Last Ride

Announcements for new amusement park rides and attractions are heavy this time of year.  One thing that occasionally comes out with these announcements is rides that will not be around to see the 2014 season.  This year Six Flags announced that Rolling Thunder, a racing wooden coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure, would not be in the coaster line up next year.  The last day of operation is slated for September 8^th.  The removal of Rolling Thunder will drop Six Flag Great Adventure’s coaster count down to 12.

It was announced on 8/29 that Rolling
Thunder at  Six Flags Great Adventure
would give it's last ride on Sept. 8, 2013

Rolling Thunder has been operating at the park since 1979.  The announcement to remove this ride was met with the same cheers and jeers that come with any news of the removal of a ride.  Some people are happy to see the ride go, complaining that the ride had become rough or the ride was boring.  Others claim it was their favorite ride in the park or it was their first coaster and wish it was kept for nostalgic reasons.

The decision to remove a ride isn’t made lightly.  The following information may not be the exact way the company reached the decision to remove the ride.  It is merely a guess from me after working over 10 years in the amusement/resort industry.

Parks budget expenses for a ride at the beginning of the fiscal year.  They look at the amount of money spent on a specific ride from the previous years and calculate what they expect to pay.  Yearly expenses can include spare parts for the track, trains and sensors/computers as well as paint and queue repair.  They also include numbers for possible emergency repairs and parts like the lift chain that must be replaced periodically.  At the end of the season they calculate the actual cost of upkeep. Once you add the cost of labor to operate to the upkeep of the ride you arrive at the total cost for operating the ride.

The park uses turnstiles to calculate the number of riders a ride gives in a particular year.  If you divide maintenance and operational costs by the number of riders you get what it costs for each guest to ride a given attraction.  When the park is considering a new attraction these numbers can be used to analyze what attractions may have reached the end of their service life.  Once an attraction has reached this point it is possible for it to be sold and used elsewhere to breathe new life into it.  The attraction will be scrapped if the cost to relocate it is prohibitive.

Great American Scream Machine was Removed from Six Flags
Great Adventure near the end of the 2010 Season.

It has been stated on several sites that Rolling Thunder had been operating on only one side, indicating that the popularity of the attraction was down low enough that there was no need to open both sides.  It is sad to see an attraction go but this means that there can be new life with new attractions brought in.  For the 2014 Season Six Flags Great Adventures will see the addition of the world’s tallest drop tower, Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom, as well as a new animal exhibit.  You can read more about that here.

Three steel coasters have been removed from Six Flags Great Adventure over the past 10 years.  Viper (closed 2004) was replaced with El Toro in 2006.  Batman and Robin: Chiller was replaced by Dark Night for the 2008 season.  Great American Scream Machine was replaced with Green Lantern for the 2011 season.  What do you think of the removal of Rolling Thunder? Do you think we will see a new wooden coaster for the 2015 season at Great Adventure?





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