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"at no cost" is a nicely misleading choice of words.
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But how many thousands of dollars would it cost to tear it down, transport it somewhere, store, transport again, rebuild...probably without any sort of blueprints, and not to mention, where would it go?
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^Why would you need blueprints? As the ride is already in existence, you take it apart and number each part as you tear it down. Isn't that what they did with The Phoenix? All someone would have to do is go around the ride with a digital camera and take multiple pictures and use Google maps to get a view from overtop of the ride. Someone could also use No Limits for a mostly accurate recreation of the ride. The Big Dipper sits on flat land as well, so it's not like the elevation issue would come into play at all. It said in the one article I read last night that ACE didn't have the money to move it, and with the amount of traveling some of those people do (going from event to event) it's no wonder.
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Intamin Fan, it might be easy to reconstruct it, but you need to have someone engineer blueprints for footers and foundation. you can't just randomly throw some cinder blocks in the ground randomly and call them "footers," it does take some work.
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What, should Cedar Fair foot the bill to tear it down, move it and reconstruct it too? Sounds like a pretty fair offer to me. Bummer that the ACE leadership couldn't find partners to make it work.
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Now this brings up the question why wasn't the ACE membership at large notified of this offer? There were no emails sent out concerning this developement.
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Indeed, I wonder how many donations would have been forthcoming if this offer had been made known to the membership.
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CoasterBuzz doesn't want it. 
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^^ Intamin Fan, there is significantly more involved in relocating a ride than using digital images and Google Earth. There are serious costs in planning and developing the new site alone, not to mention the costs of the new foundation, moving the pieces, seeking approval from the local authority, new utilities, meeting current building codes, etc etc. Take it from a guy who's been involved in a ride relocation, it costs hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to take all the steps necessary.
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"Cedar Fair is evil! They planned to kill this park from the start. We're losing a classic! Here's a million and one ideas for saving it. Protest. Petition. Complain!" "Ok, the coaster is yours. No one wants it. You take it." "Well, we can't do anything with it." Is it just me? It plays like the punchline to a joke. 
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Now that ACE dont want it,I wonder if they would offer the same deal if a park wanted it?
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Cross post of mine from the BD discussion - to the people who are whining about them not giving it away for "free" because they wanted ACE to pay to move it: When you buy groceries, do you want the store to pay for your gas to drive them home, and send a bagger to bring them in and stock your cupboards for you, too?
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I find the comment by the Norton Auctioneers VP to be quite interesting. I'm not sure who they contacted--no one on the ACE Executive Committee knows anything about this.
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Maybe they need to rope in the people speaking (and burning bridges) on its behalf then.
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Having had to deal with Norton personally in the past, I'd say that their comment is definitely suspect. Found that they are real good at bending the truth in order to get more attention.
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I know that moving the pieces was involved in the financial process, as I've got Wild One forty-five minutes down the road, and of course you're going to need all new foundations. I guess I shouldn't have made the process sound like it was going to be so easy, but, I still don't think a lack of blueprints (if that is the situation) would be a major roadblock. Some of your other concerns definitely could be. Why did the brilliant Texas Cyclone pass into oblivion? Besides Six Flags trying to get out of Houston as fast as possible, there were the clearance issues. Trust me, I know someone who shattered his elbow into multiple pieces because of that ride. From what I can remember from last year, The Big Dipper didn't have those issues. But, I still think there's got to be plenty of people within the organization who could've taken this project head-on. I'm sure there's an engineer or two, a lawyer, and whoever else you'd need amongst their ranks to make it happen. ACE members, as well as, all coaster enthusiasts come from all walks of life. I still say it was due to monetary issues, but also because of location. Where exactly would they have put it, and/or where would they store it if they couldn't convince anyone to put it up in the near future?
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I'd like to know how it is they're claiming that they offered it to ACE and yet none of the higher-ups in ACE seem to know anything about it. What did they do, walk up to a 10 year old with an ACE card and go, "Hey kid, you want this? No, well ok, but don't say we didn't offer." I doubt ACE would have been able to afford the relocation costs but the fact that there was never any word from ACE about this offer and no typical ACE fundraising campaign to try and scrape enough coin together makes me think that there was never a formal offer in the first place...
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When you buy groceries, do you want the store to pay for your gas to drive them home, and send a bagger to bring them in and stock your cupboards for you, too?
.... want? absolutely. :-P
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Ya know what, there was a time when grocers actually did that in this country (everything but buying the gas).
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Blueprints would ne necessary in order to get the proper permits from the local government to rebuild the coaster. This is a nice coaster. It would be nice to see something worked out with someone to save it.*** This post was edited by PointMan 6/16/2008 1:28:34 AM ***
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^This is where you and I disagree. I say with a lot of TLC it could be great again as it wasn't so great last year. The out section was terrible with the back portion being pretty good. Okay, so even without blueprints, couldn't someone make new ones in a CAD program or the like?
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Well ACE probably didn't take it for multiple reasons, one is the cost of moving it somewhere two is where to move it? Its not like ACE has a plot of land where they can just plop down roller coasters that otherwise would have been defunct. I am not surprised they didn't take the offer. I know it stinks when a roller coaster is being torn down but it has to be done, otherwise there would never be any progress.
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^Almost no one reads retractions/corrections on the back page of the paper....*everyone* reads the headlines on the front page. The update really doesn't carry half as much weight as the original misleading article. Cedar Fair (IMO) pulled some shenanigans and misled the auction people, knowing full well that some "troublemaker(s)" in the crowd would try to argue that the facts aren't exactly as CF spelled them out. Regardless, there's really nothing ACE could have done by themselves, other than serving potentially as a resource for a potential buyer...the facts of all this probably will never really be known.  The ONLY good news I can see right now - El Dorado being relocated. Also TRYING to remain optimistic that "the" coaster, Dipper, could sit as a museum piece until some genius figures out it could be a bigger draw *operating*.
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Cedar Fair did not mislead anyone. That's not what happened.
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Then someone REALLY got their facts wrong somewhere...sure would like to know how this all really went down. Even if it was "offered to ACE free of charge", that's really more a PR move than anything since it was already known ACE couldn't do anything short of MAYBE store the ride in PTC or Larson warehouses...(they're both storing items now for ACE if I understand correctly).
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If this was (supposedly) an offer from CF to ACE, why is it any of Norton's business anyway? If they're hired by the company, they're not going to piss in the wallet where their pay is coming from.
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Why did they even have to mention the alleged offer at the auction at all? What does that have to do with the price of wool in China?
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Because Norton likes the attention, whether it's good or bad. You used to see his face in every other issue of Amusement Business. He doesn't have that outlet anymore, so he has to use the "regular"media .It worked, didn't it? He got the TV and print media all worked up, not to mention this and other boards.
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ACE didn't accept the offer for the coaster because ACE knew nothing about the offer - more than likely the liars at Cedar Fair lied to Norton about an offer and the auctioneer chose to mention it in the introduction. Oh, you don't believe me? Think I'm another person spreading lies about Dick Kinzel and Cedar Fair? You need proof? You need something more? Take a look at ACE's webpage: http://www.aceonline.org/AceNewsNow/?article=72 Just as Kinzel and CF,LLC lied about being committed to Geauga Lake and returning it to the "family amusement park" atmosphere it used to have they (or Norton) lied about an offer to "donate" The Dipper to ACE.
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