Today was a very special trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain to get my weekly Twisted Colossus construction update. The park invited me and a few other coaster blogger/media folks out for another hard hat tour of the Twisted Colossus construction site. These photos were taken on 16 Feb 2015.

The construction wall that has been blocking off the new Screampunk District portion of the park received some graphics to promote what we can expect later this year:

Passing behind the construction wall, we got our first peek at what they have been up to in this area. Nothing has been done to the theater yet, although it will eventually be changing its name to Gearworks Theater and getting a makeover:

Moving down further into the area, there was lots of activity removing tree stumps and bushes around the food building, which will become a gourmet sandwich shop called Twisted ‘Wiches. The restrooms will be getting a refresh as well:

The Coca-Cola Cool Zone is completely gone. I’m not sure what they’ll be replacing it with, if anything:

There’s going to be a new flight of steps right here, making it easier to get from the lower midway up to the new Twisted ‘Wiches food location:

No changes to the exterior of the Colossus station yet, but the big midway planter has been removed:

There was a crew ripping out all the landscaping inside and around the Colossus station:

There was another crew rebuilding the exit bridge over the blue dispatch track:

At first glance, it didn’t look like much had changed inside the station load area:

A closer inspection revealed that the elevated ride operator’s station has been removed, and the stairwell to the lower level has also been sealed up:

The ride operator’s platform on the other side has been removed as well:

The channel on the left side of the station, where trains used to pull in for unloading and loading, has been completely sealed up. This whole area will be used for the queue:

The transfer track has been completed, tested, and works as designed. The section of track with the handrails is the final brake run:

As you can see here, the track drops down from up high into the final brake run:

Another treat that we were surprised with today was a special preview of the lead car of the orange train, and it looks spectacular:

There will be four trains in total, with three of them being ran simultaneously. In addition to orange, there will also be purple, green, and blue trains. This is one of the non-lead cars:

I took a ton of photos on just the train cars, so look for a dedicated post on those soon.

This is a staging area for the parts as they come in. They are sorted, catalogued, and moved to where they need to be. All of the blue strips are the guides for the lift hill chain trough:

Moving over to the track itself, they have been hard at work putting in the lift chain trough. The strip you see down the middle of each track is where the lift hill chain goes up. The white steel you see underneath the green track is part of the support for the return trough below the track:

This is a closer view of the supports for the return of the chain, as well as the pit where the lift hill motors will be located:

Crossing underneath the track to the center of the structure and looking up, you can see just how high that green track is as it’s returning to the station:

Now let’s see…is it blue wire never connects to red, or yellow only goes to green? I’m sure they’ll figure it out before the ride opens:

There’s going to be a stairwell just behind the above electrical panel which will be used to evac from that side of the lift hill.

From the center of the structure, the Scream! lift hill looks way more dominating over Twisted Colossus than it ever did with Colossus:

This next photo shows an interesting look into the cross bracing that is located underneath the old track that you never would’ve seen without the demolition that has occurred:

You will also notice some workers hanging off the side of the structure in the previous photo. Even though it was a US holiday, there were many crews hard at work all over the entire coaster.

This will be the lowest point on Twisted Colossus, where it dips below grade. It is right after the zero-G roll on the blue track and right before the double-up on both tracks:

The steel beams you see with the black marks make up part of what is called the head stock unit. It’s basically the sprockets at the top of the lift hill that guide the chain back down into the return trough:

There was lots of new track steel, in all kinds of twisted goodness, lying around the site and ready to be installed:

This is a good shot of the structure that has been built for the double-down element on the green track:

This is a close-up of the hill at the bottom of the first drop. The prevailing thoughts are that this is going to be a nice little wake up jolt, if you aren’t already awake:

Here’s a unique view of the lift hill and first drop, from between the tracks:

Old track versus new track. Quite the difference, huh? The old track looks like it’s just floating there, almost like an optical illusion:

Here’s a good shot of how far they’ve come on the High 5 element, as seen from the inside curve of the structure:

The High 5 element requires some very unique steel supports to be built, as you can see in the previous photo, and the guys on the ground were hard at work doing just that:

Once they complete the support piece on the ground, they then “fly” it into position using one of the big cranes and set it in place:

I can’t even begin to describe how exhilarating it was to be standing inside of the Twisted Colossus structure, inside one of the Goliath supports as trains raced by overhead, watching all of the construction activity just a few feet away:

All of the unused Colossus footers will be left in place. There are a lot of them:

That’s it for this very special Twisted Colossus construction update. I’d like to thank Sue and Connie from Six Flags Magic Mountain for inviting us out, and Bruce and Tim from Six Flags Magic Mountain for the actual tour and answering all of our questions.