Cedar Point '07 Project

I have that book! :)

I also have that book, it's a few years old. Great photos in it. :)

I don't see anything about Intamin working on a 4D coaster, though.

got a page #?

This book is from 2006, or revised and updated in 2006. I believe there was an earlier edition. 2002 and 2006 are the copyright years.

Page 147 - Talking about X. Last paragraph - "Now that Arrow is part of S&S Power, it's certain that the 4th Dimension concept will evolve and, hopefully, more models will arrive sooner than later. There's a very good chance that a second-generation 4th Dimension is targeted for a park in Japan. And that's not all; we may see something similar from our friends at Intamin, who are working on a rotating-vehicle coaster of their own."

The track that we've seen so far has been standard-issue Intamin track. Nothing to indicate a 3rd and 4th rail.

Perhaps they are doing what I originally thought X would do--allow the cars to freely rotate on their own, kind of like a spinning coaster does.

I don't think that can be done Matt...it is too difficult to predict the position of the rider in respect to the vertical [negative and positive] g-forces. Notice on a spinning coaster when the cars spin riders are forced INTO their seats.

Aren't passengers being pulled out of their seats (forward & away from the seat backs) on spinning coasters that face outward?

-Nate

To a small extent yes but riders are pretty close to the center of rotation so those forces are pretty weak.

One could argue that riders would be equally close to the center of rotation on any sort of free-spinning fourth-dimension-type coaster. Of course, I'm no engineer and I hated physics, so I'm in no way reliable on this. I'm just sayin... ;)

-Nate

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Acoustic Viscosity said:
Perhaps they are doing what I originally thought X would do--allow the cars to freely rotate on their own, kind of like a spinning coaster does.

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Aren't y'all basically describing the Intamin Ball coaster? I know the original designs for it at IAAPA didnt have left or right turns...was basically a straight track looped back on itself, but I dont see why they couldnt adapt the concept to a train that would run a more tradition coaster track, and still allow the seats to rotate freely.

http://coastersandmore.de/rides/eas05/eas1.shtml

Red track too, so this must be it! ;) *** Edited 6/14/2006 3:11:48 PM UTC by 40belowbeef***

I do believe that by the looks of the footers, and from what others have said, that turn in the water near the bridge is going to be highly banked, which would put the riders on the bottom side of the turn close to the water. Also, if it were a free-spinning 4D, if you think about this, Imagine that you're spinning freely and by chance you are facing downward while making that turn, you're going to have enough g's if you were sitting up right. If you were upside down, you would probably almost have a severe bloodrush to the head. I just don't know that CP would take that chance. However, they are the types to do something completely new, so you'll never know until they have that announcment day. Or until we see some trains arrive.....

CP is not run by types who are known to do something completely new. Maybe a hand full of small innovations here or there but the vast majority of major attractions at CP are just larger versions of what has been done elsewhere.

Not saying that this won't be a prototype of some sort, but that is certainly not the trend.

http://www.pointbuzz.com/Gallery.aspx?a=469

Supports.

Red Intamin track with white supports. Hmmmm.......

Maybe its just the pics but they're more of a weird grayish/tan color I think.

Just a thought...

Have there been any pictures of straight track as of yet?
If not... it really makes me think they're going for either an inversion record with a standard looper, or they're going all out with a new 4D Concept.

Looks like part of a corkscrew...see left-most track piece here:

http://www.pointbuzz.com/Gallery.aspx?i=4032

Well, we know one thing for certain from looking at the supports. The ride is at least 20 feet high. ;)

I just noticed that the tops of the supports have holes in the sides with caps.

Maybe this one will be on the quiet side. I've heard that filling supports with sand keeps the noise down.

I'm curious as to why they are there.