Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and I was dedicated to it and to this day i still miss it. Many nights where spent on the couch in my office dreaming about what a great day tomorrow will be. When I was younger, I would work double shifts during the summer and sleep in my hand-me-down 1970 F100. Waking up and walking track as the sun comes up, the smell of wood, grease, and electrical contact cleaner, watching as the rides structure cast a shadow from east to west. The endless use of problem solving skills keeps your mind sharp. To look back and think that I started at the bottom of the food chain, and I worked my way up with no regrets. Great times, But For many years at Six Flags I made recommendations and called for major changes, I found myself talking to a brick wall at the end of a way one street.

The cost of not implementing and accepting my changes cost the company dearly. I don’t even want to try to put a number behind it, but between having to make the changes after settling the lawsuits, and dealing with the bad publicity and the fines from local governments. It just really leaves me at a loss for words, and its the one thing that I wish I could change. I am still in close contact with all of my former coworkers, I still get calls every day asking how you fixed this or that and how you would trouble shoot or work around situations. This year, almost two years since Ive been gone, they have started to make the changes.

On March 9 2009, I posted on this blog about The Texas Three, A week later Six Flags announced that it would be taking major steps to take care of the problems with these rides.

Six Flags Chief Executive Mark Shapiro said he likes the “rickety nature’ of wooden coasters like the Texas Giant, but says it needs a smoother, faster ride and will have new trains installed as part of the renovation.

“The Giant is so huge. It’s turned into a dinosaur,” Shapiro said. “It needs a new life and we’re going to breathe new life into it.”

The Texas Giant opened in 1990 and is over 14 stories tall and 4,920 feet long. The ride lasts 2 minutes and 10 seconds and reaches speeds of 62 miles per hour.

Shapiro acknowledges that not all coaster enthusiasts will view the renovation as a positive change to the 18-year-old coaster but the rehabilitation of the Giant will be a key part of the park’s 50th anniversary.

So is it coincidence?, maybe, But a few days before we had hits to the site which where linked to the corporate offices of Six Flags. I certainly don’t take credit for anything, But I think its interesting that material I wrote in a memo in 2005 ended up in this years training material, as park procedures, and policy. It saddens me that all of this went down after I left, Perhaps if I stayed on and tried to resolve our material differences and work with the new management it could have amounted to something great. I am a firm believer in karma, I know that there is not a single person on this earth that can know or do everything and be right 100% of the time. (You engineers can GTFO now..) This is how its suppose to be, I’m sure there will come a time again when I must rise from the ashes and begin anew chapter.

In the recent months I have done a lot of traveling, I have been working as a independent theme park consultant for many parks across the country. Its a struggle, Its a lot different than what I’m use to, but I wont let it get me down. The best part about my new venture, I’m the boss. If my clients don’t listen to me, I can say, “I told you so” when it happens, and stick them with a nice bill to fix it. Who knows what the future might bring, But I know now that from here on out I’m not slowing down, and I’m not looking back. I’ve had a few job offers in the recent weeks, including one on Thursday from a recruiter for a management position at the Free Style Music Park, I tossed them my resume but I’m sure it will fall threw.

If you mixed the ending of “Dude, wheres my car?”, SuperBad, and American Pie and the 40 year old virgin and had the setting of the movie at any traveling carnival in Mexico, you would have this movie. I am a very tough critic to satisfy, If there is a period of 10 or more minutes where you haven’t laughed the move should not be a comedy. This movie is better off going straight to bargain DVD under the romantic comedy section. My colleagues had a few comments id like to share;

Colleen – “Perhaps this movie would have been funnier if we where all stoned?”

Jeff – “If that Himalaya hasn’t killed someone from the film crew I would be surprised.”

Shawn – “I’m glad this was free, Because it certainly wasn’t worth paying for.”

So In closing, If you have ever worked for a Theme Park, And you enjoyed working there and have some good memories, You will find this movie very boring. You should instead stay home, Get tore up and watch a good decent porno. You’d have the same effect with this movie from the comfort of your living room. Unless you are a true theme park fan, and have roller coaster in your movie collection, than don’t waste your money.

There is no substitute for good experienced operators, mechanical backups, and a solid maintenance plan. A computer system cannot monitor all the variables which which may lead to an accident. For example, On June 22nd 2008 at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, a 13 year old girls legs where severed when a cable on the ride snapped. In a statement from the attendant of the ride, she said that she “heard something snap”, and than told then main operator to press the E-stop. The computer would not have given any indication that the cable was about to fail, and unless the operators where watching the ride it is hard to tell if there could have been any other out come from this tragic event. Superman Tower of Power, has since been removed from the park.

