Six Flags is doing a strange coaster move in 2010

Reports are coming in that trucks from Quebec have picked up the used SLC that was stored at Great Escape (Serial Thriller from SFAW) and they moved the pieces to... La Ronde.

I'm dumbfounded, confused, baffled. Why would Six Flags decide not to install a perfectly good SLC at Great Escape, a park that would greatly benefit from a thrilling coaster and install it at La Ronde? La Ronde already got a B&M Inverted!

The SLC is rumored to have a great location, probably over the lake, replacing the Tea Cups.

Are the tea cups not a relatively recent additon to the park?

This whole move has me baffled. For the cost of moving, restoring, and reconstructing this ride, they could get a decent smaller new coaster.

Now... my mind is working here.... what if LaRonde is just a staging ground for a move to another Quebec park? I.E. Zoo de Granby (which already has a family coaster), or Mont St Saveur?

Don't believe the hype. Unless you see footers being poured, it's just being stored there for the time being.

The problem is that unlike Great Escape, La Ronde has little room to store rides. Just to receive the SLC, they had to clear out the whole "boneyard", scrapping 2 or 3 flat rides in the process.

For other parks, impossible. Zoo de Granby just invested in a massive multi million dollars wave pool and their "ride park" is only a small portion of the whole complex. Parc Safari has half a dozen flats, but no financial ressourses or room to build a large coaster.

Mont Saint-Sauveur (MSSI) can't build over a 20 or 30 feet height ceiling, due to a NIMBY ruling in the city of Piedmont, where their smaller water park (where Thunder Eagle was supposed to go) is located. MSSI doesn't look in too good of a shape financially. The skiing resorts need massive investments and Piedmont water park is on the artifical breathing machine, being only open a month out of the year.

Seriously, only La Ronde is possible. For the Tea Cups, they would be relocated elsewhere in the park. I'd see them go in the old Maelstrom spot, being located next to the kiddie area, that desperately need capacity.

If it's not sitting in New York, I suspect they don't have to pay taxes on it.

Ahhh that makes a lot of since! Good one jeff!

Believe me, we would find a way to tax it in Canada ;)

I still think that cash-strapped Six Flags found a buyer for it. It does not even necessarily have to be in Quebec.... perhaps it is headed to Upper Clements in Nova Scotia. Perhaps one of the new waterparks in Ottawa bought it.

Or, maybe, someone bought it for scrap!

How about this for a theory:

The trucks from Quebec are from a trucking company BASED up there. They could be going ANYWHERE. Heck, Canobie Lake could've bought it for all we know.

SF Inc is required by contract to invest a certain amount of capital in La Ronde. If this ride is going to be installed there, then it looks like they are trying to fulfill their contractual agreements without having to purchase a new ride.

It may be strange to have two inverted coasters in the same park, but they are very different ride experiences. No one balks when a park installs two or three woodies, so why not two inverted coasters?

^ That's a bit of a stretch. You can only do so much with wooden roller coasters.

Inverted coasters are gimmicky in nature due in part to the unique aspect of the coaches hanging below the track with their feet suspended in the air. So to have two in one park (excluding the Dueling Dragons at IOA, as they were purposely built that way) is a bit redundant.

However, I do recognize your point. When Magic Mountain added Scream!, they already had a 7-inversion looping coaster called Viper. The only differences were that Scream! just had vehicles that had no floor, but when it comes down to it, Viper and Scream! are basically the exact same kind of ride that do the same kind of things. Hell, you could even throw in The Riddler's Revenge in there with them too. All three are giant 6+ inversion coasters, only with different trains.

The same thing happened at Great Adventure when they added Medusa (Bizzaro) with The Great American Scream Machine already at the park.

And Anaconda with Dominator at Kings Dominion.

My biggest issue with this rumored SLC going into La Ronde is that it doesn't even have a slight change to the experience (same kind of trains). And to boot, it's a considerably worse ride than the park's B&M inverted.

I'll just wait to see if this is actually true...as of now, it's still just speculation.

I consider a floorless design to be much different than a standard looper.

I consider any B&M looper to be a much different design from an Arrow looper. On one hand, I love riding B&M coasters multiple times, on the other hand unless the Arrow looper is called Lockness Monster or Tennesee Tornado its a credit coaster for me.

Have we already forgotten how many parks have more than one invert? Heck, GAm had 3 at one point.

I think someone hit the nail on the head in an earlier post.
Six Flags is contractually obligated to spend so much on upgrades.Due to the bankrupcy
I would think No company will construct a ride without cash up front or at least put in a joint account
with stipulations on when it would be released to ride company.That said they already own this ride I think we will see more moves and rides removed from storage to fulfill their obligations (SFOG and SFOT)

Didn't we have a similar discussion last year when Cedar Fair announced Carolina Cobra for Carowinds? I remember some people saying Carowinds should've got ThunderHawk. Others were saying it was dumb to put 2 inverted coasters in the same park. A vekoma slc and a B&M inverted are too much alike in ride appearance and experience(B&M is of course the better ride). A B&M looper looks like new technology while Arrow and vecoma loopers have a classic look to them. That is why Dominator and Anaconda don't seem repititious. Same for Scream and Viper. Stand ups are breed all their own.

Carowinds once had 3 inverted/suspended rides too. I don't count Borg/Nighthawk.

If this is happening, it only makes sense because it is Six Flags. What I mean by that is that this is the company that does sensless things like name wooden coasters Evil Kenieval and Terminator Salvation. Evil Kenieval Should've been one of those launched motor cycle coasters and Terminator should have been a re-themed Scream. I still think that building the woodies was a good investment but I just think they applied the wrong name/ franchise to them.

Absimilliard said:

Why would Six Flags decide not to install a perfectly good SLC at Great Escape

You put "perfectly good" and a Vekoma "SLC" in the same sentence? Blasphemy!!!! :)

^ Agreed. Mind Eraser (at SFNE) lives up to it's name. Ouch!

If you used "smooth," and "SLC" in the same sentace, I'd nearly fall off my chair!

I mean what was the reaction to Drachen Fire being added to Busch Gardens with Loch Ness already there? I don't recall similar "wtf" response to park to Arrow sit-down loopers.

This is strange.

I have always thought that the slc would be a great fit at great escape.

Even though I loved Drahen Fire, I did wonder why the park build another arrow looper instead of something more unique to the park. The trains were different than Nessie's, with a much more open design, and DF's layout was very unique, but to me, a teenages coaster enthusiast, it just wasn't enough of a difference.

But that was probably just me.