Extended Closure

They drilled into the chassis to put those white beams in. I'd imagine they wouldn't do that unless it was absolutely necessary. Perhaps they're meant to help with 2 or more things. Maybe they're there to help strengthen the spine of the chassis where the seats span as well as put more solid weight in the center of the train to help balance things out. Just a wild guess though.

I think they also made them so that the floor panels could still be used with only a slight modification to the back of the panel to allow for clearance. The beams seem to start just short of the first row of seats, meaning that those riders wouldn't have to worry about them. Second row riders, however, would need to walk over these things. But the 2nd row seats are also more spread apart, so maybe there's actually enough leg room for riders.

And those 2 pipes suggest, to me, an attempt to stabilize the seats by making them more rigid. Again, just a guess.

I still don't think, however, that these are part of a "final" fix. Otherwise, I think we would see them start work on the other trains once silver is done. They'll probably test silver again soon, to see how these modifications hold up and then there'll be another multi week stretch of no visible activity while they look over the data or whatever.

It's not easy to tell, but those seat stabilizers appear to be bare steel, which would certainly indicate they're temporary. I wonder if they're there to test a potential redesign of the milled aluminum chassis or seat base (or both), and it was just easier to use a steel member that has the same mechanical characteristics of whatever change they're considering.

They'll almost certainly never share what's going on here, but I would love to see a deep-dive documentary on this whole ordeal once everything is settled.

I don't think the cross tubes are steel. Joining two kinds of metals like that means you need to accommodate the different ways they expand and contract, according to a friend that designs roller coaster trains.

TTD 120mph:

Second row riders, however, would need to walk over these things.

I seem to recall Maverick has some weird thing that people have to step over.

I don't think the final design would be steel, both for the reasons you mentioned, and possibly also galvanic corrosion, depending on how they're joined. But they don't look like aluminum to me. Obviously hard to tell via that photo alone, though.

But it also looks like there's some sort of fancy joining situation going on there, with the ends of the tubes protruding through the seat bases with some sort of bushing or what-not on the ends, and something on the inboard side as well. Maybe anodized spacers/brackets?

*shrug*

I was thinking about that with Maverick, but you can step into it from the side of the train and then step down into the seat, which is almost down in a bucket on either side of the hump.

I suppose it’s possible that something like that could happen with this train, should it be redesigned, with that “beam” in the middle and moving the seats a little lower (provided there is room) to bring the center of gravity down, but I would think that would most definitely be a lengthy process with a whoooooole lot more testing.

Why didn't they just mount the seats as low as possible, so you didn't have thousands of pounds of meatsacks acting like a giant pendulum amplifying the little bit of wiggle that was happening as the trains traversed the track?

I think part of the restraint is not being able to touch the floor. By having no chance that your knees can be higher off the seat, you're forced to conform to the butt-in-the-bucket shape, lap bar on the thighs.

Jeff:

...not being able to touch the floor

Is that right? I did not know that about this ride. Is that a first for a coaster with traditional seating?

Wondering how much weight can be added to these trains before there's a need for additional power or will it take another launch to get the train over the top hat... And will that increase the rollback potential at the top hat if they aren't able to get the original designed speed of the train?

Increased mass = increased momentum, so they may not have to achieve the same speed they were hitting with the original train design. But it's an interesting point.

Not touching the floor goes away back. I don't think you could on the early B&M hypers. I seem to recall Intamin even caught on by Velocicoaster.

My guess at the moment is that all of these patchwork fixes are just testing for what will end up being a complete train redesign. I'd be surprised to see all of this MacGyver-ey stuff implemented as a final fix.

Which is why I would agree with others suggesting that silver is the guinea pig and the final fix may just end up being completely redesigned trains. Which, if that is the case, then it's definitely not reopening and I'd find it odd that the park would still choose not to say anything. I'm not saying we "deserve" to know, per say. Just that a definite "Yea, no....it's gonna be a while still. Y'all gonna need new trains." should warrent an update from the park imo.

Oh to be a fly on the wall.

I hear a low chuckle all the way from Liechtenstein . . . .

Given the fact they are making minor incremental changes with large time gaps between (first the wheel bogies, then seats, now these weird bars between seats & coaches), it's very clear we're witnessing a live 'design and build'.

I'm expecting a complete train rebuild.

I'll repeat it is disappointing that Zamperla had this machine running in early December and did not identify what has become a severe design defect...and the excuses of 'weather, weight distribution' are all BS.

^I agree with you. Zamperla is getting too much of a free pass here with the "it's a brand new design, it will take time to get the kinks worked out" comments.

Would that argument fly if someone had gotten hurt during media days? Of course not.

Imagine if the Big 3 came out with a new car in 2025, and said "it's new, we dont know if it will work or not, but we'll make modifications along the way if we have to." No, that wouldn't fly either.

This whole line about "Zamperla couldn't anticipate during testing how a ride would act" is such bull****.

Thats what the laws of physics and engineering are for.

Zamperla and their TT2 issues aside I still find it amusing how many talk up Intamin like they have the best track record on rides. Cedar Point had 5 rides installed by Intamin since 2000 and only 2 are still operating. Maverick and Wicked Twister had issues right out of the gate and somehow through pure luck Shoot The Rapids didn't kill several people when it de-railed and flipped over. TTD was a maintenance nightmare and the ride permanently injured someone, almost killing them. If anything I'd say Intamin is the one getting a pass on their struggles.

The situation at TT2 is definitely disappointing and I have no doubt that Zamperla really messed up on the train design. Somehow they did not accurately predict the forces on the ride and built a train that could not handle them, that is not a good situation. In the end I still have hope that they will get this figured out and that the solution does not alter the ride experience that much as it is definitely one of the best coasters I have ever ridden.

Free pass? I'm sure it's costing them dearly.

Regarding testing, how many systems have y'all designed, built and operated? There are limits to modeling and simulation. There are two things that we don't know: How much it tested prior to operating, and whether or not the defect could manifest itself without doing x launches. Time/scale are hard to simulate. I think CoasterBuzz is pretty robust, and designed to handle a lot of traffic, but until it had to do 100k page views in an hour, I don't know for sure. The testing I've done doesn't cover that scenario.

In my non-expert opinion, based on what we've seen, I don't think there's any issue with the individual structural pieces, but it sure looks like the way they're bolted together isn't robust enough to endure the forces on the train. Imagine a paper fan, attached to a stick. When you move it one way through the air, the paper bends one way. The other way, it reverses. Now do that over and over. If the staples or glue or whatever weaken over time, the design isn't robust enough. Now imagine the center chassis piece is the stick, and the perpendicular pieces bolted to it are the paper (only paper that doesn't bend). There will be constantly reversing forces on that joint. If the pieces are flat on flat, without some kind of notches, the brunt of that force is taken by the bolts and the friction of the two pieces touching.

It just makes you wonder why any premier amusement park operator, universal, would ever use Intamin for anything ever again?
It’s almost almost as if they may know something that the enthusiast community doesn’t.