October
30, 2005 The
first bents are in place as El Toro, the 2nd wooden coaster
planned for 2006 at Great Adventure, begins its rise.
View the photos at AmusementPics.com.
September
10, 2005 The
western side of Frontier Adventures (composing of Taz
Twister, Rolling Thunder, Tweety's Roundup and Rodeo Stampede)
has closed for the rest of the season so that construction
on the wooden coaster can continue. Tweety's Roundup and
Rodeo Stampede are already being disassembled for storage
to be relocated next season. Taz Twister will be removed
from the park. Rolling Thunder will resume operations
next spring. The new coaster will be built along the water
where many of those attractions currently sit and it will
also be built around and over Rolling Thunder's track
so it is necessary to close off this area of the park
to the public so that the construction can go at a reasonable
pace. Additionally, the first shipments of track have
arrived and are located in the former Season Pass parking
lot, behind Kingda Ka.
July
04, 2005 A
source that works within Jackson Township released information
about the new coaster set for 2006. They have recently
seen preliminary plans of the layout and it is pretty
interesting. The ride will use the existing Viper station
and the trains will leave the station in the same direction
that Viper did. The track will then make a u-turn and
head into the lift. Once it reaches the top, the track
will then u-turn again and head out towards Taz Twister
(Taz Twister will, of course, be removed, but La Cantina
will stay). At that point it will once again u-turn
and head back towards the station. It will go around
the station and then actually cross over (or under)
Rolling Thunder and actually have some elements in-between
Rolling Thunder, including some sort of helix. It will
then cross back over (or under) Rolling Thunder and
go back into the station. So in summary, it will indeed
use Viper's old location, but it will not go out behind
Medusa and utilize the woods in that direction.
The source is reliable and they tend to believe that
the lift is long enough for it to contend for the wooden
height record which is currently at 218', held by Son
of Beast at Paramount's King's Island. That might be
hoping for too much, but this layout and interaction
with Rolling Thunder is pretty much a sure thing.
June 03, 2005 The
Jackson Township planning board will address the topic
of a new roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure
at their next meeting on Monday, June 7. This is official
evidence of a major attraction and the first step the
park must take towards building a new major attraction.
To view the Jackson Township planning board agenda,
click here.
May
18, 2005 It
has been confirmed that Six Flags Great Adventure will
add a wooden coaster to their already stellar lineup
next spring. This was announced by a small German newspaper
and confirmed by several sources, including RCDB. The
coaster is being built by Ingenieur-Holzbau Cordes,
a European company that has already built two wooden
coasters, Colossos (Photo)at Heide-Park Soltau in Germany and Balder (Photo) at Liseberg
in Sweden. The following information was provided by
RCDB:
Starting
in August 2005 weekly shipments of parts will
be leaving the northern German harbor of Bremerhaven
and traveling across the Atlantic. 80 containers
total will be needed.
Ingenieur-Holzbau Cordes is the company that
manufactures the prefabricated track used
by Intamin on both the Balder at Liseberg
in Göteborg, Sweden and the Colossos
at Heide-Park Soltau in Soltau, Germany. While
it has yet to be confirmed, it is probably
a good guess this will be an Intamin wooden
coaster.
Information:
Name:
El Toro
Designer:
Intamin AG
Ride Type:
Wood - Out and Back
Top Speed:
70 mph
Max Height:
181 feet
Track Length:
4,400 feet
First Drop Angle:
76 degrees
Ride Length:
1 minute, 42 seconds
Number of Trains:
2
Cars per Train:
6
Passengers per
Train: 36
Airtime Hills:
7
Airtime S Turns:
2
Capacity:
1,500 riders per hour
Viper, a steel heartline coaster built by TOGO
in 1995, has been removed and land has been cleared for a
new attraction in 2006. Reports indicate that the ride will
be the wooden coaster that the park has needed for so long.
This ride will use Viper's existing station and will also
be built in and around Rolling Thunder's footprint. Read below
for more information:
Layout:
A reliable source has submitted the following general layout for the new coaster:
Construction:
September 10,
2005
The
Rolling Thunder area of the park has been closed off due
to construction.
