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Kennywood | Steel Curtain | S&S Multi-looper

It’s awesome!

Rode it once today, 3rd row. Got to the park at opening, immediately went to the ride but they wouldn’t let people in until 11:10. From there it was only about 30 min for me with one train ops. So technically I waited an hour but easily could’ve been a lot worse if I showed up 10 minutes later.

It was smooth and comfortable, and it honestly looks great. The inversions were fun, they flow really well together. Some good airtime pops but nothing too outstanding. What really surprised me were the positive g forces in the first half of the ride...they felt awesome but they weren’t trying to kill you as well which I liked. All of the elements were solid, though can’t really figure out which singular element was the best for me. I think the hill-dive loop-stall combo was the most fun.

I really enjoyed it, had a smile on my face on the break run.

The park clearly has a winner here, everyone was into it. It’ll likely go down as the park’s star attraction from now on.

Oh, and Phanny is better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Bump.

Ooof.

www.kennywood.com

Steel Curtain Update | Kennywood

www.kennywood.com www.kennywood.com

To increase ride reliability and longevity, the Steel Curtain will undergo an extensive modification project this year. The park has worked with third-party engineers and the ride’s manufacturer to determine a long-term solution that will allow the ride to run without interruption. The coaster will be closed for the entirety of the season as we work on this project.
Click to expand...
 
Colour me not surprised 🤣

Through a lucky piece of timing I was able to ride on opening weekend in 2019. I showed up at 8am on a Sunday unaware that it'd had a ****SHOW opening day and turned away most guests who'd tried to ride. I was guest #15 out of approximately 2500 locals that showed up for the coaster that morning, even though it wasn't scheduled to open until noon and churned out a train every 7-8 minutes at least. True to their word I snagged an excellent front row ride at 12:30-ish and haven't been to Kennywood since.

Point is that it was a guaranteed opening and probably the best opportunity possible anyone could have to ride. Since then it's literally been harder to catch open than 2016 Lightning Rod due to an incredible amount of issues. The coaster was incredibly expensive, has extremely poor capacity, and has had major problems ranging from the structure, programming, trains, bolts, and foundations. All from a simple two-train lift hill attraction.

Part of this is on Palace Entertainment, who turned down an Intamin bid in favor of S&S on the grounds that it was cheaper and a then-belief that the North American-based coaster manufacturers could sustain local demand. They did push S&S to cut corners for costs, which didn't work at all to save money and only damaged the ride design. S&S also had a reputation for making very unreliable coaster projects, and the Steel Curtain disaster combined with a few other project issues and tariffs stopping Chinese demand has tanked sales. Currently most of their new business is in Saudi Arabia, but they're not likely to ever sell another major coaster in the States.

Palace is god awful at ride procurement and Steel Curtain ****ting the bed only taught them the wrong lessons. Kennywood floated cool spinning tower ride proposals for a new 2023 attraction, but instead plopped down a gimmicky Zamperla ride in the cheapest, laziest, and least appealing way possible. Steel Curtain has driven them to no risk at all purely because it was such a poor project.

Hope they're able to salvage Curtain because it's an incredibly fun ride, but seriously it's a masterclass in how to **** up a headliner addition. It has contributed to nothing but some nice press and a massive problem child.
 
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Oh wow. I rode it one time a couple of years ago but the line took forever and they were either running one train only or maybe two but clearing the blocks and jogging the train up the lift to do so, and it went down pretty soon after I got on it.

Going again this year but had already assumed I wouldn't get a ride in.

I remember it was fun but honestly needed a few more rides to get a feel for it.
 
I was planning to visit this year to hit up all the rides that were closed in 2020. Guess I might reconsider that.

Knowing how bad S&S screws up anything that's not a Screamin' Swing, shot tower or Free Spin, I'm kinda surprised Kennywood even went with S&S for something as one of a kind as Steel Curtain was. Hopefully Kennywood learned their lesson on building rides on the cheap using a completely unreliable manufacturer.
 
TPoseOnTantrum said:
Colour me not surprised 🤣

Through a lucky piece of timing I was able to ride on opening weekend in 2019. I showed up at 8am on a Sunday unaware that it'd had a ****SHOW opening day and turned away most guests who'd tried to ride. I was guest #15 out of approximately 2500 locals that showed up for the coaster that morning, even though it wasn't scheduled to open until noon and churned out a train every 7-8 minutes at least. True to their word I snagged an excellent front row ride at 12:30-ish and haven't been to Kennywood since.

Point is that it was a guaranteed opening and probably the best opportunity possible anyone could have to ride. Since then it's literally been harder to catch open than 2016 Lightning Rod due to an incredible amount of issues. The coaster was incredibly expensive, has extremely poor capacity, and has had major problems ranging from the structure, programming, trains, bolts, and foundations. All from a simple two-train lift hill attraction.

Part of this is on Palace Entertainment, who turned down an Intamin bid in favor of S&S on the grounds that it was cheaper and a then-belief that the North American-based coaster manufacturers could sustain local demand. They did push S&S to cut corners for costs, which didn't work at all to save money and only damaged the ride design. S&S also had a reputation for making very unreliable coaster projects, and the Steel Curtain disaster combined with a few other project issues and tariffs stopping Chinese demand has tanked sales. Currently most of their new business is in Saudi Arabia, but they're not likely to ever sell another major coaster in the States.

Palace is god awful at ride procurement and Steel Curtain ****ting the bed only taught them the wrong lessons. Kennywood floated cool spinning tower ride proposals for a new 2023 attraction, but instead plopped down a gimmicky Zamperla ride in the cheapest, laziest, and least appealing way possible. Steel Curtain has driven them to no risk at all purely because it was such a poor project.

Hope they're able to salvage Curtain because it's an incredibly fun ride, but seriously it's a masterclass in how to **** up a headliner addition. It has contributed to nothing but some nice press and a massive problem child.
Click to expand...
So there was an Intamin bid eh? What type of Intamin and was there any chirps about the layout?
 
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ViperGTS500 said:
So there was an Intamin bid eh? What type of Intamin and was there any chirps about the layout?
Click to expand...
Not much to say, really. After the RMC proposal went belly up Kennywood set their sights on a looping hyper coaster, with all very similar proposals in mind from three front-running manufacturers. Not certain on whether the third was Mack or Vekoma but either way they wouldn't have been drastically different from the attraction we got.
 
Just read about the 2024 closure...honestly unfortunate, can't understand how a coaster with a relatively basic concept can have such a terrible operating track record.

*Sees coaster was manufactured by S&S to save some $$$*

Well, duhhh, what did you think was going to happen?

Blows my mind how after all this time parks think they'll go the cheap route in the short run only to deal with a mariad of issues for the long term, which costs them more $$$ and headaches then if they would have just ponied up the bucks for a proven manufacturer.
 
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