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Cedar Point to close Snake River Falls

JoshC.

Strata Poster
Cedar Point are closing Snake River Falls on September 2nd:


It is closing to make way for an as yet not revealed "future expansion", so that's something to keep an eye on...
 
Alright let's compile some information here;

April 27, 2024; That survey for new coasters included a Vekoma Tilt, stupid Mack Xtreme spinner tower, Zamperla family shuttle coaster, and a Mack water coaster (leaking a pitch for Freizeitpark Plohn's 2026 project, meaning that they've indeed already had meetings with Mack reps).

Exactly one week later; Tony Clark confirmed that a contract had been signed for "the next big whatever" the week previous. It'd been assumed to be a 2025 waterpark addition, since they'd just removed two very similar slides at the same time as Dorney (who've been explicit about 2025 replacements on their end), but no timeline was given in this statement and it could very well be this project.

I find it VERY interesting that these two developments apparently happened within the space of a couple days.

In any case, here's the land we now have to play with between Snake River Falls and this side of the now-former Forbidden Frontier. Definitely opens up a decent chunk of room.
Screen Shot 2024-08-02 at 11.48.08 AM.jpg
 
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Aqua Trax that doesn't look slow?
Dang beat me to it!

So for general state of play, this opens up yet more real estate around Millennium Island, as Forbidden Frontier and Snake River Expedition boat ride are also now retired. A lot of leeway and layout availability… if anything were to actually be forming.

Also, if removing Snake River Falls helps preserve Cedar Creek Mine Ride for real estate sake - count me in!
 
I would love to see a high capacity high thrill coaster in this plot. It would help with crowd management to have a third major coaster in the area to draw some of the crowds away from Steel Vengeance and Maverick when their lines are long. Plus it would help distribute the crowd every time one of those two dumps their queue because of maintenance headaches.

Edit: so maybe NOT an extreme spinner, unless Mack can figure out how to triple the capacity of Ride to Happiness. According rcdb, RtH only does 550 riders per hour, which is even worse capacity than Maverick.
 
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I would love to see a high capacity high thrill coaster in this plot. It would help with crowd management to have a third major coaster in the area to draw some of the crowds away from Steel Vengeance and Maverick when their lines are long. Plus it would help distribute the crowd every time one of those two dumps their queue because of maintenance headaches.

Edit: so maybe NOT an extreme spinner, unless Mack can figure out how to triple the capacity of Ride to Happiness. According rcdb, RtH only does 550 riders per hour, which is even worse capacity than Maverick.
RTH is only designed to run two trains and has no mid-course brake run. Plus, the 550ph figure is inaccurate. That would mean a dispatch every 104 seconds, but this POV shows the second train leaving the station less than 90 seconds after the first:


This puts the throughput closer to 650pph — which is still bad, but getting the dispatch time down to 60 seconds with three-train ops and MCBRs would already bump it to 960pph, which would be more in line with how Cedar Point coasters normally operate.
 
RTH is only designed to run two trains and has no mid-course brake run. Plus, the 550ph figure is inaccurate. That would mean a dispatch every 104 seconds, but this POV shows the second train leaving the station less than 90 seconds after the first:


This puts the throughput closer to 650pph — which is still bad, but getting the dispatch time down to 60 seconds with three-train ops and MCBRs would already bump it to 960pph, which would be more in line with how Cedar Point coasters normally operate.

The second launch acts as MCBR, with the block ending after the train has cleared the dive loop.
 
Also worth noting, Curse of the Werewolf at Epic Universe appears to be the same model (Xtreme Spinner), even if it doesn't have any inversions or thrill elements, and that coaster has 5 car trains. With this, pre-boarding lockers, and separate load/unload stations, I think a park could really push the capacity on these, if needed.
 
That thing looks like a rust bucket now, and I think we all knew it was on borrowed time. It's still an iconic ride in that area of the park, but I'll take a new ride over something I barely ever rode for reasons pertaining to vanity, even though it was quite fun 😂.
 
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