Heartline Removed!

People were smacking their faces off of the grab bars.

Geesh. I must've had strong upper body/neck muscles back then. I rode it opening year and thought it was the smoothest coaster I had ever been on.

Wow, only the second time i've ever heard someone say interweb, the first being Say Anything's song "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too!"

halltd said:
Wow - You learn something new everyday. Gotta love the interweb. :) Magnum would've been a fun one to watch being constructed since it was fabricated on-site.

You can't fabricate steel track onsite at a park...

Magnum's track was surely fabricated at Arrow's facility, same as all the other Arrow coasters.

The structure? Maybe. With the scaffold-type structure it's possible they did that at the park like the structure of a steel-supported woodie. But the track? No way.

And that's why you're a King's Island person and we're here on PB. :)

Sorry dude. The track was welded together on-site. Unlike coasters of today which are fabricated in sections (like Maverick) and trucked to the site, Magnum was made right where you see it today. Rails were bent, webs were welded to the rails, and structure was erected/welded on-site too. 1989 was a different time in coaster construction than you see today.

Look it up. You'll find details and/or pics eventually.

He was born the year they started construction on it. That's pretty funny.

I just got done reading this thread. I have to laugh because ever since everyone knew there was a problem with the heartline roll, everyone jumped on Cedar Point, Intimin, and the construction crew. The fact is, none of you will ever be a part of designing a real roller coaster. The people that do are brilliant. They dont just higher any engineer straight out of college. It is the best of the best. So before some of you morons act like they should have known this roll wasn't going to work from the video, maybe you should realize you are a nincompoop, compared to these people. Obviously they attempted a really cool element and it turned out to be a little rough. It is not like the thing was a complete failure. I actually think it looked really smooth. Just because some of you are good at math doesnt mean you are close to being as smart as the men and women that design these coasters. Wake up goof balls!

buckeyeminister said:
They dont just higher any engineer straight out of college.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

^^ I agree Loopy I was thinking the very same thing after i cleaned up the ice tea i spit all over my monitor....

There are plenty of pieces of Intamin track that have long unsupported sections. Since the track itself is basically a space frame truss, it can totally support it's own weight.

The top hat for Xcellerator at Knott's Berry Farm comes to mind

That makes no sense.

It's a complete circuit so how can one piece of track be cantilevered out by itself?

Loopy said:
Tim, you just don't get it.

Like I said before, they may have hacked that piece off there to remove the track due to the ends but that piece of short track that was left attached to the support was left for a reason.

It was the support for the end of the previous piece of track that they AREN'T removing, that they don't want to stress.

HERE

Does that make it elementary enough for you?

*** Edited 5/18/2007 2:18:36 AM UTC by Loopy***

Very pretty.

What you haven't shown is the many lengths of track to the left of you diagram. True, if you remove a section of track, the long free end will hang in space. But as has been pointed out earlier here, the track is a truss which should be able to support its own wieght.

Please review the previous amazing sketch while reading the following.

A track segment bears on its own support column at one end and the next adjacent track segment at the other end. When a section of track is removed, the adjacent track now acts as a cantilevered beam, the long free end hanging in space. This will induce a large vertical load down into the support column and a large upward reaction through the short end into the next piece of track.

As long as there are other track sections attached to the short end of the unsupported track segment, all is well. A single piece of track on a a single column is very unstable.

Loopy said:
That makes no sense.

Yes it does. Intamin added an another support to the ride a year or two after it opened.

Yeah, no, that still makes no sense.

What you are talking about is completely different than what's being discussed here.

Buckeye - the coaster companies are not some exclusive group that gets the pick of all the engineers before all the other engineering firms.

First off, they generally get people who are interested in coasters to begin with (just like Ford, GM and Toyota generally get people who are interested in cars). This alone limits the talent pool. Do they take the best and brightest they can find from here? Sure, but that doesn't mean they are the best and brightest out of all the engineers.

Secondly, they are humans. Not gods. They are prone to making mistakes. This should be obvious from exhibit A: Maverick's heart-line roll.

But its not, both ends of the top hat ARE supported.

Loopy said:
Yeah, no, that still makes no sense.

What you are talking about is completely different than what's being discussed here.

You asked how Xcelerator was unsupported, so I found some photos for you. Not saying I don't agree or disagree, just showing some photos.

*** Edited 5/18/2007 5:00:21 PM UTC by Andrew***

Best.Picture.Ever.....We now have three engineers on the wagon for its being cut for ease of removal. Some of the bias and functional fixedness in this thread is alarming! *** Edited 5/18/2007 5:20:24 AM UTC by Existentialist***

Four engineers.

In order to remove the track any other way, they would have to loosen a number of bolts to give enough slop (i.e. freedom of movement) to finese the track out. With all the other connections fully torqued, they wouldn't stand a chance. Cutting the track is the easiest , the least time consuming and the most cost effective way to get the track apart.

That being said, at some point they will have to loosen some connections in order to get the new track pieces in place.

As an aside, what is the going rate for scrap metal in Sandusky? It's a penny a pound up here (Ontario). How much money do you think they'll get for the track they're removing?

More than that if they cut it up and sell it in the gift shop.