Welcome To Screamscape!

Park News - (5/31/13) Silver Dollar City reports that 2013 will be the last year for the park’s KidsFest  event.  They are planning on “bringing something back next year that will be bigger and better in the Summer of 2014,” to create an all new family festival event.
    (12/7/12) MidWestInfoGuide has posted a report this week on Silver Dollar City’s new brodway style show, It’s a Wonderful Life. The park has also got to be happy this week as USA Today game them a great review and listed Silver Dollar City as one of the nation’s top holiday celebrations.
    (10/19/12) New for An Old Time Christmas this year, Silver Dollar City presents an original musical adaptation of It’s A Wonderful Life -- an all-new approach to the popular story.The festival will take place from Nov. 3 to Dec. 30 and also include other returning classic holiday shows like A Dickens’ Christmas Carol. An Old Time Christmas transforms the 1880s-style park into an evening wonderland, featuring the Christmas on Main Street light and sound show, 1,000 decorated Christmas trees, a Holiday Light Parade, the two Broadway-style productions, festive holiday foods and over four million lights – and rides too. In temperatures down to 42 degrees, guests can soar into the night while viewing the park’s lights from above.
    Over on the water, The Showboat Branson Belle kicks off the holiday season with a new Christmas experience. Made in the USA, the world-class headliner production show, presents classic Christmas carols, holiday favorites and a patriotic finale, plus a one-of-a-kind performance of The Nutcracker Suite by violin-playing aerialist Janice Martin.
    The Showboat departs from White River Landing decorated with Christmas lights and guests can view holiday lights along the shore as the ship cruises Table Rock Lake. Following a 3-course meal, the stage comes to life as the vocal group The ShowMen performs Christmas favorites including Carol of the Bells, Let it Snow and Do You Hear What I Hear. The sounds of the season fill the stage with powerful harmonies and standout solos of the talented vocalists.
    (3/19/12) Silver Dollar City has posted a fun behind the scenes video showing off how the park gets ready to open for the 2012 season. It has some great behind the scenes footage of Powder Keg, and the hardware that makes the air-launch work. They also show off their own ball-shaped track inspection cart used on the B&M made Wildfire coaster. They’ve got the best name for this I’ve heard yet… they call it the Tie-Fighter. Check it out below.

 

2013 - Outlaw Run - (4/12/13) A fun documentary about the creation of Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City has been embedded below. Check it out.

    (3/20/13) Outlaw Run and opened, and according to all reports I’ve seen so far the ride is a huge hit.  Of course, with the launch of a new style train always comes some complaints, comments and some room for improvements. On the negative side, I’ve heard a few complaints about the placement of the “shin bars” on the restraints being a bit too tight, pressing very hard into riders legs. On the plus side, in addition to a smooth and comfortable ride, I’ve heard one reader comment that they were happy to see that these trains were much more accommodating to larger riders than other coaster trains. Of course, your mileage may vary here as every person is built a little differently. All said and done, I’d have to say congratulations to Rocky Mountain for delivering what will be one of the most talked about coasters of the year. You can also find a great opening day report from Outlaw Run posted to ThemeParkReview. Now I just have figure out how I can ride this one myself someday...
    (3/14/13) The first real POV videos of Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City have hit the YouTubes… check out all the awesomeness below! It seems very intense as you are shot rapid fire through all the elements in just over a minute, constantly swooping one way or another through the overbanked turns.

    (2/11/13) I’ve got great news from Silver Dollar City. When the park opens for the 2013 season on March 15th, Outlaw Run will be ready to open as well! The park has sent us some fantastic shots as the trains make test runs that you do not want to miss. Check out the sidebar to see the photos as this looks to be one of 2013’s most sought after coaster credits.
    (2/9/13) Awesome video shot during testing of Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City. Looks incredible! Watch below...

