Down with the mid-course brake run?

To me on some rides it just kinda seems like the mid-course brakes kill the momentum of the ride. i mean sure it helps kill some bad gs we may feel. but come on! when your slowed almost to a stop? tell me what you think.

Depends on the ride...It may be suspensful at times, to have a little stop here or there, but I agree with you, too, it almost is too much of a stop, where it just seems slow.

I guess it just depends on the certain ride.

Most MCBR's arn't even suppost to slow the ride down, there just there as an extra block.

It sucks on Goliath at SFMM, and on Mean Streak.

It really sucks on Mamba at WoF and Raging Bull at SFGAm....

A mid-course almost never is there to reduce G's on a modern ride. More often than not, they're there to create a longer ride, even if by a few seconds, to keep all of the dispatching and train movement going in some optimal fashion.

Raptor used to squeeze hard at the mid-course block, but hasn't now in a couple of years. The reason I suspect they did it was to keep the trains spaced out enough and the ride cycle long enough to not stack trains at the station.

However, and this is not based on any actual measurement, I think the thing they changed is to make the final brakes slow the train more, and move the train down through the transfer slower. They can keep the cycle about the same while letting the train sail through the mid-course.

I know for a fact, based on a former crew member, that Mantis was a tight mid-course squeeze for timing. Ditto for the brake on the drop. Now, with two trains, they don't need to do that.

Nice job summing it up. I was just gonna add how the brakes are just there as a block for the ride...

BTW (this is probably a dumb question), but, why does Mantis only run 2 trains? *** Edited 6/6/2005 12:50:59 AM UTC by Kyle Dersch***

They'd be stacking up the wazoo if they had 3 trains.

There is a train on the ground under the exitish area in shrink wrap.

And when they ran all three it was stacking up the wazoo! ;)

I hate the break on the mantis that is on the first hill. It makes things too jerky

Im glad we have you jeff. your a smart guy. i love you.

You can't have his bud light.

They should take the drop brakes on Mantis off.

When I was there in May they were not using the trim brake on the Mantis drop and it made the ride so much better.

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Cory Marshall

Kyle Dersch said:
Nice job summing it up. I was just gonna add how the brakes are just there as a block for the ride...

That's true as well. I recall reading a quote from designer John Wardley about it being necessary to trim at a mid-course block always. His logic seems right, in that if the coaster is engineered to make it back from a dead stop on the mid-course, then you should have to trim it a little to keep those forces in check.

The reality we've seen on Raptor though is that the ride is really significantly better when not trimmed at the mid-course. In fact, if you've ever seen it run from a stop at the mid-course, it crawls through the rest of the course.

While we're on the subject of stacking..... Let's discuss MF.

On second thought, let's not.

-Josh

On some coasters I consider the MSBR a breather. After the deep breath I am ready for the wild ride to the station.

I dislike both of the drop trim brakes on Mantis and on MS. That is it ruins the whole drop(not the ride...just the drop)experience.

Did/have the trim brakes on Mantis' drop been...uh "turned on". I know it wasn't on opening day. Although I guess they might have been seeing that maintenance was up on the platform doing....something to it later that day. *** Edited 6/6/2005 7:43:37 PM UTC by TTD 120mph***

I want a model of dragster like in the post before mine