olimonn
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Posts posted by olimonn
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Diamondback will have a capacity of 1620 pph which is only 150 pph less than Silver Star, I don't see how capacity gets cut by half?
1620pph is still a very good capacity by today's standards. Compare it to Intamins like Fahrenheit (850pph), Maverick (1200pph), Piraten (810pph), Gerstlauers (Mystery Mine 1000pph), Maurer Söhne (G Force 1100, Hollywood rip will reach 1850 pph only by the mean of blockzones of 23 seconds, just a tad more than those of a Wild Mouse's. ).
Definitely calling the B&M's new trains low capacity is clearly a misconception, it sure ain't the 3000 pph of Olympia Looping or the 2400+ pph of a Disney Coaster, but is more really needed for parks barely reaching 3million visitor each year? BTW for the moment only Cedar Fair has bought those trains, it will be interesting to see if other parks /corporations buy them...
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I think the last picture with two chicks in the car and peole queuing for the ride is self-explanatory
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I love this trip report. Do you have any information on who built that travelling rapids ride????
The Swiss from ABC Engineering. Reverchon also builds this kind of ride (they were the first to do it), but clearly ABC has mastered this art better than the French...
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They don't sell pints, at Oktoberfest, the only beer you can buy is a Maß, that is a glass of 1 liter of beer. (you can have a pint only if you take a bottled white beer).
A Maß costs about 8€. It's quite expensive but prices always get up for Oktobefest (hotels, and beer). Normally a Maß costs about 6€ in the city center and much less in more retired parts of Bavaria, but there you certainly don't get the same feeeling as when in the tent singing folkloric songs with 7000 other drunk people!
A ride on Olymia Looping must also be in the same price range. I cant' remember exactly, but it was around 6-7€ last year.
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Provided it will most likely not be an hydraulic launch (Intamin owning the patent), I would say yes
Don't forget also that Mack is one of the most reliable manufacturer around with B&M...
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^Well, do we have any solid info on the coaster leaving? If it will be there in 2009 and not 2010, I can be persuaded to do the TPR Oktoberfest trip next year for sure!
It's official since early July, Euro Star has already departed Germany and has been bought buy Gorky Park in Moscow as stated by coastersandmore: (german)
http://www.coastersandmore.de/rides/eurostar/eurostar.shtml
This is due to increasing transportation and operating costs. Alpina Bahn (Schwarzkopf nonlooping coaster) takes its place on most of the major fairs such as oktoberfest.
The appearance of a new monster is very unlikely due to these costs and the raising debt rates. The Big Three for Oktoberfest is now constituted by Olympia Looping, Höllenblitz and Alpina Bahn. And this, until another one departs...
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^
Well, 90% of the structure of Mammut is prefab, the wooden track is not, but had to be laminated on the structure. (as opposite to Intamin woddies which also have prefab track)
To ensure maximum protection, each single part of the structure is first completely machined, then impregnated. The single parts get shipped to site and all the assembly gets done there. Some minor parts, like such which only need a couple of nails and some adjusting, are prepared on site. So this is a prefab woodie, as opposed to such coasters which are made on site from raw beams, which rules out high precision industrial processing and proper impregnation and "record time" completion.
Are you sure that Intamin owns the patents on the whole structure or only on the prefab wooden track which was not used in this case?
(sorry for all the ot)
cu
Norman
Thank you, I didn't know all about the structure part, I understood prefab woody as "prefab track woody"!! My point was only about the track construction hence my analysis being incomplete. Another point to add is that this system is incredibly cheaper that the full prefab system as sold by Intamin (though still more expensive than the classic way)
For the patent about prefab tracks, they claim it on their website here is what is said:
Additionally, for the park, the prefabricated and labelled parts improve accuracy while decreasing installation time. Consequently, though the initial investment is perhaps higher than before, the total cost of ownership is significantly lower.The unique track design is patented and exclusively employed by Intamin alone.
So they only own the rights on the prefabrication of the tracks (which, according to Andreas Wild, I interviewed two months ago, is still a Stengel/Büro Stengel patent, so I guess they only have the commercial rights). However the prefabrication of the structure seems to have nothing to do with Intamin. I'm not sure if it's even patented (maybe by Cordes?), it must be used quite a lot outside of the coaster world...
Anyway, as far as tracks are concerned, there are now two patents, the Cordes one and the Stengel/intamin one. Each one offering more comfort and less maintenance than the classic tracks.
Sorry Robb for polluting this Trip Report topic in such a way, they're always an interesting read!
