June 18, 1990- In the afternoon, a power outage hit Saugus along with the surrounding area including Magic Mountain. Though a minor outage that was resolved within about 30 seconds, the event left many rides at the park stalled for almost two hours on some. According to Southern California Edison, the outage was caused by a metallic balloon that disrupted the electricity flow through power lines. It was quite a busy day for the park, with some of 12,000 visitors in attendance on that day. No injuries were encountered, but several of the rides suffered power failure which led to circuit breakers needing to be reset causing the delay. In the event of a failure, rides will either stop on the lift itself, or if on their run, halt at the nearest brake run which often times is a mid-course brake (or block brake).
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According to park officials, this weekend might not be the last for technical rehearsals on Superman: Escape From Krypton. They say that the park will make it's final decision this week if Superman will host 'extra' rehearsals next weekend and further. Why it's needed would mainly be because of further employee training they said and that's it's been talked about for more previews. It's not set in stone, but time will tell this week whether or not they will.
Today, Magic Mountain hosted a filming session from 8 in the morning until 4:30 for an upcoming Superman: Escape From Krypton commercial. Riders were chosen last week to appear in the commercial by riding the upcoming coaster multiple times throughout the day. But perhaps the most suprising factor of the day was that the cars had all-new paint scheming! One appeared to be spotted with paintball-like markings with Superman logos strewn over the hood. There also appeared to be a second version with a flat Superman logo over the original blue background. These keep in mind, may have been stickers like some coasters have, or just two different versions.It'll only be a matter of time before we start seeing that commercial on T.V networks. See the pics of the event below provided by Six Flags on Facebook!
July 29, 1979- Just about after midnight, two rival gangs engaged in a fight involving the death of one teenager, and at least six other stabbings. The violence started near the Contempo Pavilion area when gang-members ranging from 15-18 years old took part in a 'major disturbance' during the Contempo Pavilion disco said an officer. 65 deputies were sent on the scene at Magic Mountain, whilst others were on deck in case of need for more officers. It was reported that at least 41 people were taken to the SCV Sheriff's substation right outside the park. One 16 year old in particular, Felix Saldivar was murdered during the fights, while several others were injured but were said to have refused to be treated. The event still went on, but with deputies still in the park after reports of more trouble, but not as bad. At least six people were treated for multiple stab wounds.
Today, we asked Magic Mountain officials about the date for the re-opening of the many closed rides such as all of the water rides, and Colossus and Deja Vu. Although, not an exact date for the rides to open back up is known, they did say that the two coasters along with the water rides are expected to re-open sometime in April. April is right about when the park starts it's official summer season and daily operation. Deja Vu is currently closed for yearly off-season maintenance which includes train rehab, along with work on the tower systems. Colossus' closure is unclear, but said to be a tune-up session for it as well.
On Wednesday, Magic Mountain sent all 2011 Thrill Pass holders an email announcing that they could be part of a teaser ride or a technical rehearsal on February 19-21 fro noon to 5pm. According to the message, space is limited, and first come first serve. A few hours later, they released on their Facebook page that Facebook fans would be able to ride the coaster on February 26 & 27 as long as they print out the invite from the page. Looks like Thrill Pass holders get the first rides though as each group's preview days are a week apart. If it keeps raining, no teaser they also said. And it looks as if there's a third opportunity to get on the ride before March 19. According to their Facebook page, riders are needed for a commercial filming of Superman on February 24. Is Magic Mountain building even more hype for the ride? Or are they just too eager to open the ride before March 19?
October 19, 1991- Magic Mountain's empty parking lot served as an landing strip for a pilot of a plane that was experiencing technical difficulties. Fortunately, the parking lot was empty as it was a weekday when the park was still closed during the off-season. In the afternoon, a small privately owned plane landed near Colossus due to supposed "engine-problems." No word on how the plane was retrieved.
During a recent visit to the park yesterday, we noticed that a lot of the rides were either closed, or open but not 100%. Throughout the day, coaster trains were going south as they had to run the courses with no riders leaving some coasters with only one working train. Take Riddler's Revenge for instance, one of the coasters with a faulty train that day. Something caused several mechanics to head over to the ride to work on the train in the station, whilst the other was on it's run. No word from operators what happened, but one could see the mechanics duct-taping one of the back row's armrest together. Later in the day, Revolution encountered problems causing the ride itself to stop operation until good to go. In the afternoon, X2 broke down, leaving numerous guests who waited hours to either wait for the coaster to be fixed, or leave which most of them ended up doing. Tatsu could be seen running a train with no riders, suggesting that an issue arose with that one as well, resulting in a very long wait. Apocalypse displayed a sign that warned of some kind of work, yet the coaster was allowing riders to ride anyways. Jet Stream, the only running water ride this off-season also was temporarily closed. Other than those rides, most coasters were running on a sole one train anyways, creating a slow wait Saturday for all open attractions.
Instead of doing a trip report like always, enough updates were experienced for news. First off, the Terminator Salvation store changed faces into 'EPIC RIDES', but still with some Terminator Salvation merchandise inside needed to sell. The Sky Tower still remains up and running, but with a lot of the museum features missing from the tower itself. All that's left is a few of the coaster cars and seats, and a few of the wall displays. If you don't know already, the park is gearing up to re-work the Magic Of The Mountain museum up on the Sky Tower soon. No new Green Lantern track is behind Apocalypse, but the construction crews have already started to dig up foundations, and have brought in rebar cages to start concrete laying on-site. Same is with the Roadrunner Express location, where large mounds of dirt can be seen with rebar cages similar to those at Green Lantern are seen. Longhorn's Barbeque 's former location will soon be transformed into the new JB's Smokehouse Barbeque, yet again another attempt by the park to host a barbeque eatery. In Superman news, the ride could be seen testing it's new bacwards facing train with the famous water-filled test dummies in orange jumpsuits. This only happened a few times, one of them ending up being a failed test launch, not sending the train up the tower. Remember the short-lived Icee location in the former Mrs. Fields building? Thought to be an official Icee vendor establishment because of the signage above, both the vendor has disappeared along with the Icee Mix-It-Up sign above. Whistlestop depot is beginning to look more like it's unbranded state with new signs on the former Thomas store and train ride. Oh, and the park started selling 50th anniversary merchandise at Flags Gift Store including snowglobes, shirts, mugs,shot-glasses etc.
(click to enlarge photos) June 22, 1985 - During Magic Mountain's "School's Out" all night party for high school teens on Friday, seven park guests were injured while 20 others were arrested. The violence started when two rival gangs attended the event amongst the 25,000 other students that night. Most of the fights were based in the Contempo Dance Pavilion (now Colossus County Fair junction), and involved in serious knife fights which resulted in the arrest and prosecution of 20 members. One injury in particular, involved a security woman who was attempting to disarm one of the teens. 14 other arrests were made that night, unconnected to the gang rivalry. The turmoil didn't cease to stop the event, as it ended as planned at six in the morning Saturday.
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