Good morning Nerds,
Last week, I was hanging out in California and decided to hit Magic Mountain to see the progress being made on Full Throttle, and ride some coasters (of course).
It was a nice and sunny May day in Valencia. I went on a Tuesday, so the parking lot was mostly empty along with the park.
Just after passing through the turnstiles, you are hit with the construction for Full Throttle. This sign was in front of the entrance fountains.
It's not a huge detour, but getting to the lower section of the park takes a bit longer than normal.
The path to High Sierra Territory is blocked off by construction walls. Don't worry, you can still get your fill of super hero capes if you don't already have one.
As luck would have it, they had the construction walls open to allow for large trucks to enter the site. Here is a shot of Full Throttle's loop. As you can see, there is also track going on top of the loop.
Construction at one of the nearby buildings.
Parker joked about this in one of the Theme Park Nerds videos, but here is indeed brakes coming down off the loop. This will be a VERY short ride and the loop is right next to the station.
Just to give you an impression of how tightly squeezed this ride will be, this is where I believe the station will eventually be built As you can see, trains will come off the top hat into a break run, make a U turn, then be ready to launch into the loop for the next riders. I am not entirely sure how they are going to squeeze a station into this area and still have room to get enough speed to clear the 160ft loop, but I'm sure they have it figured out.
One more shot of the loop before heading into construction wall land.
Construction walls around the site advertise the new coaster, and of course urge you to get a season pass.
Somehow, given the short length of this ride, I don't think we'll see too many times when two trains are on the loop at once. If it does happen, though, it will be quite impressive.
Meanwhile, over near Superman, that portion of the track looks pretty much complete. After launching out of the station, into the loop, the trains will next zoom over the Superman plaza.
A look at the track coming into the Superman Plaza.
After passing over the plaza, you'll dive under it via this track going into once of the old monorail tunnels. That's where the second launch is located that will get you up and over the top hat element.
If you would like to see some video of the construction, check out my construction update on the Theme Park Nerds YouTube channel or click the link below.
Moving on from Full Throttle, here are some shots from around the park. This is from Goliath's queue. As you can see, I pretty much had the park to myself for most of the morning.
Empty seats during a one train operation. Something you won't see once the summer goes full swing in a few weeks.
Over in DC Universe, they were preparing for Grad Nights.
Apparently, graduates HATE flower beds! Actually, it looked like they were building a temporary stage for the festivities.
Love this ride, though it's not fun being stuck in the block brakes at the top for extended periods of time. Just sayin'.
The Batman queue has some of the nicer landscaped areas of the park
Deja Vu, may you rest in peace.
Flashback, may you burn for all eternity. This thing was a torture machine and I'm glad it's dead!
That does it for Magic Mountain. Be sure to check out videos from the park on the
Theme Park Nerds YouTube channel where we also have updates from other parks and news on what's happening in the amusement industry.
Until next time,
Later Nerds!
--Mike