(@KrautWithAltitude: Servus! I really need to update my profile some day )
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Just to let you know, Mammut is not a prefab woody, the prefab patent is originally a Büro Stengel patent and is now exclusively owned by Intamin. Cordes was just a subcontractor for the prefab woodies, they have no right to use the technology without Intamin being involved, which is not the case here. None of the trackwork of Mammut was done in a factory, it was all realised on site a bit like a classical wooden coaster. It's not a classical woody however. This track system was developped by Holzbau Cordes specifically for the park and is patented.
For the smoothness, the wheels are poly-coated, unlike traditionnal wooden coasters (which explains the relative shortness of the ride compared to its height) and the rest is due to the patented track system.
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I've tried it @ Deutsches Museum, fun ride, really disorienting. However they reused their standard OSTR for it and considering you are thrown around a lot and get considerable amounts of hangtime, they weren't adapted. The fact that you hold the wings with your hands prevents you from bracing for the throwing around. Somebody tall like me (6'2"-187cm) will have his right shoulder destroyed... I actually found blood on the shirt I was wearing in the shoulder zone!
It's a fun ride, but smooth harnesses like the new Vekoma ones, or the possibility to control the wings with the feet to let the hands free for bracing would make it actually rideable...
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Lynet doesn't stop for the launch either, it just drops out of the station into the launch. Chances are great Plopsaland's coaster will behave similarly.
For the short train coasters that multily like bunnies, most of them are launch coasters. Sshort train is lighter, and thus requires less power to be launched, so the park doesn't have to have a very high capacity power supply to implement the ride.
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Nothing was mentioned, except the theming of the station being all about the "upside down"thing (it's the first looping coaster to the park, so they are sure exploiting this element). That's why I wouldn't expect anything extensive except for the station (see concept art). The ride will most likely be surrounded with trees, so extensive theming throughout the whole ride is IMHO not really necessary.
Anyway I find the station hilariously confusing and that's enough for me !
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Parques Reunidos would be the best operator if Busch parks were to be sold, since they let the management in place and already own some nicely themed parks like Parque Warner Madrid or Mirabilandia who didn't lose any ounce of their identity in the process. I'm afraid this would be too much of a big fish for them though...
I'm also intrigued about what would happen of all the über-patriotic stuff the parks have and do...
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Le Jardin d'Acclimatation is located on the side of the Bois de Boulogne nearly outside of the legal bounds of Paris. It is however beyond the Boulevard Périphérique (Paris' ring that more or less defines the "official" Paris) . It's accessible by the most touristic subway line of Paris: Line 1. This means you have direct access to the park from touristically popular locations such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysées, Place de la Concorde, the Louvre Museum, or Chatelet and Notre Dame Cathedral. The Station is "Les Sablons" and you have to walk about 150m through a classy surburbian neighbourhood to get to the park.
If you want to do the whole touristic thing (and want to be sure not to get lost ), get down at Porte Maillot and take the small train that will take you through the woods of Bois de Boulogne to the entrance of the park.
According to the website of Paris public transportations, it take less than half an hour with the subway from the Louvre which is located in what could be called 'Central Paris'.
Thanks for your Trip Reports, Chuck, they are always an immense pleasure to read!
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European rumours talk about a magnetic launch followed by a top hat, a loop, a double corkscrew and a final heartline roll. Nothing original exept the fact that it would be from Mack.
As far as advertising is concerned, this kind of ads has already been done (and in a better way), particularily the one with the sling shot:
(more on this link: http://parcorama.blogspot.com/2008/01/advertising_23.html )
Compared to
This kind of reminds me of the spirit of this video :
Edit: ^ Mack considered doing the hypercoaster thmeselves, but they realised they weren't technically advanced enough to carry the project out, thus they gave it to B&M. Some people here have very good reasons to believe it's a Mack. If you want it to be a B&M or an Intamin, that's your choice, but you might end up disappointed...
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It's going to be a Mack ride, and certainly not a 15-looper.
As far as I am concerned I'm expecting something not much more thrilling than Rock'n'RollerCoaster/Xpress. And I find RNRC extremely boring. I can't count the times I've heard lambda guests of the park ranting about the lack of a looping coaster, so I'm pretty sure it will be an instant hit for the gp. However my expectations as an enthusiast are low.
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Crush tops at 930pph. And this is theoretical capacity. If you count the three-rider cars, some VIP passes here and there, baby switches, some typically French line jumping and random downtime due to the DR part having a higher capacity than the coaster part and causing stalling in the DR, the effective capacity is way lower.
Now imagine you put away 50% of normal line practical capacity to get fast passes in... I'm sure even a 2-seater Sling Shot line would move faster!
