Top Thrill Dragster 2022 Status

And a beyond vertical spike as well possibly. That would be crazy. Like 100°

The spike going over the station would presuppose an equally large footing on the north side of the station and there is no evidence of that being the case as of yet

Actually yes there is a footing being constructed right north of the station and the assumption by most is that it’s there for the switch track but I think that will be even further north

And the footer in the station too being constructed

One thing you can notice in that latest video is two of those larger base support pieces have the baseplates welded on at an angle. Perhaps to help get up and over ID as noted before

The number of large and moderately smaller diameter supports is really getting interesting. There are 4 large diameter base supports, 1 large angled base support and 3 moderately smaller angled supports. I'm guessing #1 is for one of the spots in the double footing close to the station. #2-5 all appear to be equally sized and I'm curious which ones are for the lagoon footings and where the heck the 4th one is going. #6-8 are throwing me off the most since 2 of them have angled base plates. Glad we only have to wait 5 more days to find out.

After taking a longer second look at the photo you posted it appears that the longer support in the bottom left would indicate a vertical spike.

The two inside connector / flanges appear much smaller in diameter and much closer to the support itself which (at least to me) would seem much more in line with track connections flanges.

After taking a longer look at the photo I see that the Prayers From Maria Sunflower field is nearly at peak bloom!

SRE123:

...the pull out will begin north of the station and go above the station...

That's a pretty definitive take given there are no footers on either side of the station. One would think supporting track traversing the entire length of the ~100' long station would require substantial supports and footers, right? And given that they've already constructed the big footer south of the station, why haven't they constructed these others yet?

There’s many solutions to your problem and here’s one of them:

Launch track is being installed this morning.

Credit to Tyler Hermann.

SRE123:

There’s many solutions to your problem and here’s one of them

It's not "my problem", it's a physics and logic problem. Why would they support the track that way instead of building typical foundations and supports instead?

And can you point to an example of a "massive" spike's pullout having a 100' gap between footers that is supported in the way you propose?

I dunno, seems like there's a lot of hand waving of questions for something you are certain "will" happen.

SRE123 maybe thinking the big gap between supports could be constructed similar to a long span on a large bridge.

Oh, I get that. I'm just trying to understand why they'd do that, instead of just building supports that straddle the station, like they do ~100% the time in similar situations.

Unless there is several other objects occupying the space with the station underneath, but park officials only know the real plans. Next Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

You can say that again. One Tuesday arrives, the conversation can switch from terrible speculation, to complaining that the announcement doesn’t live up to the hype of said terrible speculation. “They should have…. Wish they…”

After doing a couple hours of looking, I was only able to find those pivoting brake fins on three other coasters, Nefeskesen, Red Fire, and iSpeed. They all have one thing in common...Intamin. Maybe its still wishful thinking, but that style brake isn't common at all and I can't find who makes them, so I'm assuming they're made in-house by a ride manufacturer. I'm looking forward to seeing LSM stators go on the track. If they're using indrivetec stators, That's another potential point for Intamin. I imagine they won't be installing those until after the announcement.

Maybe after the announcement they'll use the webcam west to show progress like they did with the webcam east to show boardwalk progress.

The suports that are arriving at CP Express, look very similar to those on used on Pantheon's spike.

https://rcdb.com/16812.htm#p=133364