    (12/7/12) Head on over to modelcoasters.com to see new construction pictures of the now completed Outlaw Run.  The website usually only covers their own model coasters, but was invited to participate in this years Coaster Christmas event in conjunction with the Heart of America ACE event. Word around the park is that they are hoping to have Outlaw Run ready to open with the rest of the park in time for Spring Break 2013. The new full POV video of Outlaw Run has been released. Check it out.


    (10/19/12) Silver Dollar City released some incredible looking artwork showing off what the side profile of the Outlaw Run trains are going to look like.
    (9/3/12) Today we finally have a new link to Outlaw Run construction photos over at Silver Dollar City. Make the jump over to the TPR forum and scroll down a bit to find it.
    (8/10/12) The big news today is that Silver Dollar City finally announced all the details about their monster new roller coaster from Rocky Mountain Construction Group as well as the true name: Outlaw Run. Outlaw Run will have the world’s steepest drop on a wooden coaster, be the world’s second fastest roller coaster (68mph), and be the only wooden coaster to twist you completely upside down! The coaster will be 2937 feet long, starting out a climb up the 107 foot lift hill, only to send you 162 ft down the first drop at 81º, and rip you though three inversions: the double barrel roll and the one we’ve seen under construction that they call a 153º outside banked turn. Outlaw Run will have two trains and a 48” height requirement. Check out the cool teaser video below and visit the official site for more goodies.

