More pointless stuff about roller coasters: Skyrush

The Penn State Theme Park Engineering Group visits Skyrush, Hersheypark's roller coaster under construction.

I've been watching this process for a long time via fan photos on Keystone Thrills and All-American Thrills, and it's fascinating seeing how they get a 200-foot-tall hypercoaster into as cramped and coaster-filled a place as Hersheypark's Comet Hollow, where its first hill has to arch directly over the Comet, the white 1946 wooden coaster. Most of the concrete footers for Skyrush are actually going to be right in the lake behind the Comet, which is currently temporarily drained (but it floods every time it rains, which has slowed down construction).

That yellow arch on the ground is the top of the lift-hill truss, which, weather and machinery permitting, may be lifted into place on Monday. They've been using lots of guy wires and cantilever techniques to hold the protruding ends of the incomplete arch in place before the crown goes in (I guess "Keystone Thrills" is a particularly apropos name at the moment). There's a large chunk of the track layout that they can't put up until they're done with the biggest crane, because they wouldn't be able to get it out of there otherwise.

Skyrush looks like a little brother of Intimidator 305, the infamous gigacoaster at Kings Dominion in Virginia. Intimidator 305 was known at least initially for causing riders' vision to grey out during its first curve (and for its tendency to wear out the wheels on its cars really quickly); various modifications have been made to mitigate this, though I've read conflicting claims about whether they helped any. There's been some discussion of whether Skyrush will have the same problem. I suspect not, just because, while Skyrush's first turn looks as wicked as I305's, it only goes around about a quarter-circle instead of three-quarters. But I suppose we'll see.

More pointless stuff about roller coasters: Wooden coasters ranked

There's this whole online community of roller-coaster freaks who ride many more coasters than I ever will be able or willing to, and they have polls. Here's one about favorite wooden coasters.

I didn't vote in this because there's only one woodie I've ridden on that is still standing: Canobie Lake's Yankee Cannonball, mentioned on many previous occasions here. I thought the Yankee Cannonball was a surprisingly good ride given how short its first lift looked from the ground. Kids on YouTube snarked about how unimpressive it looked. I chalked it up mostly to my being relatively inexperienced.

Now I find that apparently I wasn't wrong: according to the detailed rankings by these hardcore coaster freaks, the Yankee Cannonball is the 55th best wooden coaster worldwide. While not world-beating, this is entirely respectable, putting it well in the top half and ahead of many surprisingly better-known rides, including all the woodies at Kings Dominion and Six Flags New England and all but one at Hersheypark. It seems to be regarded as particularly well-maintained; a lot of parks let their wooden coasters get super-rough from neglect.

It does, however, underscore the point that I really need to get down to Lake Compounce one of these days and ride Boulder Dash.


(In my first version of this post, based on the detailed spreadsheet, I said it was ranked 56th. The difference from the final listing was due to the disqualification of the rehabbed Texas Giant at Six Flags Over Texas from the final results, because its new track really makes it a steel coaster. There are steel tracks on wooden supports, and wooden tracks on steel supports (like the Coney Island Cyclone); the generally accepted distinction seems to be that it's the track that counts.)