Some Concerning Notes...

After riding Dragster yesterday, which was an instant top 5 in my book, I decided to go out and get my video camera to get some footage of the ride. While standing down near the pull-up and watching the train rush past, I noticed that the supports and track were shaking quite a bit. I don't mean small shakes as you would see on a wooden coaster, or on some steel coasters...I'm talking about Wicked Twister or Vertigo type swaying. The entire launch track shakes a bit, but I assume that is normal. But the pull-up to about half way up the tower shakes for long after the train has passed. The longest diagonal yellow support (3 sections) holding the track to the base of the main structure, seemed to be bowing while one end shook diffferent from the other end, while the grey supports also seemed to be churning from the quake as well. This was also occuring during the pull-out. I'm concerned that this will become an issue later in the season as Wicked Twister and Xcellerator did last season. Has Intamin miscalculated again? Will we be seeing added support next season--or even this season? Did anyone else notice the amount of swaying in the track as well?
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Michael McCormack
Magnum Count: 634

*** This post was edited by BirdOfPrey00 5/5/2003 4:38:41 PM ***

Oh my Top Thrill needs to close!!! A ride is supposed to be perfectly still and never move right?

You do understand that a whatever weighing train going 120mph does have a little effect on the track/supports? It's MEAN'T to move to take in the energy properly....

Ugh...

I did. My brother-in-law were talking about it. I think some diagonal supports, at about half way throught the pull-up, or right at the first yellow support will likely come to light. Only one footer would be needed for this.

The train has alot of "wash-out" in the back, on the launch side, too. Looks kinda rough to me. I guess that is the tail of the whip. This doesn't mean I wouldn't ride it again, though. Heck, if I were worried about , I wouldn't have ridden it the first time. Sufice it to say, if it's not safe, you ain't gettin' on even if you want to.

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If I win the lottery, I promise not to quit my job. Although, it may not take very long for me to be fired.
In the immortal words of Socrates, "I drank what?!"

CoasterMike said:
Oh my Top Thrill needs to close!!! A ride is supposed to be perfectly still and never move right?
You do understand that a whatever weighing train going 120mph does have a little effect on the track/supports? It's MEAN'T to move to take in the energy properly....
Ugh...

Remember, thats what everyone said about Wicked Twister too. I know its supposed to move. And I said above that it wasn't like normal coasters. If it doesn't shake, it will break...too much shaking, and it will be breaking too.

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Michael McCormack
Magnum Count: 634

I did notice the shaking on the launch side as well. I wasn't paying much attention to the pull out side though. The swaying was a little surprising I'll agree.
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Millennium Force Laps-104
**Vertigo Launches-21**
Dragster Launches-1

I haven't seen this in person, but you probably aren't the first to notice this.

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2002/2003
KW Old Mill/T-Pike crew

Of course it's going to shake and move. First of all it's 420 feet in the air. Second of all there is a train going up and down it at 120 mph. When WT opened everyone was scared that it was swaying. If it didn't sway it would break...just trust CP and stop worrying about a $25,000,000 project that was built by one of the top construstion companies in the world.
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Darn it...I guess I am still stuck in 2002!

I don't see how you could cost effectively prevent shaking from a 10,000 horsepower motor pulling a 5 ton train down a track at 120 mph. It's not totally out of the question that it shakes a bit too much, but that'd be some serious support work to keep this thing still. I think it'll be fine, but if worse comes to worse they'll add a support like Xcelerator, as previously mentioned.

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Richard, what'd you do?

I watched a few trains go over the top from by the tower and I didn't think the swaying was too extreme considering the size of the tower. I mean a few beams 400 ft in the air have to give a little to keep from snapping like twigs. I wouldn't worry about it (although we said that about WT.)

The swaying doesn't concern me.

What does concern me was that the fastest pair of launches I saw were something like this:

0;00;-- Launch first train
0;07;-- Launch cable comes to a stop
0;25;-- Next train stops at launch point
0;45;-- Launch sled engages
1;20;-- Next train ready to launch

By my reckoning, that's about 0;50;-- late if they plan to launch on a 0;30;00 interval!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

They only had three trains going man, at best they could have been running a 60 interval according to original plans. The lanuches were way too far apart but it was clear that they just wanted to have it going for OD.

BTW. it wasnt intamin's fault for wicked twister.

-Doug-

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I am a Mechanical Engineering major not an english major so pardon my horrible grammar

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The swaying of the launch track somes from the fins "popping" up to make sure the train, if on a rollback, dosn't come crashing into the statoin. I'm guessing it's a tpe of "aftershock" farther down the track, becuase man do those pop quick and make the launch shake.

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OMG! The Space Spiral is leaning!!" Must be the weight of that new air conditioning system everyone keeps hypothesizing about...

Technically, there was no fault in Wicked Twister. There sometimes is just some unforseen problem that occurs. Since this was the fastest impulse, and the fact that BOTH spikes were twisted, it was something new, and obviously could use some re-design if it were ever used again..
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Free your mind.
05.15.03

Voodoo said:
They only had three trains going man, at best they could have been running a 60 interval according to original plans. The lanuches were way too far apart but it was clear that they just wanted to have it going for OD.

Yes, but his point (which my *group* discussed as well) was that the sled takes 45 seconds to get back and engage on the next train. If the interval goal is 30 seconds, the sled needs to get to the train quicker than 45 seconds. Beyond that, 35 seconds from engagement to being ready to launch, that sled better move at light speed to come close to a 30 second interval. :) I think that's is what Dave was talking about...

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Jeff Shumway

~no replacement for displacement, except for that big freakin' turbo hanging on the front...

this is worrysome, im not over reacting, but everyone said its fine when they saw vertigo sway, well we saw the path of disaster for that...wicked twister has had problems with the spikes, i hope the are fixed now because that would be bad, mf is good and running well, power tower is fine, but it worries me that this tower may be supported wrongly, i hope not because this puppy is huge, and if sumthing were to go wrong it could be tragic, sorry if you guys think im over reacting but i think i have a little reason to be worried about it

I thought the concern was focused on the pullup and pullout. If so think of the differences here:

1. Wicked Twister had "x" amount of unsuppported track swaying in the air right next to the lake. There really is no way to calculate a solution to prevent that until you actually put it in its element. They did so, found a problem, and fixed it.

2. Xcelerator's ENTIRE support structure was rocking back and forth. This is a prototype and was due for flaws. Once again, they found a problem and solved it.

3. Dragster has small sections of supported track swaying back and forth after a 5 ton train gets pulled to 120 mph by a 10,000 hp motor. I saw the swaying, thought about it for a minute and then continued on. The track is not free-standing, and supported underneath, unlike WT, and its 2 small sections of a long ass ride, unlike Xcel.

Im sure if it becomes a problem at all, a few footers and some cable of extra stell will fix it good. Just be happy its not Six Flags, they fix their rides with pickles and duct tape...lol...(joke from another forum)

I saw the swaying too. If the track is bolted securely to the supports,which are bolted to the footer in the ground,logically one would have to assume the footer is moving too as the support swayed right? I wonder if there is some gasket,shim or whatever you want to call it between the track and the support that is absorbing the shock of the swaying. I don't see how the track and support could move without moving the footer around,it has to have been alotted for in the design,or at least I hope so.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! And so is Dragster! And they're never going to hit a 30 second interval! We're all DOOMED! Oh what will we do!

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tambo

Well, we could just wait for it to sink and build it again.