The systems that power these rides are very basic in nature, they are custom tailored to each ride & park needs. The programmable logic controller, or PLC, is the rides brain. It is connected to an input and output system that takes information from the various sensors and process’s it. On the input side of the system you may have proxy switches, photo eyes, laser counters, switches, and push buttons. The output side is attached to the braking relay system, the block or zoning system, air gates, the lights for the push buttons and switches. Its impossible for me to list all the possible things, so keep in mind this just a small list. A human has to program the system, humans make mistakes. While these systems can sometimes have redundancy, often times they don’t. If a component fails, it can give the system bad information. Unless there is an redundant error checking function built into the system the computer can only act with the information it receives.

One summer I was working maintenance for a local theme park, and we got a call for a ride down with an E-stop. Upon reaching the ride we found it in the up position, moving slowly in the wrong direction of travel. The E-Stop light is clearly solid, So I perform a power disconnect so I can manually lower the ride by dumping the hydraulics. Its probably 108 on this day, AC isn’t working in the computer room and by now I can tell its going to be one of those days. Unload the guest off the ride, bring pressure back into the hydraulics, and restore power to the ride. As soon as powers restored, ride is once again running backwards slowly lifting back up. That E-Stop is still as red as ever, So I pull the E stop out and work to clear it from the computer. Ride goes nuts, spinning backwards, going up and down, all lights on the panel flashing. !-Smack-! – E-stop has been pressed again.

I disconnect the power again and adventure into the computer room, this system was a dinosaur by today’s standards. After an hour I called for help, and it came with a simple solution to a common problem. Replace the ram card. When the RAM failed on this machine, the computer defaulted to pulsing certain outputs to indicate system trouble. It just so happened that those outputs where connected to the hydraulics and the electric motor. While that system was a dinosaur, ten years later not much has changed in the way that control system is setup.

Newer rides I worked on in the late nineties had redundant systems, but they required at certain points to offload data to a desktop computer and which is then fed back into the system. Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of having redundancy if your one source of failure is an aging Pentium one desktop running windows 95 which handles cross checks and error handling. Lets be a little realistic here, 95 was a somewhat stable system for the time, but now we have much more stable choices to choose from. Can’t we upgrade? Of course we can, but because it cost so much to do it parks won’t, unless they have to. Because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. You have often heard me say that a rides fate is often decided when its operation worth is less than the cost to keep it running. There have been some great rides that where sound mechanically, but needed to have a electrical overhaul. What a waste of a perfectly good ride, rusting away in a field until scrap prices go up.

This is a big problem for our industry, While it doesn’t effect every ride at every park, the rides it does affect could turn into a serious problem down the road. We need to work to fix the gaps in our control systems, and to develop policies that promote an operator first line of defense against computer faults. Even tho our operators may only be 16 years of age, they are smart enough to know what the ride should and should not be doing. It comes with the experience of operating a ride for hours on end. Management is often so fixated on ride uptime that they punish there best operators for stopping the operation of a ride to investigate a problem. God forbid ride downtime on paper be a little high because an operator found something wrong. I have never disciplined an operator for stopping a ride as a safety precaution, But that doesn’t stop others from doing it. Computers don’t know when a guest is having a heart attack, or if the wheels are loose, or if that third rack on the restraint is worn out.

For far to long we have let the competition make us look like a joke. We have wondered too far away from our roots. Six Flags Inc. was grown on providing an experience, an atmosphere that can only be found at a Six Flags theme park. The parks may serve beer, food, sell merchandise, put on shows, but the one common element that has made this company what it is today is the rides. Don’t believe me, stand at the exit of the park and listen to the guest as they leave.

You will hear more about the experience they had on a ride than the food they had for lunch or the merchandise they bought in the store. I feel that we don’t need to build new rides this year. We need to focus on taking care of what we have and what we count on the most to make us successful. We tell our employees to provide a memorable guest first experience… yet we slave drive them for minimum wage salaries and make them feel like they are not valuable to this organization.

I think it would do this company a lot of good to take all of the executives, stick them on ride at one of the parks, and let them see what its like to work a ride for 14 hours straight with out a break. Let me assure you that it would be a very enlightening experience for them. If we are to receive the most benefit to our business from our work force, than we must see our employees as an asset to the company.

