Regarding Drachen Fire, it did start off with the typical Arrow anti-rollback sound, but in the mid-90's, it was specially fitted with Arrow's first (I believe) attempt at a silent ARB. It consisted of a thin strip about an inch wide which ran alongside the chain/ARB teeth up the lift hill. A wheel on the train ran along this strip. Opposite the wheel, sort of like a lever (or see-saw), was the ARB dog. As long as the wheel was rolling on the strip, pressure was exerted on the wheel, and the dog remained seperated from the ARB "teeth". Therefore, no click-clack. If the train stopped, the wheel would no longer be in contact with the strip, and the lever would fall back, and the ARB would engage the ARB teeth, thus stopping the train. Like I said, I believe this was a prototype, for they had a lot of trouble with the silent ARBs. Lots of downtime and maintenance. At one point, they were supposed to put them on the LNM trains. This got canned I guess. All in the name of Kingsmill - the upper-class Anheuser Busch owned development that sits a mere quarter mile from DF. You could probably throw a rock from DF and hit Kingsmill property. Anyways, they always complain about BGW and the noise. Of course, these people must be complete morons, since BGW has been there from day 1. Who would move next to a theme park and be surprised there are theme park noises? Apparently these people. These are the same people that move next to airports and complain about the planes. Anyways, DF used to be loud, then they got the silent ARBs, and now it's dead silent, due to the fact its inoperational. :) epc0t
*** This post was edited by epc0t on 4/12/2001. ***