Could Intamin make a bigger upgrade to TTD?

djDaemon, you’ve referenced Sandor Kernacs a couple of times. What has he done that you don’t like?

Didn't Intamin create Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, & Maverick ?

Three really good coasters, in my opinion... Just sayin....

The B&M's at CP, aside from Raptor, are just OK.

Gatekeeper, Rougarou and Valravn are not very good. I'm just happy to see long lines on them, Make the wait for the Intamin's shorter !!!

Now if B&M would like to guild something like Tatsu at CP, I'M ON BOARD !!!

^No was is saying the rides aren't fun. It's from a quality standpoint when it comes to downtime. The significant amounts of downtime and poor relations/customer service seems to be why American parks haven't been ordering Intamin rides like they did in the early 2000's.

B&M has a reputation for a good, safe, reliable quality product that are very popular with guests and also offer killer capacity.

Some of my all time favorite coasters are Intamins. Two of CP's four Intamins are in my Top 4 at CP. Just because the rides are a lot of fun doesn't mean I would want to own one if I was a a park.

Guess what has been down for two straight days? TTD.

Guess who made it? Intamin.

Certainly no other manufacturer would ever let something like that happen.

The difference is that this is pretty normal for TTD (and Intamin products in general). What happened on Valravn was an exception.

Difference is the park knows there will be a lot of disappointment when TTD is down, so they go through the extra effort of Tweeting that it will be down for the day.

There must be a much lower expectation of guest disappointment when they can't experience yet another Immelmann loop.

TwistedWicker77 said:
djDaemon, you’ve referenced Sandor Kernacs a couple of times. What has he done that you don’t like?

*Clears throat*

And for the record, this is a legit question.

That guy is a ****ing asshole. He's an arrogant prick that won't admit to faulty products and wouldn't fix the problem. He left them high and dry. A little digging on here would answer your question.

But one thing to keep in mind is that it wasn't Intamin that designed all these good coasters back during the Kinzel era. It was actually Werner Stengel who designed all those rides who also happened to work with other manufacturers. Raptor, Rougarou, MF, Maverick and TTD were all designed by Stengel. Intamin and B&M just manufactured Stengel's designs.

Thabto said:
It was actually Werner Stengel who designed all those rides who also happened to work with other manufacturers. Raptor, Rougarou, MF, Maverick and TTD were all designed by Stengel. Intamin and B&M just manufactured Stengel's designs.

So the design issues are Werner’s fault?

Wenger out!

XS NightClub said:

Difference is the park knows there will be a lot of disappointment when TTD is down, so they go through the extra effort of Tweeting that it will be down for the day.

Are you implying that any B&M has had similar downtime as TTD?

TwistedWicker77 said:
*Clears throat*

And for the record, this is a legit question.

Thabto covered it. Every machine is liable to have problems. Some big, some small (though with Intamin it is a safe bet their problems will be huge). When a company stands behind its product and does what is necessary to make things right, that takes some of the sting out of any issues encountered. There are more than a few stories of Sandor basically telling customers to pound sand. That's why in addition to seeing Intamin attractions removed after only a few years, you also don't see many parks in NA willing to work with them. It makes more sense to pay B&M a premium price for a premium product, rather than save a few bucks up front for a product that may or may not need to be removed in a few years, assuming it doesn't injure or kill any of your customers before then.

XS NightClub said:
So the design issues are Werner’s fault?

First of all, it depends on what you mean by "design". Stengel comes up with the ride layout, Intamin produces the final product. Both processes have "design" elements to them. The reason TTD is down so much has absolutely nothing to do with Stengel, and everything to do with Intamin's absurd "complex is better" strategy.

But still, at the end of the day Intamin is selling the final product to the customer, not Stengel. So if the ride layout that Stengel came up with causes issues in the final product (e.g. Maverick's heartline roll), that's Intamin's responsibility, full stop.

Think of it like a car manufacturer. Ford doesn't make the seats in your car, but if you have an issue with the seat, you don't take it to Lear or wherever. You take it Ford to get the issue resolved (and then Ford holds their supplier accountable). But no matter how you slice it, Ford is on the hook to support the product it sold to you.

If the seats were the issue with the ride (B&M Ratcheting Vests) then that may be a fair comparison.