Do we really see a benefit from creating an employment atmosphere where over time employees have less desire to perform? We don’t, Our guest don’t. If our guest are not happy, and our rides are not running good, or running at all, we are not making any money. Our previous leadership ran the company into the ground, and because of that we all must make some sacrifices, but now we should make it a priority work to correct these problems and make it better for everyone.

I saw on the news today about a dear friend of mine getting $10 million in repairs… all I have to say is its a good start and about f-ing time.

I first rode this ride when I was not yet coaster addicted and, well, it scared me half to death! But I realised, once I had got off, just how much I had enjoyed the ride, so much so that I ran back round to re-join the 2-hour queue. I was much too young at that point to appreciate the magnitude and the sheer off brilliance of the ride. The way the ride is laid out gives you no time to pause and catch your breath before the next element wrenches your guts from their very foundations, each element even more forceful than the previous.

What stands out to me now every time I revisit Alton Towers, is just how incredible the ride looks, sunken into the ground as it is, only half visible to unsuspecting first timers. First timers are also in for a shock once they are released from the apex of the lift hill, as you quickly begin to realise that this ride is a lot fiercer than it looks from more stable vantage point. That is no mean feat either considering it’s one of the fiercest looking rides in the world, as you stand and watch it careen at speed around its twisted course.

The start of the ride is surprisingly not the lift hill or first drop, but the entrance to the queue line. The queue is as much a part of the ride as the Vertical Loop of the Zero-G-Roll. It’s one of the only rides that I have ever enjoyed the idea of having to queue for a long time for. This is because long queues mean that they have to open up the top area of the queue, which allows you some spectacular views from above the entire ride. The next bit of the queue brings you underneath the lowest point of the coaster’s first drop, where you also get your first sights of the waterfalls of blood! It is a cool feeling as the train flies over your head as it enters the first corkscrew. However, this is not as cool as the next bit of the queue, which has you standing on a bridge above a lake of blood with the Vertical Loop right in front of you, less than 10ft away. As the train flies around the loop, you are almost blown off your feet by the force of the wind it produces. Then you enter the “beast” themed, darkened station into which the sound of the creatures heartbeat is played through big bazooka Bose base speakers, further building the atmosphere and tension. So as you can imagine, by the time you actually board the ride and the restraint clicks close, you’re pretty pumped up already.

The suspense continues to build as you travel the lift hill. As you begin your rise, you catch a glimpse of what is to come, to your left and right, before disappearing into the trees on top of the hill. You come off the end of the lift with no particular speed as you turn to the left, dropping gradually down through the trees, at this point, it doesn’t feel like you’ve picked up any real speed at all. This, you quickly discover, is far from the truth as you realise just how much speed you’ve picked up by virtue of the fact that you go from being right way up to up-side down faster than it seems humanly possible! This, however, is nothing compared to the next element; the helix. This is the most forceful helix I have ever ridden; your guts feel like they are coming out of your feet as you exit the helix. It also feels like your feet are going to be ripped off by the mesh fencing that is surely too close as you traverse the helix, at least that’s how it feels. You then get pulled up into the Zero-G-Roll, which is surely not zero gravity? I’m not aware of a ride that travels through its Zero-G-Roll at such a speed. It pulls you round in the spiral at what seems to be an insane speed! You then pull up into the horseshoe turn which doesn’t give you a moment to pause from the forces before you’re plunged down to the rides lowest and fastest point at the bottom of the largest pit, before firing back up into the Vertical Loop. You exit the Vertical Loop through a tunnel, which again feels too small to fit through, at great speed, the feeling of which is added to infinitely by your closeness to the walls. You then soar through a floating turn to the left, which has you diving down into the ground once again and through another corkscrew, through more tunnels in the process as you see a pick-up truck fly past your feet! Followed by the final turn into the brakes, which gives you your first chance to think about what has just happened.

In my honest opinion, this is surely among the very top few rides on the planet. No matter how many times I ride it, it still shocks me every time. It is a work, of absolute genius. Credit goes to Gouldy for writing this article.

The theme. Unlike any other, you walk into an older building that is themed as Gotham’s prime construction unit. While first entering you feel somehow cold and uneasy. The stairs up to the main loading station seem to never end, but finally, you reach the top. The hallway suddenly resembles what appears to be the “bat cave.” The train slowly rolls into the station as the lights dim. When the train stops, the subtle vibrations stop as well. You enter the grey and black cars and pull the cold, manufactured shoulder harness down. But then the lights dim once more, and your journey begins.

