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Everyone likes a good read from time to time, or even all the time. That's why our team of writers is constantly at work putting their opinions and insights into words, and this is the place to find their work: the Editorials & Articles section! We write about anything and everything, from the implications of the latest topics of news around the amusement industry, to the timeless topics of interest, to just plain satire. If you can think of a topic you would love to see in the form of an article, chances are you'll be seeing it in the future!
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Lost In History: As Thrills Become Memories
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Lost In History: As Thrills Become Memories / By: Devin Olson, Sunday, November 16, 2003 -
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Travel back in time just over two decades. You're at the grand debut of one of the largest, most promising steel looping coasters to date. Orient Express is standing proudly over Kansas City's Worlds of Fun, its shiny red tracks looping through elements never dreamed possible just a few years back, with one of only two sets of interlocking loops in the world and the first 'Kamikaze Kurve' inversion ever seen. Now let's jump ahead a few years, to 1988, when another Midwestern park is rolling out the new tallest, fastest looping coaster ever seen. Six Flags Great America's ShockWave can whisk you through a mind-boggling seven inversions from an amazing 17 stories high. Just the next year, a small park in Pennsylvania is making a name for itself with the claim to having the tallest, fastest wooden coaster ever conceived. Hercules at Dorney Park is what everyone's talking about, with its 151-foot plunge down a hillside towards the water below. And finally, Busch Gardens Williamsburg unveils Drachen Fire in 1992 as one of the most innovative looping steel rides, with an incredible six inversions including first-of-a-kind elements.
 Now what would you have said back then, if you were told that twenty or even ten years later, all four of these then-top-of-the-line coasters would be history? Indeed, just two years into the new millennium and ShockWave sits in pieces, while Orient Express is disassembled, Drachen Fire's steel has been melted down for other purposes, and bulldozers unmercifully rip down the wooden superstructure of Hercules that Curtis Summer and Charles Dinn's company put up such a short time ago.
 Coaster demolitions and removals were all too common a thing after the great wooden coasters of the roaring twenties surrendered to the Depression of the thirties, and World War II the next decade. But since the rebirth of the coaster and subsequent growth of simple thrill devices to landmarks on the sky, we had seen our mega-rides of today as untouchable monuments that we could walk away from at the end of the season with the assurance that the melting snow of the winter would reveal the same ride we had come to know, time and time again.
In the early 1990's, just after and around the time that our four now-defunct rides came on the scene, new players began to join the coaster-designing team that would up the standards of steel and wooden ride experiences. Those folks include Bolliger and Mabillard, in 1990, with their glass-smooth box-spined track; and Custom Coasters two years later, with revolutionary smooth wooden coasters and graceful curve transitions. So where does that leave the older-technology rides of the previous era? Losing popularity. And in the business world today, theme park owners have to listen to their patrons, and pay full attention to the numbers.
In Dorney Park's statement concerning the removal of Hercules, futile investment of millions into improving the wooden coaster and falling popularity were cited as reasons for the demolition. But even so, what Dorney ended up doing  was throwing away a once-great, once-loved milestone in wooden coaster history that still had potential. Although minor modifications were made to the rough-tracked woodie over the years including the infamous temporary wooden coaster fix of trim brakes, a complete mechanical overhaul and retracking using modern construction methods could have brought Hercules back to its former glory. Now the question arises as to whether Hercules’ sister ride at Ohio’s Cedar Point, the most infamous now-unpopular wooden coaster of them all, Mean Streak, will meet a similar fate to Hercules just around the bend, or if Cedar Point will restore the also once-largest wooden coaster back up to its standing as a popular wooden coaster.
With one park, complete removal of a major attraction isn't usually an option. Pennsylvania’s Kennywood Park has experience with revitalizing older attractions, and when popularity of that park's largest coaster, 1991's steel mega-coaster Steel Phantom fell due to growing roughness, Kennywood took advantage of the problem and demolished the problematic areas of the track, constructing a new second half to the layout. Improved-comfort trains with lap bars only completed the package, and Kennywood had a new hit when the coaster reopened as Phantom’s Revenge in 2001.
 On the bright side, the former site of Six Flags Great America's ShockWave is now home to the flying coaster experience Superman: Ultimate Flight while ShockWave awaits a new park for itself, and a new custom-designed floorless steel looper will take over where Hercules left off in 2005 at Dorney Park. But as with any situation, one good thing can't necessarily fully replace another. We can only hope that that more parks will only continue to expand  their coaster collections, and only supersede when absolutely beneficial. If anything, we've learned not to take our coasters for granted.
So farewell Hercules... Goodbye Drachen Fire... See you later ShockWave... Come back again Orient Express. Hopefully, we won't see this trend continue.
Ride artwork copyright respective parks.
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