Proof of welding... but in the front tower

I just got back from Cedar Point today, and I was talking to my sister Impulse operating crew members. The one ride host was nice because he didn't seem to mind telling me Wicked Twister's problems. Apparently, we can rule-out overheating. This was not the cause for the re-programming of the ride, or the closures in the past. He said it has happened, but rarely. He also said, for the most part, the ride has been closed because maintainence was working on the towers, structurally. He pointed out that work had most recently been done on the front tower, which I was a bit surprised to hear. After riding, I did manage to snap a pic, and low and behold, there has been welding on the front tower. It looks like maintainence has replaced some of the small, round diagonally crossing rods with bulkier, fat ones.

Here's the picture.

I got one more picture of the equipment under the tower, which included a cart for hoisting up stuff past the maintainence platform on the ride, and what looked like some welding machinery (although I'm no expert).

Equipment under tower.

This topic, in no way was meant to promote my pictures, or make my self feel smart, but rather as a heads up to someting you might find interesting, especially considering that everyone has been talking about the back tower so much.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes MCS Please, Feel Free To Call Me Jes!
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew!
*** This post was edited by Zero-G 8/4/2002 8:57:04 PM ***

Interesting. I thought the problem was around the support connection. Surprising, but I guess not in some ways. Up until this point Intamin's track design has had very predictable and linear force placed on the track, where as this is a twisting motion with no supports. I almost get the impression that those diagonal cross members would "slide" across the straight ones.

I wonder how Intamin will remedy this.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"Let's stop saying 'don't quote me,' because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying." - Dogma, KMFDM

Could we forsee a new segment of track for each tower? Possibly even more new track, I think that would be the best solution to permanently fix the problem.

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--Seth

Thanks for the info and the pics Jes! You answered the "why only the backwards spike" controversy! Thanks! :)

Jo
2000 Raptor Crew
Gemini 100 "Survivor"
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Cowboys dig cowgirls in trucks
Cowgirls dig cowboys in Wranglers! ;)

One thing I noticed yesterday (as I finally rode WT for the first time), the train never fully leaves the support structure. Keeping the train lower reduces the stress on the free standing track and puts more on the supports. The replacing of ties suggests to me that there is more lateral stress in the twists than originally expected, like if the train is larger than originally expected. I wonder if the twists were originally designed for a standard impulse train (14 rows), but when a 16 row train was proposed, Intamin determined that the larger train would be OK for the design so no changes were made.

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Scott W. Short, Rail Junkie
mailto:scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

Funny you should mention that Seth, because when I was taking pictures of the ride from the beach, I noticed a CP maintainence employee using a serveying tool pointed at Wicked Twister. What does it mean? Maybe nothing, but maybe an off-season modification is in store.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes MCS Please, Feel Free To Call Me Jes!
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew!

I too observed the new welds yesterday and pointed them out to my friends. I assume that there will be a redesign and replacement of the twisted spikes in the off-season. I suspect that the new cross bracing welds are just to prevent any further problems and possibly to see what effect they have on spikes' motion.

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy

What's interesting is that Superman: Ultimate Escape and the V2's have twisting track on the front spike, and none of them seem to have had any of these problems. Admittedly they're not as tall, though.

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--Greg
My Home
MF count: 52

Intamin obviously made some sort of mistake when calculating the forces that would be applied to the towers. That ain't no little bandage they slapped on there.

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James Draeger
"Make it stop!"
"There goes the body buggy"

Is it me, or are lots engineering firms making mistakes lately?

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes MCS Please, Feel Free To Call Me Jes!
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure 2002 Ride-Ops Crew!

After seeing some of the stuff that goes on at some engineering firms while working there, I'm surprised there aren't more mistakes that surface.

(in any industry...not just in the amusement industry)

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James Draeger
"Make it stop!"
"There goes the body buggy"

I noticed the equipment and the new welds on the front tower yesterday and was surprised. Although not related to the structural problems, I saw there is now a message on the back of the seat in front of you that says to use caution when entering and exiting the train.

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-Chris Woodard
Who finally met the infamous Magnum Dan!

Wow. I did not see how many of those braces were actually replaced yesterday. The only thing that I had noticed were the 2 pieces of round pipe lying on the front footer. I had figured that just maybe they were beefing it up, but I had no idea that they were actually replacing all of those braces! I can't wait to ride it at full power!!!!

I finaly* rode it sunday'4th' for the first time and man its bad but it does have a lot of unpainted new crossbraces up there and i also saw the stickers those seats are comfy.The jump isnt as tall as people said i kept thinking i was going to hit the floor on the way down the back spike.i was the last train out before the storm as we unloaded the shut it down.Also witnissed a missfire while in line.3-2-1nothing again3-2-1nothing then2 seconds later tabam!My spelling suck havent been on in 2 weeks cuz ive been in wellington ohio will be back to the point sept.8th

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400+ft by 2003? only Cedar Point can answer.

WT was down for most of the day yesterday, the 6th. Looked to be more welding going on up the front spike. I snapped a few photos of a rather large pile of the old yellow track supports that were being cut off and replaced by the larger silver ones. I wonder if they're doing this up the whole exposed tower?

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Michael McCormack CP '02: 28
Magnum XL 200: 223 (338)
Millennium Force: 6
Wicked Twister: 24

Here is some late night video of them welding WT. The link below should work. http://users.adelphia.net/~frank126/wt.zip
and jeff the url button doesnt work (at least for me)

*** This post was edited by Franko 8/7/2002 2:41:27 PM ***

You have to actually select some text to make it work.

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Jeff
Webmaster/GTTP, Sillynonsense.com
"Let's stop saying 'don't quote me,' because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying." - Dogma, KMFDM