On the lift you get a great view at The Riddler’s Revenge. I find this ironic in the greatest way. Once you reach the top , the train slowly rolls over the top and into the pre-drop. In the front you go right into the first REAL drop, but in the back, you feel some negative vertical G’s and followed by a quick turn to the left. Being an inverted coaster, you feel the sense of swinging into the turn.

After the never ending first drop there is a certain sequence of elements that you will find on a B&M invert: a loop- 0G roll -loop. This sequence isn’t like a similar sequence, it seems way more powerful and compact. The first loop will not surrender on the G force as you whoosh over the inverted crest of the loop. The 0-G roll is one of my favorite elements EVER made. The train quickly lifts and then turns so fast over the roll that you have no idea what just happened. The following loop is similar to the first one, but seems a little less forceful. Still on the run, the train doesn’t seem to stop.

The next turn is a very VERY small turn nearly hitting the main building. As you pull your feet in to save them you seem to already be past the building. A short turnaround point is now underway. Once you reach the end you suddenly are whipped to the right only to be going into a filthy graveled front yard of the station. As you end the turnaround the ride goes into a corkscrew.

The corkscrew (otherwise known as the Wing-Over on B&M inverts) is very forceful and disorienting. As you reach the beginning the floor seems to disappear. The ride quickly pulls up, twists, and then pulls up once more. After the corkscrew you see a little part of the queue for a split second, but are then swung up and sharply turned to the right. As the ride prepares for the next corkscrew, you feel freer than ever before as you swing by the themed “Gotham Streets.” Once more you see the floor drop as you are raised up into the very compact twist.

The final turn is somewhat easy to handle… WRONG!!! You fly to the left with ease and finally are turned to the left very sharply into the pitch black, dank building from which you begun. The ride is let go of the final brakes and pulled slowly into the station as the lights dim once more. You push up the shoulder harness and walk through the exit out of the station. Once outside you walk down a little bit then you walk under the 0-G roll. Past that is the rest of Gotham Park.

Overall I love this ride for the theme and small area. IMO, everything you need for a great coaster. This is definitely my favorite ride and I don’t think any ride will beat it! This post written by Turbo.

theme park consulting

Kumba Starts out with one of the greatest drops I have ever experienced. The ride in general provides a great front-row experience, and I would highly recommend waiting the extra time for it. You fall to the ground, and even though B&M has used this type of drop many times, the twisting turning motion with the fall is very unique. It winds perfectly into the loop, which binds around the lift. The loop has perfect forces it seems. It executes the loop with grace and power, and the elements only get better as they go on.

The dive loop on this ride is great. The bank flow is perfect. The forces are plentiful at the beginning, but as you turn upside down the forces release and the falling feeling resumes the riders once again. The pull up has nice forces and once the track has you upright again, you’re looking straight into the eyes of the zero-g roll.

The rotation of Kumba’s zero-g roll is more intense and faster than any other zero-g I’ve experienced. It’s over quickly but it has a greater affect on you than any other part of the ride. After the zero-g you dip into a trench and gently glide over a small hop. This is the point between the zero-g and the cobra roll, the two most powerful points on the ride, and unfortunately (or is it fortunate? haha) you don’t have much time to prepare for the cobra.

Now entering the cobra roll; in the front, it is non-stop intense positive force. Twisting this way and that, and then back the same way; it is about a 5 second endeavor and you’re thankful for the small rest that awaits you at the top of the hill after the cobra roll. After the brakes, a quick twisting drop leads you into a tight corkscrew chain link, both corks, and the turnaround that coincides them, are forceful.

After the corkscrews you are really wondering how much more force this ride can provide. But it isn’t over yet! A gentle but very fearsome hill comes next. It is slightly banked to the left and gives a small amount of floater airtime. At the very end of this hill, the ride cuts tightly to the left and drops you into the ground.

Turning to the right, you enter the final helix which provides you with a lot of force to finish off this amazingly forceful ride. And that’s Kumba, and words can only begin to describe it! This article was written by Gerstlcrazy. theme park consulting

Laser’s popularity started to slip to this new great ride. A few years later new trains came and some of the rides popularity came back but by now Cedar Fair owned the park. Over the years they put in many great coasters, Steel Force 1997, Wild Mouse 2000, Talon 2001, Hydra 2005, and Possessed 2008. Over this time Laser’s popularity toke a sharp decline. It was too small and too short most people thought. Due to its reduced popularity the ride was neglected. During its last three seasons it only operated one train and its dispatch time was about 5 times longer then it had been. It was clear that the ride was not going to stay for long.

