Top Thrill Dragster 2022 Status

First, that has to be one of the most anxiety-ducing things I've watched in a while. I am not a fan of heights and seeing that a fish I lens turn out over the edge got my fear of heights flared up.

Bringing it closer to home I never really thought about the scale of any coaster track in comparison to a person, it's not as big as I thought really. Thinking about it I don't think top thrill is much larger?

Also I noticed at least three inspection marks on the bolts on his way up, I had never thought about it before but I know those things need inspected. What is the inspection process for those track bolts in any other bolts in the system? Does someone climb similar to this gentleman but with a harness? Is every single bolt inspected or just those that experience dynamic loading from the train? What can be extrapolated over to dragster, I know this is a newer ride but it does make me think more.

I quit and skipped to the end when he busted out his phone. Nope.

TwistedCircuits:

Also I noticed at least three inspection marks on the bolts on his way up, I had never thought about it before but I know those things need inspected.

I may be nitpicking over semantics, but I think those are "witness marks" made during assembly of the ride, not marks made during inspection. During assembly, once the fasteners have been tightened to the correct torque, a mark is made on the fastener hardware in a "known good" position. Subsequent inspections would verify that those marks are still aligned.

My anxiety was off the charts watching that video. That guy has some serious guts.

My heart is still beating fast after watching that even a couple minutes later!

That guy was crazy! I bet he was tied off 🤣

I recommend powered paragliding in place of BASE jumping. Apples to oranges yet Less risk more reward.

djDaemon:
I may be nitpicking over semantics, but I think those are "witness marks" made during assembly of the ride, not marks made during inspection. During assembly, once the fasteners have been tightened to the correct torque, a mark is made on the fastener hardware in a "known good" position. Subsequent inspections would verify that those marks are still aligned.

That's a pretty good article, but one word of caution: as the maintenance staff at REDACTED can tell you, subsequent inspections will verify that those marks are still aligned. But that's all they will tell you. On a static structure or a bridge where the structure is designed so that the movement is in the structural elements, that's generally okay. But in a system where the fasteners are subject to shock loading, Bad Things™ can happen without any requirement that the fastener actually change position.
A bolt (or capscrew; that is an argument for another thread) functions like a very tight spring. When you tighten the bolt, the shank of the bolt is actually stretched elastically so that the bolt actually supplies a clamping load on the structure. To maximize that clamping force, the bolt is torqued to a point which may be near the elastic limit for the bolt. If the bolt is overtightened, so that it stretches past its elastic limit, it will stretch inelastically, resulting in a loss of clamping force. The problem is, over-tightening is not the only way to over-stretch a bolt. A properly torqued bolt subject to certain impact loads can be stretched into yield by the loads applied to the structure, so that while the clamping force (and by extension, the measured torque) is lost, the bolt head never moves. If that connection is also subject to shearing loads when the clamping force is insufficient, it can cause the unexpected simultaneous catastrophic failure of all 28 bolts holding the assembly together, even though all 28 bolts had been visually inspected for witness mark integrity on that very day. That's also why, when properly inspecting these bolts with a torque wrench set to about 90% of the rated torque, any that are found loose are not to be tightened, but rather replaced...because the looseness indicates that the bolt has failed, and cannot be reassembled to the rated clamping force even if the bolt can be tightened to the proper torque.

And i'm guessing there is a good Chance that a non-trivial number of the participants here know exactly what catastrophic ride failure I am referring to here.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That jump is Chaos.

RideMan:

And i'm guessing there is a good Chance that a non-trivial number of the participants here know exactly what catastrophic ride failure I am referring to here.

And here I always thought the green train's demise was due to the jet booster they put on it. I learn something new every day.

I guess we officially have a crane on site.

https://www.facebook.com/349928541766924/posts/pfbid0nwkF8dh5Acd8Fe.../?sfnsn=mo

I don't know how to embed pics in post, I'm not that smart. And CP Rundown deserves the pic credit anyway.

Edit to add: Apparently there are rumors some track has been removed as well.

Track has in fact been removed.

I mean, there was no way the launch track was staying; happy to see progress moving along so quick.

Which begs the question... is this going to be open for next May??

This now reminds me of the great Steel Vengeance 2017 vs 2018 debate of the 2016 off season. Let me be the first to claim 2024 season for the Dragster reimagining.

Believe it or not, one of my greatest fears with this reimagination is what may happen to the station. I thought the TTD station and front of house appearance was some of CP’s finest creative work. At least it was a huge step away from some of the generic buildings that arrived before and after. Maybe it will stay the same, just spray painted lol.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were already well down the path of planning LSM conversion before the accident. In which case, opening next spring would be quite feasible. Maybe that factored in to remaining closed for 2022. Just a thought.

It finally feels real.

RIP TTD

arms down

If all they are planning to do is change the launch to LSM, then, I think the update could be done by the start of next season. The fact that they didn't say anything about this at the 2023 announcement, and now that they are starting to remove track, is starting to make me wonder if this is a bigger project than simply changing the launch.

RCMAC:

Believe it or not, one of my greatest fears with this reimagination is what may happen to the station.

I think the plan would be to only replace what's absolutely necessary to replace, and incorporate whatever possible. I don't see why the station would have to go.