Comparison between two coasters with tophats...

I think some people may think I am crazy, but I see a similar structuring of tProject 03's tower and the towers for both of the Mr. Freezes at two Six Flags parks... take a look at this pic of Mr. Freeze at SF St. Louis...

http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery427.htm?Picture=2

I know that these coasters are manufactured by two seperate companies, and the track will run on the other side of the tower structure, but the tophat on Mr. Freeze is totally supported all the way to the top. is that possible this time, since there have been concerns with track stess fractures at CP with other Intamin coasters?

Talking about coasters with tophats...

If you look at xcelerators pullout ( http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery1574.htm?Picture=2 ) in regards to the ride being built at Cedar Point ( http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/inside_park/webcam/beach.cfm

) you will notice that the radius is very different in size. The ride at Cedar Point might even be taller than 400 feet if you take in to account the fact that xcelerator is taller than 200 feet and has a much tighter radius in its pullout and up sections. I think that the Mr. Freeze rides need the support at the top because the track isn't the strong box type track that intamin uses. Intamin has track that, as mentioned earlier, acts as a support itself. The stronger track in responsible for the swaying exposed pieces you find on xcelerator and Wicked Twister.

Mr. Bussey

Okay, I see your point about the box type of track being stronger... and the radius being larger on Xcelerator... but I was wondering if CP is going to try to avoid any type of cracking in the track by not allowing it to sway like WT is allowed to sway... I think having supports all the way to the apex regardless of box track being stronger than the Premier Designs track would be a wise move to keep Project '03 up and operational 99% of the season. WT was down a good portion of the season because of its problems.

The track for the tophat won't sway nearly as much as WT, if at all. Basically it is supported on both sides by itself. For instance, look at the difference say, between the St. Louis Arch and maybe the Washington Mounument (where the arch is a top hat, and WM is WT's spike. Probably not a good analogy, but hey, I get it :-)

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Michael McCormack CP '02: 42
Magnum XL 200: 401 (526)
Millennium Force: 9
Wicked Twister: 28

Actually Xcelerator sways a lot. BOTH support structures holding the tophat sway side to said. Its easy to see it do so from the station. I think the side to side swaying is a lot safer than it the unsupported part of the tophat swayed back and forth by itself which would cause more stress on the track itself insted of the entire structure. So I dont thin swaying like WT will be a concern. I do though see the similarity between #16 and Mr. Freeze. I mean, they are both tirangular and have the scafolding look. Im sure Mr. Freeze didnt go unnoticed by Intamin, they may be using it as an influence (even slightly) but perfecting it the Intamin way. Judging by some of the supports still in the Soak City parking lot this thing may be a "regular" top hat like on Mr. Freeze, but it could also be like Xcelerator. Im looking for a picture I have that would raise some eyebrows. I will post it this evening when I get home from work. If I dont come across it I will get some more pics of some interesting supports when I go to the park tomorrow.

Could you imagine? 400+ feet in the air and looking "up" to the ground!

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"Sit down right, hold on tight, and enjoy your flight on Shivering Timbers!!"

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is that possible this time, since there have been concerns with track stess fractures at CP with other Intamin coasters?

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No. At least not for that reason.

This ride wasn't designed just over the summer. It's been in the works probably for over 5 years. The concept for having a ride there has been around much longer than that. Rides don't just change on a whim. Adding supports higher on the tower would have required recalculating stresses on the entire tower. This would have required a redesign of the rest of the tower.

It doesn't take a week to make these parts. It takes quite a while to engineer, manufacture, and ship stuff.

All you folks who are hellbent on believing that construction of the top of this ride has been put "on hold" because of waiting for other announcements or it has been redesigned because of Wicked Twister need to step back and look at the big picture.

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- John
"And Kinzel spoke, and there was coaster"

*** This post was edited by Michael Darling 10/3/2002 3:44:40 PM ***

Look at the MF track over the lagoon. It's plenty strong to handle the duty.

WT's situation was different. The problem was apparently with the round cross ties on the top and bottom of the track, all of which go in the same direction. The twist-flexing going on there apparently caused the diagonal ties to fail, crack, come unwelded, or whatever. They were replaced with thicker square ties.

None of the Intamin track built elsewhere other than on Impulse twists is built this way. The rest of it is all the standard truss that is found all over MF and this ride. It's less prone to failure, I should think, just becuase the forces acting on it are pretty straight forward (pun intended).

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP
Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, when it's all in your mind. You gotta let go." - Ghetto, Supreme Beings of Leisure

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BirdOfPrey00 said:
The track for the tophat won't sway nearly as much as WT, if at all. Basically it is supported on both sides by itself. For instance, look at the ... St. Louis Arch...

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Then you my friend, have obviously never been in the St. Louis Arch, because the nauseating back and forth motion is more than noticeable when standing in the top.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew! Have fun trying to find me!

Heh, I agree with you there Jes.

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Tommy Penner - Variable X
Cedar Point FanBoy since 2001. || Cruiser Boy since 2002.
"Pessimistic people are the happiest people on the planet. They're either right or pleasantly surprised."

Could we possibly see this tophat be a true tophat? What I mean by this is that tophats were originally inverted at the apex, but the term tophat has been used for the type of element in Xcelerator as well. So, in my interpretation, a tophat is really inverted. But we'll say the Xcelerator is a modified tophat. Getting to be bottom of it, will this be inverted or not?

You could distingush them by saying an inverting tophat (ala Mr. Freeze) and a non-inverting tophat (ala Xcelerator), but many people that post are too lazy for that. :)

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy

If this were to be an inverted tophat, wouldn't it have to have a fairly substantial amount of speed at the top to prevent the riders from actually hanging with all of there weight, as opposed to a loop where they're going fast enough to still maintain enough g's to be pushed to the floor of the train when they're upside down. If I'm thinking about this right, this thing is going to have to reach an amazing speed to not only reach the speculated 350 foot + height but to maintain enough speed to avoid totally "hanging" the riders and putting all the weight on their shoulders, which would be quite uncomfortable.