However, Designing the ride layout would obviously take into account the launch system/systems, lift height/launch table, braking design/table, necessary blocking, max/min speeds, g forces of elements, train weight, requested capacity, climate of the install park, and I'm sure a lot more...

It's clear the 'designer' would be working a lot more intimately and thoroughly throughout the process with the 'assembler' and the actual 'manufacturer' of track/trains/motors/etc, than just doing a Roller Coaster Tycoon layout.

We've all heard on this and other boards about the reputation of the Intamin NA representative, and like most rumors there is likely some truth to it... but, it's also just as likely that there's some hyperbole as well. While It would have been interesting to have been on many conference calls or in meetings between the park and Intamin, we will never know the true and accurate account of what was really contractually agreed to amongst the parties.

Since there doesn't seem to be a lot of legal action amongst the parties involved, it would seem the contracts were mostly honored as they were agreed to. I'm not saying Intamin was faithfully standing behind their product, but it seems legally they may have been within the terms. (all types of 'assemblers' have pushed the limits of the contractual agreement with buyers. Ford, along with most automakers, have detailed histories of cost/benefit analyzing their designs failures. Many of which were known before leaving the assembly line, or continued to be in use after being discovered and/or causing horrible deaths.)

A lot of the Intamin products are/were forward leading technologies, and given the danger inherent to the industry and safety required, are definitely seemingly over engineered when looked at with hindsight.

That being said, I can see there being discontented relations with Intamin and the parks that asked them to push those limits and designs.

A major exception to the pushing the limits request, being the ridiculous STR design. Which I think the park should've never opened or at least removed long before the accident.

XS NightClub said:

However, Designing the ride layout would obviously take into account the launch system/systems, lift height/launch table, braking design/table, necessary blocking, max/min speeds, g forces of elements, train weight, requested capacity, climate of the install park, and I'm sure a lot more...

No, not really. Aside from the basic physics (initial speed, train mass, etc.), none of the other stuff is relevant to layout and element design. After all, Stengel doesn't work only with Intamin, but also B&M, Gerstlauer, Premier, Mack, Maurer, etc. So if your theory was correct, shouldn't all those other companies' products have the same issues Intamin's do?

...we will never know the true and accurate account of what was really contractually agreed to amongst the parties.

We don't need to know the details. All we need to look at is the recent portfolio of Intamin installations. If the company were providing a good product that they were willing to stand behind, they'd still be getting contracts. But they aren't.

Since there doesn't seem to be a lot of legal action amongst the parties involved, it would seem the contracts were mostly honored as they were agreed to.

Is that you, Sandor? Suddenly your defense of Intamin makes a whole lot more sense... ;-)

But seriously, this is exactly the kind of argument that leads to a company being blackballed in an industry - hiding behind the fact that they're legally in the clear simply because they delivered the bare minimum that was contractually-agreed to, customer satisfaction be damned.

A lot of the Intamin products are/were forward leading technologies, and given the danger inherent to the industry and safety required, are definitely seemingly over engineered when looked at with hindsight.

They were over-engineered even with the comparatively-limited benefit of foresight. It doesn't take a professional engineer with decades of experience to understand that adding more components increases opportunity for failure.

That being said, I can see there being discontented relations with Intamin and the parks that asked them to push those limits and designs.

Sometimes it's better to tell a customer "no" than to build the product they want if you know you cannot build said product with very high confidence there won't be issues. Telling them "yes, we can do Hagrid's/StR/Girrafica/etc" is only a good long-term strategy if you can actually deliver to the customer's satisfaction.

Okay.

Thabto said:
That guy is a ****ing asshole. He's an arrogant prick that won't admit to faulty products and wouldn't fix the problem. He left them high and dry. A little digging on here would answer your question.

I’ve done the “digging” on here before asking the question, my friend. And any “answer” that I can find is basically exactly what you said above. Calling him an a*****e doesn’t answer my question. I’m asking for facts, examples, articles, videos, proof that he has been this way towards his customers.

I’m in no way sticking up for him, I just want to be enlightened by his supposed douche baggery.

TwistedWicker77 said:
I’m asking for facts, examples, articles, videos, proof that he has been this way towards his customers.

You're not going to get it. But you can go by the word of trusted insiders, which is bolstered by the fact that Intamin can't get much work in NA these days.

If only Jeff had called him an asshat. That would have sealed it for me. But since he is just a dick then he must not be so bad. Or do I have that backwards and being a dick is worse than an asshat?