Zonga on its way out at SFMW

Ha!

I never understoof Arrow banking- they would bank the curved track before the lift when the train was traveling 2 MPH but high-speed curves were hardly banked at all, or banked with really sudden transitions. Didn't anyone teach Toomer about parabolas and natural curvature?

Coaster Lover said:
Na wait, SFA already has one hunk of junk sitting in its boneyard (Ultra Twister)... let SFFT have this one...

Dont forget that half of lighting loops is there too.

I miss Drachen Fire

Actually, it would appear that Lightnin' Loops has disappeared from my visit a while ago. Most of Ultra Twister is in its place.

rollergator said:
^At least Anton knew about "banking"...

Didn't he go bankrupt????

"I go out at 3 o' clock for a quart of milk and come home to my son treating his body like an amusement park!" - Estelle Costanza

He could bend steel, he just couldn't manage money!

^ Lets put it this way:

Anton was just too creative for his own good. He and Stengel came up with so many rides and coasters that they ended up corrupting their own business. Instead of saturating the market with a new creation (eg. looping coasters) they came up with other innovations such as launch coasters, suspended coasters, etc before the market was ready for such a variety of rides.

At the height of the coaster-craze in the seventies and early eighties park management would ask Schwarzkopf for a design, then they would ask Arrow and would pressure both companies to dump the price and vice versa. The parks knew that Arrow and Anton were fighting a bitter fight for market-supremacy and they exploited this in a way that not much money was to be made with those large coasters.

It was said that Anton was indeed not a good businessman. "Revolution" at Magic mountain was sold to the park at a price which barely covered the steel costs.

Since his factory was so involved with building coasters (the "Looping Star" model was built in huge numbers) they sold and created less and less flatrides which used to be a solid income for the company during the sixties and seventies.

After several big projects failed to get build the money that was made in the seventies was gone and he had to file for bankrupcy.

Another company tried to create a new holding to save Schwarzkopf but they went down as well when one of the fiscal managers stole millions out of the liquidation. He was later send to prison, but Anton had lost everything.

During this time Anton was even restricted from entering his factory where several coasters were still in production.

His absence and lack of his control and finishing touches led to those errors which plagued "Thriller/Zonga" in its first season and finally led to the fatal accident on Canadas "Mindbender".

At first Arrow, which by this time had their own share of problems (and was now Arrow-Huss) was the big winner from Antons misery. BGW turned the "Big Bad Wolf"-Project over to Arrow, which included the technical blueprints!

Anton went on to work as a consultant for BHS and Zierer until his Parkinson disease prevented him from working.

wiki wiki wiki wiki...ahh shut up!

^Let me ask this question: Could the reason that SFGAM's Shockwave and SFGadv's: Great American Scream Machine are so rough and such be because of the above mentioned squabble between Arrow/Anton?

In other words, they rushed these two rides into production because they where trying to outpace the other?

^The Shockwave/GASM/Viper triplets were built after Schwarzkopf had gone bankrupt. At that time there was very little competition for Arrow. Togo wasn't much of a threat and the Swiss duo were just getting started.

Thank you. :)