Intamin pre-fab track: retrofit?

[Buckeye Brad]

With all the buzz about El Toro, I was thinking: would it make financial sense for a park to retrofit an existing woodie with Intamin pre-fab track? I read all the time about how much time and money parks spend to maintain their wood coasters (especially the big ones like Mean Streak and Sonny). Obviously parks would have a hard time marketing the investment to the GP (new for 2006: all new smooth track on Son of Beast!). But from a maintenance cost savings aspect, it might be interesting. Kind of like football stadiums tearing out grass and installing the new artificial turf. It's a huge investment, but saves money long term. Despite the huge price tag, even high schools are doing it all over the country. The new may not have as much "personality", but its always reliable.

 

Even if it were an option, coaster fans might have an interesting quandry. Take The Beast. With new track it might be able to run at full speed, but it would likely lose some of that rockem, sockem, rumble that makes woodies so unique and beloved. A good trade?

 

Just thinking out loud,

-Brad

[DragonKhan]

With all the buzz about El Toro, I was thinking: would it make financial sense for a park to retrofit an existing woodie with Intamin pre-fab track?

 

OMG please NO!!!

Please do NOT neuter our classic Woodies! I'm fine with the new track style and I like it, but only as a coexistece to the classics!

[peteb]

I'm sure it's not impossible. Intamin's track is functionally not different than old school track except for it's laminated construction and precision factory milling. This actually could make it difficult to retrofit due to the hand crafted nature of wood coasters ; the design profile and real profile over time are probably different. Take a close look at some older wood coasters and you see funky track everywhere, but it works. Intamin's track system on an old structure may be too precise and intolerant to structural deviations perhaps to the point where Intamin would not even consider to put their track on a structure that is not engineered to their standards.

[MagnumForce]

If you look, the underlying structrure of n Intamin Woodie is totally different then that of a normal woodie, I can see some major issue in mounting the track. Not saying it couldn't be done but it may be impractical.

 

Also many of the infamously rough woodies are not rough because of the track, they are rough because the actual structure of the ride is crap. This is especially true in the case of S and D coasters.

 

I doubt this would help a ride like SOB either as it's not the track thats rough but it's the horrible trains on the thing.

[crispy]

Yeah, I would say NO WAY, its cool how smooth the intamin coasters are, but I love a tiny bit of roughness for a woodie