Maverick Heartline

^That was indeed the official statement.

That roll does not look remotely neck-snappy to me. Intense, sure, but not that crazy.

DA20Pilot:

^That was indeed the official statement.

It was? I don't really know, I was pretty young when Maverick came out.

djDaemon, Yeah, I kinda agree with you. part of me thinks that the heartline roll would've been doable if it was done a bit differently. Make it a bit bigger, maybe an earlier transition?

I think if it was more like Velocicoaster’s, it would have been fine. It just looks extremely flat and too “tight”. It’s not like Intamin hadn’t been doing heartline rolls on their rides, either. Look at their multiple-inverting coasters.

Brandon, I agree it doesn't look "neck snappy." And I didn't have this opinion until after I first rode Maverick (sans roll, of course). In fact, I initially thought it hard to grasp that there was any legit reason to remove it. I was disappointed, like when they reprofiled Magnum's third hill (I really enjoyed the extra airtime and didn't mind my arse getting planted firmly in the seat).

But the way the forces feel coming around that turn, in conjunction with how the other rapid banking elements feel, made me immediately think, upon first ride, "Wow! I'd have been FUBAR if that roll were there!"

Exit, exactly. If that element weren't so tight coming right out of a high speed turn pulling some good Gs already, I think it would've been fine, like Velocicoaster's.

The second element following the S-turn makes, I dunno, maybe a ~195 degree rotation at only a little less speed, but in a considerably shorter length of track - maybe 70 feet - compared to the heartline, which made about a ~230 degree rotation over roughly 90 feet of track. Now, obviously the heartline is more severe in terms of forces given that it had to be replaced. But I don't think the heartline was dramatically more intense than that element.

Why doesn't someone approach Adena and buy the heartline track and recreate the conditions to see what the physical stresses are?

On the serious side, why does Adena have this track? How did they end up with it, and why would it have not been scrapped by now?

Because they're waiting on someone to buy the heartline track and recreate the conditions to see what the physical stresses are, natch.

But it is strange that they haven't scrapped it. I imagine the scrap value would be worth the cost to cut it up and haul it away.

Brandon makes a good point that it's not even a complete roll, since the train entered at nearly 90 degrees already. So one could extrapolate that the complete roll would be about 120 feet long. And sure, it might have made some people a little queasy, but the bit about train wear and tear is legit. If I remember correctly, it was on the wheel bearings and upstop and guide axles.

Here's the very short statement about the delayed opening.

“This decision was made in the interest of improving the guest experience on the ride..."

-Hildebrandt

If the ride is down for maintenance because of wear and tear on the train bearings, then the guests will have less time to experience the ride. So, yes, that statement checks out. They wanted to improve the guest experience.

Let's litigate every word of that short statement. It went super well for the Dragster thread.

Has there been an announcement on Dragster?

If not then there is still a chance all of that really cool stuff could happen - right???

I hope you get a stocking full of half frozen chicken tenders for bringing that up again. :-)

DA20Pilot:

“This decision was made in the interest of improving the guest experience on the ride..."

-Hildebrandt

What did you expect him to say?

This decision was made in the interest of improving my annual bonus, which will be smaller if we spend too much on wheel bearings.

e x i t english:

I hope you get a stocking full of half frozen chicken tenders for bringing that up again. :-)

I have heard that half frozen Cedar Point chicken tenders are simply divine. Not quite as scrumpdilicious as the fully cooked tenders, but still wonderful.

You haven’t lived until you’ve had the medium-rare tenders. *chef’s kiss*

djDaemon:

What did you expect him to say?

Well, of course I expected him to say:

"This decision was made in the interest of improving the guest experience on the ride and to eliminate excessive stress on the trains."

Instead of:

"The decision was made because we actually built a ride that would've likely caused severe whiplash injury or worse to guests, and despite all the modern engineering, modeling, and simulation software available today, we didn't realize it until we were within a stone's throw of opening it and putting guests on it."

But, that’s your speculative take on it. No one knows for sure if there was any impact to guest comfort, or any danger to their well-being.