SD2K lift hill question

when intamin started building millennium force i remember them saying that a chain on the lift hill would have to much tension and snap or something. but doesnt SD2K have a chain??!!

Yes, you are correct, so what Morgan manufacturing did was to split the 318 foot chain lift into two different lifts. Halfway up the lift, the train seemlessly disengages from the first half of the lift and hooks onto the second lift.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes MCS Please, Feel Free To Call Me Jes!
"Thank You Jeff Putz"

Yes, it uses a chain, but it has 2 chains that run on it, the weight of 1 chain would cause it to snap, that's where Intamin is coming from, but Morgan got past that with the 2 chains instead of 1.

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Nessy: Ride of Steel
Webmaster of Digital Coaster - http://digital-coaster.com

oh right, thats intresting. thanks for that!

why didnt they just develop their own new system for the lift? it must takes AGES to get to the top of that hill!

Yes, SD2K has chains. Yes, I said CHAINS. Two seperate chains run on the entire lift. The first one carries the train halfway up, then the second carries it from halfway up to the very top. It would have been impossible to have a full single chain on a ride like SD2K...

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laurence said:
"oh right, thats intresting. thanks for that!

why didnt they just develop their own new system for the lift? it must takes AGES to get to the top of that hill!"

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Im sure that it does take a long time to get to the top. As to why they didn't create an entirely new system - why? The chains work perfectly fine. Also I think that SD2K cost enough money already.

*** This post was edited by Canadas Coaster Drew on 5/31/2002. ***

A chain up the entire hill could be built, but might not be practical because it would need to be much larger than usual chains you see on coasters. So they split the lift in two and used "normal" chains.

Actually MisterX, it's possible (though unlikely) that it is impossible with normal chain construction. Simply because tensile stress varies linearly with cross sectional area and so does weight. I'm sure it cold be done with differently made chain, but once you start specing custom chain you're in a world of hurt from a maintainence point of view.

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--Proud member of the "More brains than common sense" club.

I mean make the chain larger... look at ship chains. They support anchors many times the weight of most trains (anchors) and are much longer generally. Obviously chains that long can be used successfully, but it would probably be imractival for a coaster.

Disengaging on the second hill must be scary espeicially while going that high so slowly.

Jay_Rider, you probably wouldnt feel the disengagement and the re-engagement at all. It's not like the chains are 5' apart. Plus all the cars have the chain catches on them.

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Anyone have pictures of where the two trains meet? I'm interested in this.

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It's his turn to feast, when you ride the Son of Beast.

Watch "The Making of a Coaster" from The Discovery Channel. It has some really good shots of them putting the chains in and you can clearly see the split. And while a ships anchor chain may be longer and pull up a heavier load it is HUGE when compared to a lift chain, I would say about 5 times as big around and 10 times heavier.

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The Beast and Night, They go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly

*** This post was edited by MagnumForce on 6/1/2002. ***