Blog Archives

1/26/2015

Twisted Colossus Update #15

Good Monday everybody, hope you all had a great weekend and those of you in the Northeast are staying safe. While you are waiting for your house to thaw, how about a nice Twisted Colossus update. It's been less than a week since our last one, but there is actually a LOT to share today, they've been very busy.

Photos and Words by Gregg Condon

This week we're going to start off in the park, and the first picture we are going to look at is actually from last week, the Twisted Colossus Photo Op.

Now fast forward to this week, what's different?

That's right, they are now to the point where the RMC crew feels that they will have the coaster ready by May. When in May is anybody's guess, but when you start to see all of the work they've done just this week, it's not hard to see why they feel confident.

Of course, dates are always subject to change, there are a lot of variables that go into this and it's not just what we can see on site, but also track manufacturing, shipping, etc. But the fact that they feel confident enough that they could put up that tag even after the display was already there is a good sign. Of course, when any dates are announced, we'll be sure to share them. But I'd guess we won't see dates for another 3 months at least (end of April).

This also doesn't factor in the SteamPunk District area, but they are working hard in that area as well.

Moving back outside, the biggest change we'll see is the track going up the second hill.

Which eventually leads to the High-Five element

And the track that everybody was worried about is now gone due to the two new elements that will be in this area of the ride.

LOTS of support type things are being constructed and look to be ready to be placed on the ride.

LOTS more track has shown up, most of it appears to be straight which probably means this is the transition from the blue to the green for the 2nd half of the ride.

You can now see all of the twisty pre-lift track from the parking lot.

A little bit of an overview of the site.

Over on Scream, not a whole lot of evident work, but they have begun to powerwash the ride in advance of it's new paint job. It's got 12 years of parking lot grime and I'm sure it's going to take a few washes to get it all off.

You can see them working on the ride in the picture below. You can see the darker blue and the lighter blue, but I'm pretty sure that's just because of the sun. Unless they are keeping the same color scheme.

Just a couple of random park notes.

The park was awarded Record Breaking Guest Service Numbers for the chain, and to celebrate, the employees get to wear these special shirts for the next 7 weeks.

Donald was nice enough to model the shirt for us when we were chatting in the park.

We know SFMM gets a lot of flack for past mistakes, and deservedly so. But over the last 2 years we've REALLY seen a positive change in the way park employees interact with guests, and a general positive attitude.

If you'll remember, the park made a lot of HUGE changes in 2009 that really changed many people's opinion of them. They kind of lost that around 2012/2013, but starting with 2014, we've seen things swing back the other way. So if you haven't visited the park in awhile, it's time to give them another shot.

Holiday In The Park continues to be removed from the park.

Well, not everywhere. =)

Rode Batman for the first time this year, and first time since the SFMM trains have been back on the ride. It was probably the smoothest ride I've had on it in years. Ride is still only running 1 train while they bring the other one back, but the crew was hauling.

Lastly, they have been doing "something" underground on the walkway to the park. Not sure if it's electrical or plumbing or if it's for SFMM for SFHH. We'll probably never know.

Alright, that's going to wrap it up for today. Hope you enjoyed this update and we look forward to seeing construction kicking into high gear as they hopefully hit that Spring 2015 date.

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If you have any comments, please share them below.

1/20/2015

Twisted Colossus Update #14

Good morning everybody, and welcome to yet another update in the continuing construction of Twisted Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

It's been a couple of weeks since our last update so we have quite a bit to get to, as well as another "challenge" that we took on for this trip. But this one is a bit more straight forward, not silly and more directly related to what we do around here.

Pictures and Words by Gregg Condon

Today we'll start off with looking at the ride from the parking lot, as that's really the only place you can see the ride from now. We're not going to take pictures through any holes in the fence or anything like that.

Click on any of the pictures below for a larger view.

As you can see, green track has been added to the bottom airtime hill after the first drop.

More prep is taking place for the first turnaround.

Random thought while proofreading ... are the light posts still going to be used to light up the structure? How cool is that? Maybe with some awesome LED lights?

Going up!!

Going Down ...

Ok, so let me get this straight ... August 2014 the complaint was "they are going to be removing too much of Colossus, it's not going to look like that anymore" ... and now in January 2015 it's "I can't believe they are leaving those pieces of Colossus track there. It's going to look terrible.

First, it's a structural thing. Second, I personally think it's kind of cool that some remnants of the old track are going to be there. Third, the piece of track shown here hasn't been used in so long, I'm sure most of the people complaining never rode that section of track. =)

RMC Guys: "Let's park our trucks right in front so people can't see what we're doing". Thanks guys. ;)

Half Colossus

What's up guys working in the station!!!

