions when announcements like this are made.

Imagine if a city was going to demolish two buildings that stood next to each other: one sports art deco architecture and was built in 1920; the other sports an industrial look and was built in 1980. In general which do you feel people would be most interested in saving? I think the answer might explain why some who support wood coaster preservation are the same who say "who cares?" when a newer steel coaster or ride is slated for the scarp heap.

I understand that sometimes things that are precious or have historical significance are sometimes loss to progress. For example, some of the ancient cobblestone streets are now being paved over because their uneven surface causes vibrations from cars, busses, and trucks that damage nearby historical buildings. While it would be nice to save BOTH the cobblestones and the buildings one has to be sacrificed for the good of the other.

Take Clementon, for example. Would I like to see Clemonton save Jack Rabbit? Sure, but not if doing so was such a huge financial burden that the park closed forever. And yet it remains SBNO. Why? It's in Clementon's best interest to keep Jack Rabbit standing until the park is sold and leave the decision to the new owner, who may very well recognize the historical significance and spend the monies needed to get the ride up and running again. Or not. We may never see JR1 run again. Like people, perhaps it has reached the end of its life?

I love these old 1stGen Intamin drop rides. I ride then whenever I come across them. Hopefully a park will buy one or both and keep them open for future generations to enjoy. Or maybe they're headed for the scarp heap in the name of progress. While I wouldn't say I don't care I do recognize that there is little to nothing I can do as the decision has been made. Life is short. I will enjoy these rides while I have to opportunity to do so.

Just my .02 cents ;)

If anyone is interested, I have a couple shots showing the demolition progress of Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall.

www.rollercoasterfreak.com *** Edited 1/28/2006 9:52:18 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

Thanks, Jason. Do you think you could shrink the photos, though? It was hard to go through your site and wait so long to view stuff... and I have a cable modem!

^ I think it might be your internet, John. I've got cable as well and the pics are loading in less than a second.

The title of this thread still cracks me up.

I mean like can't-stop-laughing-out-loud crack-up.

Sorry. I have nothing more to contribute.

I have DSL and the pictures loaded really quick. The photo's are still too big though. To see everything you have to scroll the page for a minute.

Okay, perhaps I was a little vague. The photos loaded in under 3 seconds, but since they are so big, they are harder to look at.

On the rest of his website, he has brochure picures from Cedar Point and all kinds of other stuff, those took a bit longer to load, and they are still too big

:-( I WILL miss that thing.

Thanks for the pics, Jason! :-)

So does anyone know where Mr. Hyde's is going? Who bought it? It wasn't me, I didn't win the Powerball last night. ;-)

-Tina

From what has been said, I think it's being "parted out" to salvage CP's 1st-gen Dumpster, er, Demon Drop... ;)

With internet explorer, you can turn on auto resize and after loading the picture should fit to your screen. I do this because everyone has different size motitors and runs at different resolutions. I could tell the computer what size to run it at, but that may only be good for one person's computer.

To enable automatic image resizing, click on th "Tools" menu. Then select "Internet Options" Click on the "Advanced" Tab. Scroll down to the "Multimedia" section and check the box that says "Enable Automatic Image Resizing" Click Ok and your done. You may need to close and reopen internet explorer for the changes to take effect. Or at least refrest the page.

Coasterqueen, parts from MHNF will be used to maintain Demon Drop. At least until they sell it. At that point, they may offer the spare parts up to the buyer of DD.

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Brian Noble said:
Well, a main draw, by definition, has high ridership. So, it would take much longer for it's operational costs to rise above the threshhold. Can you think of something that was legitimately a "main draw" (i.e.: in the top N of ridership numbers) when it was axed?

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Zambezi Zinger. One of the most popular rides ever at Worlds of Fun, but no more.

The same goes for Der Flitzer formerly at Adventureland. It never had a short line (virtually always longer than the Tornado's) but was sold and replaced with a giant wheel. *** Edited 1/29/2006 7:03:08 PM UTC by Acoustic Viscosity***

Oh man, I hate the resize image feature in IE.

And what about the growing base of Firefox users?

In my opinion, it's just poor design to not size images appropriately for users.

I often wonder how many people who check out my site stumble upon a panoramic photo, click to check out the big hi-res version and sit there going, "It's the same size!?" because they have the resize image feature on.

I dunno. I like to think the website designer has a better idea of how the image should be seen/used than IE does with the squishing it to fit the screen thing.

Well that's the beauty of it. If you like it you can use it. If you don't like it then don't. You can't please everyone. And to be honest, you are the first one to complain. You'll run your site the way you want, I'll run mine the way I want. *** Edited 1/29/2006 9:21:20 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***