Companies like Morgan, CCI, TOGO, etc. all vanished around 2000-2001 or so. Was there some sort of decline in amusement ride manufacturing at the time? What happened?

So we’re on a trip right now and ofc if ur doing Benelux RtH has to be included. Unfortunately on train 2 (the only train operating throughout the day) on board audio was not working. I normally prefer front row on it but this time we went for the back most of the time (each row is a banger so no problem). Now unfortunately at some point the ride ops (who recognized us) felt we where fighting the restrains to much so they gave each of us an extra strong push to staple us (to a point it hurt) but I guess that’s on us (me specifically cause i was really pushing it). They will remember you for the rest of the day and you will get pushed in again. (I’m not complaining her just a warning for ppl trying to get more than a fist of room in the restraint). I was still able to fight for some room cause completely stapled the restraints hurt me and I don’t want that.

Well enough yapping I still love the ride and it’s still my number 3

Well it's getting to be that time of year again. The days are getting shorter and the leaves are falling. Soon most seasonal parks are going to start locking up for the winter. My home park only has 2 weekends left. With that in mind, I figured I'd ask. What does everyone do for fun in the off season? Do you go to year round parks? Do you listen to coaster podcasts? Something completely different? I'll start and say that I also act in community theatre and it's a great wintertime activity.

Courtesy of Duke Home Video.com The Best Of ULTIMATE RIDE DVD (One of my old purchased collections)

I was at Suzuka Circuit with my family and we came across this small roller coaster. It’s a motorcycle coaster that simulates racing, similar to Tron from Disney World but more tame.

It‘s a nice small ride for younger people but it’s quite rough. In particular I don’t like the restraint design. It’s secure but when I was riding it, as I’m a larger rider, it made my knees hurt a little.

Overall it’s a unique ride but it falls short compared to other rides in Japan.

For me, I would say that Velocicoaster would be the one I want to say get a duel.

If you don’t get the question: if you could add a second side/duel to any non dueling coaster, what would it be?

This has got to be the most underrated coaster out there... Steepest drop in the world. 7 inversions. Incredible launch. Amazing view of the NYC skyline. What more can you ask for?

I rode this thing 61 times yesterday and it is now genuinely in my top 15 out of nearly 250 credits.

People talk about it being rough, and although it was rattling a bit in the front row, the back was pretty damn smooth.

I really enjoy Eurofighters in general, but this one takes the cake!

Interested in hearing other's opinions to see why this ride doesn't get the praise it deserves.

Any of y'all from the Planet Coaster 2 modding community probably know me from my Vekoma MK1101 mod, for its overhaul I am including a dedicated Super Boomerang model, which I plan to give the moving station platforms that retrack when the ride is active too.

I was wondering if anyone knows, has or can get me some reference on what the mechanism used on these platforms looks like so I can accurately model it in game?

Since there is only 2 Super Boomerangs out there I understand if it's not easy to find for them, but I will go on a limb and assume the mechanism for the platforms on the Family Boomerang is the exact same thing, so if you have reference on the mechanism of family boomerangs, feel free to share it, too!

I specifically need to see how the platform moves and is connected, so I can accurately animate it for in game.

Thank you so much! Lot of Love<3
-DotNet

I mean one that is intense for all rows. SuF’s pretzel loop is cited usually, but you have to ride in the back half of train for it to be really intense. I am specifically talking about six flags great America in gurne, not California’s great America.

I saw nothing about the future for the site and appart from Ragin’ Cajun/ Barrels Of Fun they’re all SBNO. Any news or rumors ?
P.S. sorry if someone already talk about that in the past weeks.

Pick the back car and brace for this drop right after the mid-course brake run, you’ll be practically launched out of your seat. The following speed hill
also has some nice floater and the drop into the tunnel gives one last solid pop too. Combine that with a forceful loop and it’s Germany’s most underrated coaster, in my opinion.

best coaster on earth

Brazilian Park Washuzan Highland was a park that I had only known about extremely vaguely; I knew it was a park gone slightly to seed, without a lot of investment in recent years, but was in possession of some rare Togo models that were, as far as I knew, still up and running.

This all changed when I heard that Nagashima Spaland’s Ultra Twister was now SBNO and had been for quite a few months, even having been erased from the park map. Getting a ride on this rare breed before they all went to the great theme park in the sky was on my bucket list, and since I wasn’t sure when I would be in Japan again, my brain kicked into overdrive trying to figure out how to make this happen.

