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Battle of the top coaster designers  

1,050 members have voted

  1. 1. Battle of the top coaster designers

    • Intamin
      514
    • B&M
      536


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Its funny all these people are saying Intamin but the poll gives B&M the edge. Its like the election all over again.
I blame the Russians

Funny. I think there is more LOVE for Intamin, but more like for B&M. Does that make any sense?

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I'm by far a bigger Intamin fan, but interesting if you break it down B&M does MORE things better.

 

Hyper/Giga-Intamin

Inverteds-B&M

Stand Ups-B&M

Sitdown Loopers-B&M

Wing Coasters-B&M

Flyers-B&M (by default)

Dive Machines-B&M (by default)

Launchers-Intamin

Woodies-Intamin (by default)

Flatrides/Water rides/Drop Towers-Intamin (by default)

 

Other factors:

 

Reliability-B&M

 

Capacity-B&M

 

Cost-Initial investment is equal, but maintenance B&M

 

Durability-B&M, Hulk and the Japan Raptor are the only ones that have been scrapped so far

 

Looks-B&M (subjective however)

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I'm by far a bigger Intamin fan, but interesting if you break it down B&M does MORE things better.

 

Hyper/Giga-Intamin

Inverteds-B&M

Stand Ups-B&M

Sitdown Loopers-B&M

Wing Coasters-B&M

Flyers-B&M (by default)

Dive Machines-B&M (by default)

Launchers-Intamin

Woodies-Intamin (by default)

Flatrides/Water rides/Drop Towers-Intamin (by default)

 

Other factors:

 

Reliability-B&M

 

Capacity-B&M

 

Cost-Initial investment is equal, but maintenance B&M

 

Durability-B&M, Hulk and the Japan Raptor are the only ones that have been scrapped so far

 

Looks-B&M (subjective however)

 

I agree with those points but you could also add safety. I believe most of the B&M deaths are people or workers that wondered into the coaster train or passenger's foot. Those are issues with people. Intamin has issues with snapped cables or rider ejections injuring people and I don't hear about coaster failures with B&M injuring people as much.

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Most of my favourite coasters are B&M and are in the UK (where I live). I've noticed a lot of people from the USA are saying they prefer Intamin coasters. I'm guessing B&M coasters are more common in the UK because they tend to be more compact and our parks aren't as spacious. There are probably a number of other reasons.

 

TOP 10

1. B&M (Incredible Hulk, Universal Orlando, USA)

2. B&M (Flying Dinosaur, Universal Japan)

3. B&M (Galactica/Air, Alton Towers, UK)

4. Intamin (Thunder Dolphin, Tokyo Dome City, Japan)

5. B&M (Swarm, Thorpe Park, UK)

6. Intamin (Thirteen, Alton Towers, UK)

7. Intamin (Rita, Alton Towers, UK)

8. B&M (Dragon Challenge, Universal Orlando, USA)

9. Intamin (Stealth, Thorpe Park, UK)

10. B&M (Oblivion, Alton Towers, UK)

 

I would say B&M are my favourite coaster manufacturers, they generally tend to be very smooth and I just really like the look and the roaring sound of the B&M box tracks. I would like to try more Intamin coasters,particularly launch coasters like Taron in Phantasialand.

 

I think it's difficult to compare the two manufacturers because they are both great and excel in different ways.

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  • 7 months later...

New Intamins this year:

 

El Toro

Fahrenheit

Kingda Ka

Posessed

Skull Mountain

Skyrush

Storm Runner

 

New B&Ms this year:

 

Batman (SFGAdv)

Bizarro

Great Bear

Green Lantern (SFGAdv)

Hydra

Nitro

Superman (SFGAdv)

Talon

Wild Eagle

 

So....yeah, Intamin wins this year. Nitro and Wild Eagle are great, and Talon's pretty good. But 100% of the Intamins this year are awesome.