Adding a single Rider line will only help the ride to tend to its theoretical capacity which is still extremely poor for such a popular disney coaster and won't help the normal line moving faster except if it helps reducing downtime by evening the cars weight! This coaster is doomed to have horrendously long lines until the park as grown enough to have people interested in other rides. I've queued for it once, I won't ever be queueing for it for more than 20 minutes!
Tower Of Terror has a capacity of around 2000pph (I personally think it's a tad less), so cutting the capacity by two to add in fast passes is doable (one library, and thus one loading platform for normal line, the other one for fast passes). Still it's not perfect since some operators tend to do their show over and over once you're in the cabin and ready to dispatch. This is great for the riders, but not for the guests in line who have to wait more.
Fast Passes for Flying Carpets are useless since no one ever goes on this ride anyway (with rising attendance due to ToT, this may change though).
The best times to get there (for attendance) are as Groteslurf said in end january and february (avoid european 'snow' holidays though). September is also a great time to go, between the end of summer holidays and the beginning of the Halloween Season, the park is usually quite empty. And it's not quite as cold as in February!
Anyway enough with Off Topic, this is a very nice TR, I'm really thrilled to get back there in July!
I've never ridden the balloon, is it worth it?
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Nice pictures!
For the raft ride, according to French Wikipedia those are from Intamin.
Vekoma only seems to have made the ones in Bellewaerde.
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A tad off-topic, but you can find some free-of-charge Sling Shots. The one in Skyline Park is one of them.
I personally don't like this type of ride, for they are too intense for me, but for what I have seen the safety systems are redundant enough to ensure an acceptable level of safety to the riders. This can be shown by the double cabling and multi spring system for the spring version, or the safety cable/bungee on the bungee version.
I'm glad to see the safety system worked, this shows that things can go wrong without going bad. A good example to keep in mind for untrustful/suspicious relatives or friends...
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Is El Toro's lift running as it did at the end of the season (slow at the end) or is it fast again?
Nice report with interesting and beautiful pics!
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Parque Reunidos have already bought a large number of parks in Europe, most noticeably Bobbejaanland and Mirabilandia, and none of them has lost their charm nor identity. Parque Reunidos just wants the money to get in and don't care about global expansion plans, uniformization, massive investment or whatsoever. Each park does it the way it choses to.
Contrary for example to the "Compagnie des Alpes" which bought out all the walibi parks and quite a few others, and on which there is no investment, and where they put one general manager for three parks!
Believe me, from what we saw in Europe, Parque Reunidos definitely is the corporate that gives most freedom to their parks (if they ever take any, by the way). It's as if the parks were still independent, but the money simply goes elsewhere. Of course any sale of a park to a corporate, is no good news, but Kennywood was clearly lucky that it was Parque Reunidos instaead of SF, Cedar Fair, Merlin, Compagnie des Alpes, or any other one.
And once again, when Mirabilandia in Europe got sold to them, the fans were all bragging it was the end, the park wouldn't ever be the same, it was scandalous, a petition should be made etc etc. Well nothing has changed since. Investment are made on the same rate as before with the same spirit as before. I'd suggest you wait to see how the park evolves, before doing any criticizing, because you could very well see no change at all
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I actually think they have been improving their LSM technology so that it doesn't need as much power than before.
But remember, that launching a coaster to a certain speed, whatever the way used, requires more or less the same amount of energy, the only thing that varies is the duration of the energy boost... On hydraulic launch, it's during the pressuring of the oil. For LSM, it used to be during the launch (so much shorter), but I think they have now achieved to make it more progressive...
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And Intamin has a big record launch coaster that are unable to work properly...
As usual wait and see... Don't forget we're in the rumor thread...
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Shouldn't it be interesting to mention the park it's all about?
Well, with Pony Express you can figure this out by yourself, but still...
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http://www.rcdb.com/id1552.htm
Sad for you it's in Europe, but, it would really make a nice Milestone!
CoasterSims.com no more?
in Roller Coaster Games, Models, and Other Randomness
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Dude, you'll have to learn that the quality of a work is in no way related to the amount of time you spend on it.
You can spend years trying to turn sh*t into gold, it will always be sh*t. Even though you'll have spent years trying, when you'll show it to anyone, they'll recognize it as sh*t and not as gold.
My point is no one becomes good at his first shot. The best way to become good is to stop working on a coaster, release it, take the criticism and try to do better the next time.
CS works like real life. There's a bunch of people who have been where you are. And if they don't want to be rude, they can't be kindergarten teachers either. So they'll give you criticism according to their standards and not yours. It's on you to hold back your ego, to note down what is said and try to do better next time.
CS members can have become snobbish, certainly. But it doesn't mean what they said was rubbish.
Grow up, try having a life out of school, and then think about it.