There are two ultra twister models still extant: one at Rusutsu Resort in Hokkaido, which was simply too far from where we were (Osaka). The other? At Washuzan Highland near Okayama, and sitting down and mapping out the trip, it seemed *genuinely* doable.

So the day we were supposed to be resting, I woke up early, bade farewell to my friend (who, saner than I, would be going up to Kyoto for the day), and took an early Shinkansen to Okayama. There, I transferred to the Marine Liner train which would take me to Kojima. From Kojima station, a bus runs every hour, dropping me off at the main entrance about 15 minutes before park opening.

I had hoped the ticket booths would be open, but it was not to be: in typical small-park fashion, the shutters rose at 10AM on the dot. It was a good thing I had cash on me, as the park was cash-only, and a couple thousand yen later, I was in, along with a gaggle of maybe five other people in total. It was not going to be busy today, despite it being a Saturday.

The first thing you notice when you walk in is **Ultra Twister**, parked directly in front of the entry plaza like a sentry. I didn’t notice it running, but then again, there was no one else in the park!

Nothing stopped me from walking up to the loading platform, which I took as a good sign, and there was indeed one surly operator parked in the booth who waved me onboard (after depositing all of my things in a locker, as is traditional Japanese custom). I offered up a thank-you to the coaster gods as I sat down and locked my restraints.

Ultra Twister is… weird! It’s fun! It also stops on the midcourse like it hit a brick wall! I recommend bracing at this part, because I’m pretty sure it gave me a mild concussion. Apart from that, though, the inline twists are awesome with lots of hangtime, the vertical lift and first drop are freaky as hell – reminded me of how Takabisha’s drop felt, actually – and the bunny hill gives a serious pop of floater.

I stayed aboard for a couple rides until I had my fill, then moved on.

There’s another rare model here, and that’s the Togo stand-up coaster; but it runs on a bit of a weird schedule. **Pink Typhoon** operates with both backwards sit-down and stand-up trains, and switches out between the two throughout the day. The sit-down train opens with the park, so it was this variant that I experienced first. From here, it was a pleasant ride: I was expecting a lot more roughness, but the cars tracked very smoothly and the helix delivered some serious force I wasn’t expecting.

The stand-up train wasn’t scheduled to start running until 1PM, so I resolved to come back later and set about in search for the last roller coaster at this park.

The last coaster – **Chupy Coaster** – is up a hill. Let me provide some more detail: it is up several flights of stairs. To go slightly more in depth: you will climb a vertical elevation change of roughly 200 feet.

No, there is no escalator.

There’s a reason why this park is called *Highland*, and the reward you get for climbing a literal mountain are some seriously beautiful vistas and a classic Japanese-style jet coaster with, again, stunning views.

I took the scenic path down (there are, thankfully, ramp detours to avoid the stairs, although this does take much longer), taking in the park along the way. The ferris wheel looked to be out of commission, as did several flats I saw on the way down – including a seriously rusted-over set of swings and a teacup ride caked over with detritus. It’s clear this park needs a lot of TLC, and it’s not something that a new coaster can fix – although Washuzan Highland needs that, too.

With nothing else to do, I parked myself in the plaza where some performers were gamely dancing to a crowd of maybe ten people. The show went on for far longer than it had any right to, considering they were dancing to a soundtrack that looped once every 15 seconds or so.

A few minutes before the train switch for Pink Typhoon, I headed over to the station in the hopes of seeing the transfer track in action (we’re all nerds here and I’m comfortable sharing this in a safe space). Here, I witnessed something amusing: the stand-up train failed to catch the lift chain on its initial test run, stalling out a couple of feet from the station. If this was a corporate park, I would’ve been afraid for my chances for the day, but I had a hunch that the maintenance crew at this small, run-down park wouldn’t be *quite* so beholden to red tape.

Sure enough, I had only a few minutes to wait before two men came puttering around the corner in a beat-up *kei* truck, screeching to a halt by the exit stairs. They went up, exchanged a few words with the operator, then the train slowly inched back into the station. Not a minute later, the lift motor started again, the train went on its merry way, and the operator waved me up.

Getting into these stand-up trains for **Pink Typhoon** was an interesting exercise. I didn’t think there would be more awkward, non-ergonomic trains than those on a Premier Sky Rocket, but these Togo trains give them a run for their money. I had to be careful not to trip myself up on the waist bar, and the floor didn’t give my feet much purchase.