    (8/1/12) An interesting e-mail came to me a bit ago containing a fascinating image which claims to be the layout artwork for The Outlaw coming to Silver Dollar City in 2013. The factoids on it claim the coaster will have an 81 degree first drop, the crazy near-inversion thing we’ve seen is called an Outside Banked Turn, but at the very end of the layout comes the icing on the cake… a true double barrel roll.
    (7/31/12) A great new shot of The Outlaw at SDC was sent in by a reader earlier today, showing off the fairly completed near-inversion element.
    (7/20/12) Silver Dollar City has dropped their first clue regarding the 2013 coaster announcement on August 9th. Check it out here.
    (7/11/12) The near inversion on The Outlaw has taken a new unexpected twist… check out the latest progress photos of it posted to Theme Park Review.
    (7/6/12) It’s official… we’ve got our first rolling inversion on a wood coaster, as seen in the latest construction photos of The Outlaw posted to the Heart of America ACE regions Facebook page. Check them out here. Wow is all I can say… WOW!  You will rise up to the top of the hill, roll over upsidedown and then appear to bank back the way you came as part of a twisting dive back down to the ground. I can’t wait to see this one in action.
    (6/29/12) MidWestInfoGuide has posted a new update on The Outlaw this week, and best of all, jump to the second page to see the track now in place on that twisting zero-g-roll looking section of the ride that was noticed last week.
    (6/25/12) Silver Dollar City has launched a new teaser website for The Outlaw, though they do not give it away by name. If you visit SilverDollarCity2013.com you will find a countdown clock, which I believe is counting down to August 9th.
    Meanwhile a few more construction pictures can be found over at Flickr, and a ton more posted to CoasterFriends.de.  Scroll down to the bottom of the later page and you’ll see several pictures of not only what appears to be an extremely steep drop section, but also some very odd looking beams atop one section of structure. If you look at the way the steel cross beams are being laid out… doesn’t it almost look like this wooden coaster is setting up to send the train into a psycho zero-g-roll maneuver?  That or the world’s most extreme over-banked turn on a wooden coaster. It may be best to jump to the bottom of the page and then just scroll back up to see what I’m talking about.
    (6/22/12) New pictures of The Outlaw at SDC have been posted to MidWestInfoGuide.
    (6/18/12) Some great new pictures of The Outlaw at Silver Dollar City can be found at SDCFans this week. This awesome looking wood coaster is growing like a weed.
    (5/31/12) New coaster construction pictures from Silver Dollar City have been posted to Theme Park Review this week.
    (5/21/12) A new construction update from “The Outlaw” has been posted to MidWestInfoGuide this week.
    (5/14/12) A reader has been quick to point out that despite Silver Dollar City’s new trademark application to use the name The Outlaw for their 2013 wooden coaster, Adventureland in Iowa has been using the name “Outlaw” for their CCI wooden coaster since 1993. Somehow I don’t think Adventureland filed a trademark on the name themselves, but it may give Silver Dollar City a reason to think twice about using the name themselves.
    (5/13/12) A new trademark application has been dug up from Silver Dollar City for the name of the park’s 2013 coaster… The Outlaw. Gotta love it.
    (4/30/12) Another construction update of the Rocky Mountain Coaster going up at Silver Dollar City has been posted to Theme Park Review this weekend. The shocking thing is that they have started to already installing the “topper track” pieces on the hill already.
    (4/25/12) The latest buzz on the new Rocky Mountain coaster project at SDC claims that the layout will be mostly an out & back style ride, with some twister sections mixed in with some heavy overbanked turns. This may also be the first coaster to use Rocky Mountain’s own custom trains when it opens.
    (4/24/12) New pictures of the 2013 coaster at Silver Dollar City posted to MidWestInfoGuide shows that the structure we saw before has gotten bigger and is clearly the lift hill for the new coaster.
    (4/20/12) Talk about starting in early… vertical construction on the new “rumored” wooden coaster at Silver Dollar City has already begun. The park is said to be remaining in denial about the very visible project so far, and is rumored to not even make any kind of official announcement about the project until this Fall. Someone apparently did confirm that Rocky Mountain Coaster Company is the one behind this, as expected.
    (3/29/12) A new report from Silver Dollar City has been posted to Theme Park Review this week, where they also take a good look at the ground clearing and early concrete work taking place for the 2013 project. A ton of pre-fabricated footers for the Rocky Mountain wooden coaster project are scattered and buried all over the site.
    (3/20/12) MidWestInfoGuide takes a peek around Silver Dollar City to see just how much site-work has already been done to prepare for the park’s 2013 project, rumored to be a new wooen coaster from Rocky Mountain Coasters.
    (1/23/12) One of our readers who resides in the Spokane, WA area pointed out an interesting article in the local paper about the Rocky Mountain Construction Group. The article talked about how the group is building a new $1 million shop building in Hayden, Idaho where they will move their track manufacturing operations. This will also free up room for the group to begin building their very own roller coaster cars.
    Why? Much like why GCI created the Millennium Flyers that could maneuver through their extremely twisted layouts, Rocky Mountain’s track system is simply capable of doing things other trains wouldn’t be able to do. According to Rocky Mountain, “We will be building cars we think will be revolutionary for the industry.” They go on to state that the combination of their new track and cars will be able to allow a wooden coasters to perform inversions, a feat no one has tried since Son of Beast at Kings Island.
    Best of all the article also mentioned that the group has roller coaster projects planned for Silver Dollar City and Six Flags Fiesta Texas, both to open in Spring 2013. This matches up well with the reports from IAAPA where Rocky Mountain was reported as having two 2013 projects in the works. One of those was said to be a custom built wooden coaster project that would feature Rocky Mountain’s Topper Track. Could this be what Silver Dollar City has in store for 2013?
    Speaking of the 2013 project, the SDCFans forum reports that ground clearing work for the park’s 2013 project seems to have started as soon as the park closed for the winter. They are working in the area just beyond the Giant Swing where the old train robbers shack was removed at the end of the 2011 season. And the biggest question is… if the park is getting a new Rocky Mountain coaster, will it have an inversion?
    (12/29/11) At the ACE Coaster Christmas event (as detailed at the Unofficial Worlds of Fun site) the GM of Silver Dollar City (Brad Thomas) spoke to the crowd and dropped an interesting hint about a possible future attraction. He told the group that they should have some very exciting news to talk about at next year’s Coaster Christmas event, which I’d take to mean that there are plans afoot for a nice new coaster (or major thrill ride) to be added to the park for the 2013 season.