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It's ok. nobody else thinks about FF or AW when discussing Aussie parks...

Here is a very interesting case study video on the Sydney/Darling Harbour Monorail system!. I bet @pushbutton will approve of this!! From the same Youtube channel as the above Sydney Monorail posting, here is a case study video on the life span of the Australia's Wonderland. Very interesting and I know that there are several posters on this forum such as AlexB who worked at the park. I know that that the death of Wonderland has been talked about ad-nauseum on these boards but this video does provide an interesting take on the Wonderland saga. He certainly does provide an interesting viewpoint on a what if scenario if Wonderland had not been sold to Sunway. Enjoy the video!

I went to SW many times, and never paid for anything (free radio station tix). It was a great place, but lacked on several fronts - it was small, so couldn't accommodate large amounts of people - which in turn made pricing high, to offset that, which in turn kept people away. Due to many of the attractions having both mechanical and VR elements, there were lengthy processes to group, load, set up, and start, for what then amounted to a fairly short experience. Rail Chase was certainly an awesome little experience, but all-in-all it wasn't that great when compared elsewhere. It certainly wasn't the first indoor coaster in Australia (not sure if there are others out there, but Expo 88's SuperNova was definitely prior), but probably was the only one operating at the time. The tank battle thing was also a bit ridiculous - such a large floor space, difficult to operate 'tanks' and a distinct lack of ammo. Honestly, in a similar space, Intencity Parramatta had a much more superior offering, and as everything was 'user pays', pricing was much more reasonable, and capacity \ wait times were much more tolerable.

Visited Sega World numerous times in my early teens (13-14). My friends and I really enjoyed it, and I remember it being one of the first “solo” days we were allowed to do - catch the train into the city, spend the day at Sega World, and train home - sans adults (prior to that it was only day trips to wonderland). Rail Chase and Ghost rider were fun imo. At that stage it was the only indoor coaster in the country to my knowledge (or accessible to me anyway) so that added to the allure. I certainly feel with upgrades along the way both rides wouldn’t be out of place in the likes of Aussie World.

Some do, IE Fun Fields, Adventure World. But in regards to trading hours Adventure World's trading hours are 10am-7pm sun-friday and Saturday is 10am-6pm with their AW Nights event being every Saturday from 6:30pm-11pm. These hours are for the whole of January.

That's a fine lookin' upwards seating pit.

Hint?

@AlexB I clearly haven't been on here for a while so haven't seen your post until now. It's been nearly 15 years since I operated Bush Beast so my memory of the control panel is limited. I'll start from the top of the diagram and photo and go from there; Key for ON/OFF: pretty self explanatory. There is a difference between the photo and the diagram, the photo has dual key (not sure why) where as the diagram doesn't. Next three orange lights across the top indicate what brake sections are being occupied by a train, this didn't really matter if a single train was in use. Emergency Stop: Again self explanatory, only helped if the train was on the lift or approaching a break block. Lift Start: Only used at the start of the day. Moving on down to the last button on third row down as everything else was for the maintenance guys. Lap bar release: pressed when the train was stopped in the correct position in the station and often needed to be pressed several times. Lift Stop: Only used at the end of the day. Next two were for maintenance use. OK Dispatch: Was pressed and held when the train was ready to go for a cycle. From memory was used in conjunction with the button below it Dispatch Brake Release. Lap Bar Down: Unlocked the lap bar from the open position so that riders could pull down the bar. Emergency Brake Release: I'm not 100% sure of this but this was either the first section of brakes coming into the station or the brakes on the back curve. Trim, Ready and Dispatch brake release were the three sections of brakes coming into and including at the platform and had to be pressed one at at time to allow the train to be stopped in the correct position in the station. I'm not sure why the Auto Brake Enable wasn't used. Further to the photo the black panel with the LCD screen on the top left of the photo was a wind speed and direction monitor, if the wind was at or over a certain speed from a certain direction you weren't allowed to dispatch the train as it would not have enough momentum to get around the back curve and would become stuck. On another side note there was a manual release for the lap bars, it was a small hole on the upright section of each seat section that required a long bolt to be pushed in and pressed on the right bit and pushed down. We trained the operators in how to do it at the station and was very fiddly to get right. I only had to do it once on the lift hill and it was very difficult to get right. You can just see it in this photo http://www.wonderlandhistory.net/media-gallery/detail/13/260 it's just above the blue hat. Hope that helps.

I will say thanks for sharing a photo and not a video. As good as videos can be when it comes to theme parks if they aren't a POV or an interview with someone major (eg company rep) then they are a poor substitute for multiple photos.

For those who are interested ridesims is relaunching after 3 years. Ride sims 2.0 should be released this Saturday at 11am qld time. The brand new sims look incredible. I think the best one will be the WDW MONORAIL sim. Here is a link to a 2+hr live stream media event:

Tell that to Soarin’ fans.

Sigh. Only 6 dates all of which miss peak the peak of peak season. Was also hoping they were going to do a night show with a bit more substance to it than just LAZERS AND FOUNTAINS but the public ate it up last year so can't blame them. Seems very phoned in. How about this though; Just as an experiment, why not try doing one Aquacolour show at 7.30 with rides till 7.00 for the 2 weeks after boxing day included in admission? All the crap is there for the show anyway and running all the rides for an extra 2 hours costs all of $1000 so not exactly going to break the bank. If you manage to sell <100 burger meals to the 2,000 odd people in the top terrace who might stick around you'll make that back. So go on, do something just a tiny bit above the bare minimum, just to mix things up a bit. EDIT: Also no Monorail. Can you try even just a little bit?

Seriously? Really? Nice use of the smug emoji!