Edited by ytterbiumanalyst
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I don't think many of us want to have to really choose, they are really very complementary to each other. If you had a park with one major coaster, an Intamin or RMC airtime machine, the next thing to get would be a B&M or more similar. The thing about Intamin is they push the pedal to the metal, while B&M concentrates on floater air (which gives me a feeling in the stomach that ejector doesn't), grace and 100% quality. B&M even seems more artistic to me. But I did vote Intamin and I think their style is more in demand at this time, because every park needs some good ejector air.

 

B&M were innovating before Intamin, they really took on Arrow and Vekoma in the early 90s. Without them it is unlikely we'd be seeing any of this newer stuff. I didn't like them that much at first. Maybe one reason their early rides were more intense is their competition would hurt you in their intensity. Once people started getting it, they concentrated on their strength. At the same time, I'm appalled they are still willing to make standup and flying coasters and made as many as they did as they weren't very promising IMO (especially their standups, airtime is not optional!). Perhaps this really had more to do with the parks being willing to order them, and makes a point. Even now, the most important part when a park gets a B&M is it be true to their style.

 

Thinking about both brands of hypers, I could see a combination. The drop is designed for floater in the front, a couple of hills with perfect floater in the middle rows and mild eject everywhere else, slowly ramping up until everyone is holding on for thigh's sake.

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  • 4 months later...

BUMP

 

Looking at my current Top 20, Intamin still the clear winner, but B&M is not too far behind.

 

1 Intamin [Maverick]

2 Intamin [El Toro]

3 Intamin [skyrush]

4 Intamin [superman The Ride]

5 Intamin [i305]

6 RMC [Wicked Cyclone]

7 RMC [Twisted Timbers]

8 Morgan [Phantoms Revenge]

9 Intamin [Millennium Force]

10 Intamin [storm Runner]

11 Intamin [Cheetah Hunt]

12 B&M [Nitro]

13 GCI [White Lightning]

14 Arrow [Magnum]

15 B&M [Mako]

16 B&M [Montu]

17 B&M [Alpengeist]

18 Intamin [Volcano]

19 B&M [Griffon]

20 B&M [Dominator]

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Intamin is more likely to have a 10/10 type of ride for me than B&M, but B&M is more consistently very good in my opinion as I look at my rankings.

 

Top 10: 2 Intamins, 1 B&M

Top 25: 7 Intamins, 5 B&Ms

Top 50: 11 Intamins, 15 B&Ms

Top 100: 21 Intamins, 36 B&Ms

 

I'd personally take RMC over both now.

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The fact that the voting is so close just confirms that both of these companies make phenomenal roller coasters. It's great that they can be so evenly matched and provide such a variety of experiences.

 

Boring and Mild: Trash

 

Intamin: Trash

 

RMC: the one true coaster

 

Thanks for your... input.

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Intamin.

 

They take risks which makes them a bit uneven... but when they hit it, they hit it out of the park.

 

B&M keeps it in the park nowadays. It's safe, and they get solid results.

But I wish they'd pull an Intamin every now and then.

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B&M pretty much has just a few basic coasters, and even they're pretty much all the same. The only difference is the position of your body in relation to the track. And now that they've stopped doing stand-ups, you pretty much choose between a hyper, a floorless, and a flyer. I would have added a the invert, but its been years since they've built them regularly, they're pretty much off the market. A great park should have 1-3 B&M coasters to keep guests occupied and entertained (they're great for capacity as well, with three across and usually three trains), but the playmakers and superstars are going to be your RMC and Intamin coasters. Really, RMC is the gold standard, and is really what you compare everything to now, but the reason that we even compare Intamin to B&M is that Intamin does have some maintenance issues, and has produced some duds. They also have a pretty expansive company that has manufactured a lot besides just big ticket coasters.

 

They're both European too, so keep that in mind. It irks me that Liechtenstein doesn't actually have any roller coasters, and Switzerland barely has any. Not very good for America's balance of trade. And you would think that roller coaster designer would be a fun job that a lot of Americans would like to have. It seems a send to be shipping that overseas. I'd rather ship out the mundane jobs that nobody wants to do.

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^

 

There's most likely less than 100 transactions involving the actual purchase of a roller coaster worldwide in an entire year. The demand for engineers who design roller coasters for a living has to be incredibly minimal.

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