All that left my mind once the train went down that first drop, though, because oh my god, the positive G’s here are like nothing I’ve felt before on a stand-up. My knees literally buckled and gave out in the vertical loop; maybe I’m just old, but I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to happen!

By contrast, on the rest of the layout, I got more standing airtime on this damn thing than Pipeline, a stand-up purpose-built for standing airtime, and the best part: I don’t think any of it was intentional. The restraints give the bottom half of your body an extraordinary level of freedom of movement, and by my second ride, I was throwing all caution to the wind and literally lifting my legs off the floor during every hill and getting walloped by the sheer amount of negative G’s that would send me flying. This was absolute insanity and like nothing I’ve ever ridden before. Hella positives on the loop and helix, contrasted by some of the most extreme airtime moments I’ve ridden.

With that finished, I decided to call it an early day so I could get back to our hotel for a few hours’ worth of the original plan: bedrotting. Washuzan Highland is definitely a park for the coaster sickos out there: the rare credits are reason alone to make it out here, and the quality of those credits is just a bonus.

The views from the park are *beautiful*, with the Seto Inland Sea and the islets off Shikoku’s coast providing a spectacular backdrop for the coasters. The park, though, could definitely use some help: peeling paint, mothballed rides, shuttered stalls, and paths simply open to backstage areas and sandlots all spoke to a business not in great condition.

If you’re a coaster sicko (like me) and willing to make a small detour from the traditional Tokyo – Osaka journey, I’d recommend the trip down here, especially considering its unique collection. It’s worth it!

Toutatis is one of the best coasters ive ridden. I wanted to give a indepth review of this ride because i absolutely adore it.

Theming
The theming for this ride + area (Festival Toutatis) is some of the best ive ever seen. While Asterix was my first park outside my home country (England) so i havent seen the full experience of what theming really can be. The theming for this ride is amazing. The whole vibe/theme of it being a festival is so cool, the signage around the area and lamps and soundtrack are amazing, and the massive Toutatis statue is sick! Reminds me of some other ride that we have here in the UK. 🔥🪵 The rockwork and hyroglypics in the rocks are really great and are such cool attention to details and while the queue line is a little boring, their is some cool signs around and cool rockwork. The station is 10/10, the atmosphere at night was amazing and the dispatch sequence was beautiful. The theming around the main queue and single rider queue like the models and stuff were really sick and yet again the rockwork was incredible. The trains aswell are beautiful.

The Ride
You start off with a little dip out of the station which gives a tiny pop of airtime if your on the back and hit the first launch, its nothing insane but you do feel it and the trench adds some cool near miss around you. Then you hit the cutback and oh my god its amazing. You get whipped side to side as you enter and get sustained hangtime as you just dangle in the air. With a loose restraint this element feels insane! You then hit 2 outerbanked airtime hills, the first one is mid but the second one gives you some great airtime and laterals. Now time for the most insane part of the ride, the swing launch. You launch forward, go over a airtime hill which provides some sustained floajector, and crawl up the tophat. You rollback which is a super cool unique sensation and fly over that airtime hill, you get some insane unexpected ejector but the best part is the little dip up into the spike, you get flung out your seat so intensely and it always catches you off guard. As u go up the spike you get a good interaction with the Zamperla Nebulaz Chez Gyrofolix as people wave at you from the queueline and you go back down. You yet again get a insane pop of ejector and then fly over the airtime hill which gives sustained ejector and go over the top hat. The tophat is **trimmed** which in all honesty does ruin it a little, but at the front the hangtime is meh i guess. You go down, get chucked side to side and enter a zero g stall, not the best stall moment on the ride but still amazing. You hit a turnaround which has a little airtime dip and fly over a ejector hill. Wow. I mean **WOW.** This airtime moment is pure sustained negatives, its insane. The wave turn afterwards is mid in all honesty, but as the ride warms up it does get a little better as you take it with more speed. The barrel roll has some intense whip as you fly over the queue and have a cool near miss with the cardboard cut outs. (But holy SH!T the people scream loud when your in the queue at that part) You hit a banked turn which simply does what its supposed to be, then you hit 2 bunny hills/hops which give some unexpected and intense airtime pops and you hit the breaks.

