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Wouldn't the EU put the Intamin execs on the medieval rack if they did business in Russia at that scale? Not to mention the dire straits of the Russian economy. A big coaster is probably the last thing anybody needs over there at the moment, and in the coming years.

I've been thinking that we're definitely seeing the end of some era recently, but I'm not quite sure why exactly, it's a combination of many factors. It just seems that the coaster scene I grew up with is coming to an end. In many cases, this is true in a very physical sense. Several of the...

If there is a safe direction for it to fall, I guess they might topple it using explosives. Otherwise, there'll be a lot of work with large cranes and cutting torches.

The two companies used to be each other's fiercest competition. Now, they've cornered the market together. That means there's less of a reason to maintain the most impressive coaster lineup in each park. They axe some of the least popular ones, because there's no longer a risk of losing...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is 18 million SEK really that much in this context? It's less than two million dollars. Recall that Funtime was fined $310 million for their involvement in an accident in Florida recently. Would this really be one of the biggest fines incurred by a company in Sweden?

I think it makes sense to have a "send-off event" for the closure of a big coaster if that coaster is the only one to be closed within a moderately short time period. But suppose that Kingda Ka's retirement is followed up by, for instance, Superman Escape from Krypton next year, then SFOT Titan...

The only reason I can think of to keep quiet about a ride closure like this, is as part of a chain-wide policy not to make a big deal out of a coaster's closing. Big coasters have a finite service life, after all, and Six Flags built *a lot* of them in very few years around the turn of the...

Ride open; thread unstickied. Fashionably late as always.

The UAE is on the coast, with prevailing winds from the sea. Riyadh is smack in the middle of the country, with the closest body of water being the Persian gulf 450 km away.

That doesn't sound like "currently operating" to me. So congrats to Red Force!

Yeah, a similar lesson to what was learned about wooden coasters. 20 years ago, they were all racing to build the tallest all-wood coaster out there, and nowadays, those same coasters still hold the records. Well, those that are left among them, at least. Quite a lot happened with hybrid...

Tallest and fastest, with Formula Rossa being SBNO. I really wonder if Ferrari Land saw that coming. When it was built, Red Force was the fifth tallest and fastest coaster in the world, and now it suddenly claims both top spots, with some margin. It is 30 km/h faster than Steel Dragon 2000, and...

Hard to figure out why they are selling, as well. Now that they've more or less obtained a monopoly, would it really be a good idea to put some of their parks back on the market for a competitor to buy? Wouldn't it make more sense to just close the parks and enjoy full ownership of the market?

If they did close Kingda Ka suddenly right now, Red Force would become the tallest operating coaster on the planet (in terms of how high the train goes, at least - Superman Escape from Trademark has a taller structure, which the cars aren't anywhere close to ascending), and the only coaster...

Having followed recent turns of events in Russia, I think they'll probably slap the coaster parts onto a defunct post van as makeshift armour, then send it to the front.

Is the 70-degree tilting of the whole coaster part of the retheme too? So that the lift hill is beyond vertical and the first drop roughly parallel with the ground?

That capacity of six riders per train, though ...

Those merely have a reputation for being boring or unremarkable, if their reputation is even brought up for discussion. Zamperla has a reputation for being utterly vile, as anyone who has ridden one of their thrill coasters can attest to.

If it failed inspection, they probably wouldn't be allowed to run it for another week. High costs of getting something important replaced is more likely. As in, they've replaced a few links in the chain lift and found that the box of spare links is now empty, and the manufacturer went bust in...

At least Zamperla's reputation as a coaster manufacturer isn't damaged in any way. That's the upside of already being at rock bottom.