From what we could tell, absolutely nothing has been done on Scream yet. The trains are in the shed though, so they could be getting some TLC.

Yeah, that's gonna be fun.

Inside the park, the "Farewell Colossus" display has been re-purposed. I don't "hate" this, and I know that they aren't going to put the actual new trains out for people to ruin.

Still no artwork on the wall. There was a hole we could have used to get pictures of torn up concrete and what not ... but don't do that.

Around The Park

Not a whole lot else going on around the park, Holiday in the Park stuff continues to get removed.

Even though it was 75 degrees at the park, it's still "technically" winter. But Winter Wonderland is gone anyway.

Some new tables have been placed up near Superman (across from Laughing Dragon) but there are no food places up here to get anything. Huh.

This is why we suggest starting at the back of the park

Tidal Wave is closed, doesn't look like it's getting any work done, but it could sure use it.

We spotted some awesome new DC Domo Kun's in the games area, I'm not a big player of games, but I must get these. Again, you can click to see a larger version.

One other random note, while riding Apocalypse today, we saw them sandblasting/repainting a bunch of Jet Stream boats. Hopefully the work being done on them isn't just cosmetic.

Ride Sign Journey

We got a lot of great suggestions once again for our "Challenge Accepted" series, and we'll certainly get to them eventually. But today we wanted to have some fun so decided to take one from the first round and get pictures of all of the ride signs.

We were trying to figure out how to order these, alphabetical, a loop around the park, by color ... but in the end, I thought let's be controversial and post them in the order I'd rank them. And then we can let you all put up your rankings as well. So here it is, Gregg's ranking of the rides of Six Flags Magic Mountain (both coasters and flat rides). Don't kill me, because I know most of you won't agree with me.

Obviously once Twisted Colossus opens these will change. I also didn't include Scream as that ranking will also change once it's reopened/rethemed.

#1 - Still wish it was longer, but it packs a great punch and is very re-rideable.

#3 - Still one of the more intense rides in the park, and a favorite.

#5 - Still hoping one day we get one side forwards and one side backwards .

#7 - First non coaster on the list, was glad to see the flume getting some love this offseason and the boats today.

#9 - I've learned how to re-ride this better, but with no OTSR's, this is top 5 easily.

#11 - Do you want to walk up the hill? I didn't think so.

#13 - if this had sit-down trains, top 3 in the park, and probably in my top 25 period.

#15 - Built to last, Arrow quality at it's finest. Still fun for a few spins a year.

#17 - Still fun, but needs some loving (as we showed above)

#19 - 2009, probably #1 or #2 in the park. Maybe they should send RMC over for some topper track when they are done with Twisted Colossus.

#21 - Still a great looking Carousel

#24 - Who doesn't love a good Round-Up?

#23 - Buccaneer, still fun, Swashbuckler, doesn't count. Been closed too long.

#25 - The only Bugs Bunny World Ride worth mentioning, only because I wish there was a bigger version of this. =)

#27 - I usually try to forget this ride even exists. And I wish it didn't.

#2 - An absolute classic. Hopefully this never goes away.

#4 - Not the tallest, fastest or smoothest by any stretch, but a great, fun, classic ride.

#6 - Probably my least favorite Hyper coaster, but that first drop is still great.

#8 - I know, I know, too far on the list. I get that it's innovative and different, but I don't "get it". Still, it's fun once or twice a year.

#10 - Nothing better on a hot summer afternoon. Or first thing if you don't want to wait in line.

#12 - Do you want to walk down the hill? Also didn't think so.

#14 - LOVE, Love, LOVE this ride. If it wasn't so expensive.

#16 - The climb is worse than the drop. But it's a great view and a great ride.

#18 - So glad this ride is still here. I'm sure there aren't many of these left.

#20 - I know, I know, I know ... Tatsu is amazing and fast and fun and all that. I just don't care for it. I prefer the other flyers over this.

#22 - This received a great rehab this past year.

#23 - I love a good Bumper Car ride. This isn't one of those.

#24 - Really the only kiddie coaster in the park worth mentioning.

#26 - There are no words to describe the hatred I have for this attraction. The one time I rode it I felt like I was going to die. Not from the ride, from being sick.

#28 - This gets last on the list pretty much by default, as I haven't ridden it.