Overall
Overall the ride is a 9/10 for me. I dont like rating things a 10/10 unless i have 0 complaints, and sadly toutatis has 2 weak spots imo. However it is still my No.1, and the theming, soundtrack, and actual ride experience all come together to form one of my all time favourite coasters. Being my first mainland european coaster i now know TRULY how great they can be, which makes me all the more excited for rides like Voltron, RTH, GCE and more which i hope to ride in the next couple years. (RTH in Feb) But yeah, Toutatis is great and i hope to go back in the coming years to get some more rides on this Intamin Beauty.

Yesterday, I visited Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut for the first time since summer 2025, and was able to snag 17 rides on Boulder Dash thanks to the park's Speedy Pass system, including 6 rides in complete darkness. I know that it's been a growing sentiment that Boulder Dash has gotten unbearably rough and is far less enjoyable than it used to be, but for me, as someone who has a very high tolerance for rough wooden coasters, this is the absolute best the ride has ever ran.

While the ride is running rougher than it has before, it's also running so much faster- especially in the second half, so the pacing feels all the more alive and the airtime that much more intense. I used to think that this ride was full of solid floater, but on some of the hills that still use the wooden track, that floater has morphed into some of the most violent ejector airtime I have ever experienced on any roller coaster. It's not even just one hill, it's several of them, and the roughness makes it feel that much more intense and out-of-control. That's not even to mention the wicked laterals that are sometimes paired with the violent ejector to create a sensation that can only be matched by the Coney Island Cyclone in my eyes. This ride feels like it's going to kill you, and I am all here for it.

Even with all that in mind, this ride still doesn't reach its full potential until you ride it at night. Once it becomes dark, you get to combine the roughness, the laterals, and the airtime with the feeling of being completely blind, making it harder to prepare for the ride's most violent moments and making them all the more insane when they come around, with those moments being even more deranged because the ride has had all day to warm up and is running the fastest that it ever has in its entire life (I can't stress enough, the second half in particular feels like it is running WAY TOO FAST). Combining an unhinged ride experience on a coaster running as fast as it possibly can with the inability to know what the hell is about to happen next is a recipe for one of the greatest experiences I have ever had on any ride.

Again, I am not going to deny that the ride is rough, because it absolutely is. The wooden sections can jackhammer the piss out of you and the second half is incredibly violent, but that may honestly be my favorite part. I don't know what else to say other than I love getting the shit kicked out of me on an aggressive wooden coaster as long as it actually pulls forces, which Boulder Dash has in spades. However, I completely understand why many people have come off the ride disappointed in 2026 due to how rough it's gotten.

I know that many people have been calling for this ride to be completely redone with GCI titan track (hell, I heard some people at the park talking about it), and I understand the sentiment; but I already mourn the day when they pull the trigger on the idea. The titan track segments of Boulder Dash are far and away my least favorite, since they take away all of the grit and out-of-control energy that the ride is supposed to have, and the layout on its own isn't strong enough without the wooden coaster feeling that it used to have. The titan track segments are almost boring to me, and once they do complete the retracking for the entire ride, it may be enough to make me never return to Lake Compounce again.

I love this ride in its current state so much, and it has found a spot squarely in my top 10, above rides like Velocicoaster and Skyrush. If you are a fan of a violent, fast paced, rough, lateral heavy wooden coaster with airtime that feels like it will launch you into the stars, I cannot recommend Boulder Dash enough. This ride is one of a kind, and I'm glad that I was able to experience it as many times as I did, since I don't know if I'll ever get that chance again.

TL;DR: Boulder Dash in 2026 is fucking awesome.

Took 10 hours to print

📷: Nikon F5, Kodak Ektachrome

Had a great time at Lake Winnie back in September. I had been here once before, but was in town for work so I couldn’t stay long. It was really cool getting to look around the place a little closer.

Cannball was riding particularly well and I think this time around, I finally get it. After my first rides a couple years ago I can distinctly remember getting off the ride thinking, “that’s it?” But this time I think I understood. It’s not a particularly fast or intense coaster but it doesn’t need to be. It’s just a great ride!

Wacky Factory was great, I’m not sure if I can add to anything else written about it, but I enjoyed it.

The wacky worm was a wacky worm, nothing short of absolute exhilaration.

Unfortunately, Boat Chute was closed and has eluded me again. I’ll have to wait and see if third time makes the charm…

On a side note, film labs are important! I sent these to a larger mail in service and was a little surprised how poorly things came out. The positives from this trip are absolutely gorgeous so it was a shame the scans were so… but anyways, that is the price you pay I guess!

RIP to clipped frame of the carousel horse