Six Flags America 6/12

[url][url]Just from random thoughts pertaining to my day at Six Flags America (SFA) in Maryland/DC...

I decided late Sunday night, after seeing buy one/get one free tickets on sale for the park to ask a friend to go. She had never been there before, even though we live about 40 minutes away.

We got to the park and I could see right away that the Superman: Ride of Steel was going to be closed for the day. There was a mobile crane parked next to the lift hill and a cart sitting about 3/4 of the way up. Of course, no one was working on it. A park employee told me it went down on Sunday.

While talking to this employee I asked about the Batwing, which is located in the same back section of the park. He said it was currently down as well, but they hoped to have it back up and running. Now, I've been hitting up SFA every couple of years now, even back when it was called Adventure World and before that when it was a tiny park called Wild World and only featured the Wild One coaster. Anyhow, this ride, since being added in 2001 is broke more than it isn't. Long story short, we turned around and got on the Joker's Jinx, which at least always seems to be running.

Being bummed about the two coasters being down, we walked around and got on Roar, the Wild One and the Mind Eraser and also found our way onto some of the non-coasters. While on one of these rides we saw carts going on the Batwing, so we eventually got to ride.

While in line at the Wild One I saw that the space where Two Face: The Flip Side stood was under construction and only the landing/launch area remained of the coaster. While on the Wild One I saw the dismantled tracks from Two Face back in a wooded area. This ride, much like Batwing, on previous visits was ALWAYS on/off, on/off, on/off, if even running at all. A friend of mine was actually stuck on it for a few hours years ago.

When we finally did get on the Batwing, I was able to see the old Ultra Twister tracks that the park has had laying back in another wooded area for a few years. Roller Coaster Database said the ride orginally was located at Six Flags Great Adventure, but relocated after only two years (1986-88) to Six Flags Astroworld, which ran it from 1990-2005. I guess the park decided to never install it or they just were hoping to do something else with it and found SFA to be an awesome storage space for it.

With Six Flags filing for chapter 11, I am wondering if SFA would be one of the first to be closed, if the company needs to cut some loses. The park is on the smaller side, the rides are always breaking and it isn't one of the older Six Flags properties. It would suck to lose the nearby park, but if it did happen, hopefully some of these coasters would make it elsewhere. Heck, Wild One used to be called Giant Coaster at Paragon Park when it was built in 1918. It's a classic!