Alright, that's going to wrap it up for today's update. Hope you enjoyed it. Please don't hate me for my ride rankings, it's all fun. Feel free to share yours below or why you think I should give something another chance. Except Green Lantern and Slingshot. I'm not giving those more chances. =)

Thanks again for reading and supporting the site. We greatly appreciate it.

1/6/2015

Twisted Colossus Update #13

Happy New Year and welcome to our first Twisted Colossus update of 2015. There has been a LOT of work going on at the site over the past couple of weeks, not so much of things being built, but more things being torn down.

We'll also bring you the first edition of "Challenge Accepted" Journey. Because really, how many pictures of dirt and track do you need to see? And how many do we really need to take?

The Holidays are over, Holiday in the Park is over so now the focus shifts squarely to Twisted Colossus, the ScreamPunk District and everything that goes along with that including Scream(ing) for Sandwiches (see what I did there?).

As seen from the lot, a lot of the Colossus structure has been removed. I know this is disconcerting to a lot of people because it's not as big, but bigger isn't always better (see Phoenix at Knoebels).

Green Track ready to go somewhere. They were working in this area with the crane as I was leaving later in the day.

Colossus ... you have been chopped.

You can pretty much see all the way into the station from the parking lot now.

More work being done on the first turn around, looks like track could be ready to go up at any time.

They were also digging a hole ... like a VERY big hole. I don't recall this from the artwork or the animated POV. We'll keep an eye on it.

Sorry for the sun flare, it was bright. But basically the hole is deep enough where you can't even see the tractor that is digging it.

Signature Shot

Crane is ready to move some track

Inside the park ... a wall. I'd assume some kind of artwork will show up here shortly like they did for Lex Luthor and Full Throttle. Hopefully we'll get another hard hat tour once there is some work done. (hint hint)

"Fire Hydrant" Journey

Earlier today on our Facebook and Twitter pages we posted a question asking what else, other than coasters, people would want to see in our updates. We figured we'd see things like "Gardens" or "Games" or "Ride signs". But the first one we got was from Jim at Westcoaster, and being Jim it was a request for Fire Hydrants. Every Fire Hydrant in the park. So Challenge thrown out, and challenge accepted.

We'll be doing more of these in the future, because we got some really great suggestions, and why not have some fun with these updates and let you guys decide what they are about.

So if you have more suggestions, please share them with us, we'll certainly be up at the park enough to get through all of them. =)

So without further ado ... The Fire Hydrants of Six Flags Magic Mountain. If you can guess where they all are, you'll win absolutely nothing.

88 lines about 44 hydrants ... (well, 44 lines about 22 hydrants)

This is Priscilla. Note to readers ... don't go to Urban Dictionary for your definition of P.I.V.. Seriously, you'll have to clear your internet history.

This is Floyd, the most popular hydrant in the park. You should be jealous. He gets a lot of action. Just not from Priscilla.

Howard just laughs at the dude with glue in his hair. What does Got 2b Glude even mean?

Chelsea is camera shy and totally tried to run away when I was taking her picture. No TMZ update for you.

Drew is just waiting ... waiting and waiting. Smokey the Bear isn't amused at the reason Drew is waiting.

Ally is hiding in the bushes ... never trust Ally

Bruce is just lonely because Bruce used to have his own action show.

Clark is in disguise.

Nigel thinks he's a ninja. Nigel the Ninja. Who comes up with this crap?

Harry likes to disappear. Seriously, I walked by this one twice.

Franz is happy because he lives by the best ride ever.

Alex likes to eat healthy, but he can never seem to find it open.

Edward lost his marbles, and whatever covering goes there.

JB, which stands for Jemmifer (yes, Jemmifer) Bumblebee. You can usually find her down at the abandoned sports bar on the Old Road (if you know what I mean).

Mary is just hanging out, trying to catch a wave.

Jay can get your fire out in a flash ...

Diana just had some work done and likes to remind everybody. For some reason they can't seem to find her.

The Dude. He Abides. But can't find his rug. It really tied the planter together.

Walter is just waiting for his ride to reopen. Dude, seriously. What's up with that ride?

Vanessa warned me to stay away. Apparently there were zombies here not too long ago.

JONES!!!! (You know what I mean)

And last but not least, James. James is the life of the party, standing in the dance circle, never able to get out. Must be all the beer flavored Jelly Belly's.

Alright, that's gonna wrap it up for this little update. We hope you enjoyed our little bit of silliness to go along with another update. We promise we'll get a little more clever the next time around. We've already got some ideas for some of the suggestions we've had.

We should have another update soon.

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