In 2007 people around the park said it would not be there for the next season. They were almost right. The ride opened late and closed early. Then in mid 2008 it was up for sale. That’s when many were pleased. It was going to a new home where it would be taken care of. Many hoped this classic coaster would be saved by the park that has many of Dorney’s defunct rides. But Knoebels was not about to buy the ride. People started thinking Moreys would buy it but again, no dice. Eventually a German bought the ride and it was deconstructed and placed into 22 brown shipping containers. Now there is just an empty plot of land where the Laser once stood.

However, with death of one attraction comes the birth of another. Ceder Fair has two more coasters to build to fulfill two contracts they have. One is a B&M hyper the other a GCII. Many are hoping Dorney gets the wooden coaster but now people have started throwing out spinners and mega-light as possible additions. While nothing is set in stone this space is still there and hopefully it will be filled quickly. Possessed was the kick the area needed and now if another big attraction goes there it will do even better.

Most people liked the Laser because it was “just right”. Not too tall or fast but not too dull or tame. The ride was very smooth and very forceful. The helix easily dominated any helix on any ride in the area. Steel Force is the only thing that comes close. Many people liked it for its perfect punch. Many also think that if Dorney and Cedar Fair would have taken care of it better, the ride would still be popular and thus still at the park. This will never be known but the locals still remember the good old days. Laser reminded people of the pre-chain Dorney. Many liked it for its history and its putting the park on the map. With its removal only three rides remain from pre-chain Dorney. Thunder Hawk (Coaster), The Whip, and the Zephyr train. Luckily though, these rides are landmarks and unless something natural damages them they will stay. Credit goes to Tetsu for writing and submitting this article. theme park consulting

The cost to enter a theme park is quite expensive but most of us pay the fee and enjoy ourselves the entire day. Some of us purchase season passes to enjoy the park the whole year. Especially if we live close to them.

So what can you do to get tickets to theme parks for less? Buy them online. All theme park chains like Six Flags and Cedar Fair allow you to buy day tickets, season passes and merchandise and you pay less for them online than buying them at the theme park itself.

If you live close to othe rparks of the same theme park chain, you can browse online what the season passes cost for those parks. Since you could use the season pass of one park at other parks, baring in mind they must belong to the same theme park chain, you can usually buy a season pass to a park that costs less and use it without restriction at other theme parks.

For example, if you live in Texas, you can browse the several Six Flags theme parks around you and find one where the season pass to it is about 50% less than the next one. So to save money, purchase the Six Flags season pass to the park that costs less. Print your pass online and then just drive down to the park to have your picture taken and there you go, you have just saved 50% on a season pass where otherwise you would have paid much more at your nearest theme park gates.

Click the following Six Flags banner so you can browse ticket prices online and make your purchase there:

We hope you have a great day at Six Flags and to get the most out of it, purchase a season pass so you can go various times throughout the year without having to pay each time that you go.
Enjoy!

Long before the Rattler or the Legendary Texas Giant cast a shadow upon this great land there was the Texas Cyclone. Located at Six Flags Astroworld in Houston, It was built in 1975 after a failed attempt to purchase and relocate the then dilapidated Coney Island Cyclone. After some research the park hired William Cobb to design a mirrored replica of the original Coney Island Cyclone in New York. There is a saying that everything is bigger in Texas, And the Cyclone was no exception. After delays from tropical storm damage, The ride finally opened June 12th 1976. After just one year of operation the ride had its first of many safety upgrades, with seat belts being installed in 1977. The following year in 1978, Seat dividers where installed after complaints of guest getting squashed by the person sitting next to them. Major changes came in 1979 when the ride was engineered to prevent the train from stalling or in a some cases valleying in high winds.

“If you make it too smooth, it’ll be like sitting in your living room.”

– William Cobb

The safety changes made over the years did little to curve the amount of guest-at-fault-related injuries sustained on the ride, with the onslaught of several lawsuits the trains where replaced with Morgans “Coffin Car” units on the 10th anniversary of the Texas Cyclone. The coffin car units where an excellent solution to stopping guest from hurting the selves, but they provided a very poor experience for the guest. It would be 2001, The Cyclones 25th birthday before guest could one again properly experience this great ride. 1977-1978 & 2001-2005 are in my opinion the rides golden years, the ride was old enough to provide a solid service, and lucky enough to not have suffered any negative performance reducing safety systems.

Sept. 12, 2005–Six Flags, Inc. today announced that it will permanently close its AstroWorld theme park in Houston at the end of the 2005 season, and that it has engaged Cushman & Wakefield to market the 109-acre site to the real estate development community.

Tragically the Cyclones time came on March 3rd 2006, falling victim to a management team struggling to manage a $3 Billion debt load. This ride was not the tallest or fastest ride in the world, It was not the most unique ride in the world, But the ride had a heart and soul uniquely its own, and that’s all that counts. To many the world has not been the same after the loss of this ride, Rumor has it that one even committed suicide shortly after watching the rides demise. Her memory shall live on.

The Texas Giant – Six Flags Over Texas

1989 brought forth the desire for Six Flags Over Texas to build a record breaking wooden roller coaster, A ply named The Texas Giant. When it opened March 17th, 1990 it was the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world at 143 FT. Just after a year of the rides operation the trains where shortened to just six cars. When the ride gained popularity in the mid nineties it graced the cover of national geographic in 1997, Inside Track in 1998, and won a coveted golden ticket in 1999. The glory days of the Texas Giant where shattered when the Son of Beast at Paramount’s Kings Island smashed five records, including height and speed, and was the first to incorporate a vertical loop in a wooden roller coaster since 1907. With the spotlight no longer on the ride, and ridership declining Six Flags made the decision to cut its extended maintenance service on the Texas Giant in 2002. The Giant quickly became known as an extremely ruff ride, guest continued to complain until 2005 when additional safety and speed regulation measures where added. 2006 brought seat belts and brake timing adjustments, It also made three train operation a very rare event. The last couple years have been rough for this former record holder, with re-ridership falling dramatically since 2007. Every winter a section of the ride is rehabbed, But its simply not enough to restore this ride to its former glory. Long gone are the days of flying threw the mid course brake run and the great perimeter finally, once a staple of this ride. I spent 14 years around this ride, I rode it everyday for many of those years. Its simply not the same, I don’t think it ever will be. Long gone are the days of the train running flat out at maximum forward speed into the plume of steam from the General Sam Houston as it departs from Texas Depot. I visit every so often, But I am quickly reminded of a fallen friend lost in a tornado of swirling cash. So much for where fun was born.

The Rattler – Six Flags Fiesta Texas

One summer in 1992 my family and I made a trek down from North Texas to San Antonio to visit a small theme park simply called Fiesta Texas. Standing in front of me, on top of the quarry, a monstrous, nicely stacked, pile of wood and bolts casting a shadow over me. It called and beckoned me to ride it, But after I saw the first train clear the lift and rapidly descend into the bottom of the canyon, it made me have second thoughts. I never thought I would see a train built by the Philadelphia Toboggan company reach terminal velocity. My view of guest in pain as they got off the ride from the queue line didn’t help ether. It was great till the first drop, After that it was like being in a three minute train crash. I was in pain after the first drop. I knew once we hit the final set of brakes something was wrong, We had stopped so I heard that the wheels where still spinning under the train. After the maintenance crew comes and clears the problem, and me being in the same profession I just had to ask what happened. I was informed that a bolt had fallen off the train, hit a proxy switch, and trigger a ghost train E-stop with balloons and confetti. After further shop talk I was then told that it was standard procedure to rebuild the trains every night, Because the abuse they took after 10 hours of operation would shake every part loose on the trains. Now at this point your probably wondering why the rides on this list, Well three years after my rough ride the rattlers 165 foot drop was shortened to just a 130 feet, erasing its place in the history books. Just a year later more safety upgrades, Specially modified trains to handle the abuse and a new disclaimer on the sign out front. In 1998 Six Flags purchased Fiesta Texas, and the competition between the Rattler and the Texas Giant ended. Over the years the ride has fared pretty well, But like the Giant it succumbed to the lack of finical interest from Six Flags management and 2003 brought the first signs of trouble, with screaming trains and injuries. 2005 found the helix being re-enforced with cross bracing as a temporary fix to prevent excessive lateral play in the running rails. In 2007 the ride received its much needed sectional rehab, But its just simply not enough. And while the trains can make it all day with out loosing any bits or pieces its still one hell of a ride.