Arrow Track Styles

I have noticed that the style of Arrow's track has changed over the years. From Matterhorn to Tennessee Tornado, there have been a lot of changes. For the most part, Arrow track is the same on all of their coasters - excluding 4th Dimension and supended. Peopl have mentioned how smooth TT is, and I wondered if it had to due with the track, and how it is different from all the other Arrow loopers. Here are some examples of the track changes that Arrow has made.

Matterhorn track at Disneyland: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery200.htm?Picture=1

Gold Rusher at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Notice how the track doesn't meet in the center at a tubular spine: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery266.htm?Picture=1

Magnum XL 200 at Cedar Point. This is the style at track that was used on most Arrow hyper and Multi-Looping coasters: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery11.htm?Picture=6

Desperado at Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino. Notice how the track is different than Magnum's. Pepsi Max Big One at Blackpool Pleasue Beach also has this style of track: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery103.htm?Picture=8

Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain has the same track style as Magnum XL 200: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery25.htm?Picture=4

Tennesse Tornado has a different track style from all of Arrow's other roller coasters: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery534.htm?Picture=4

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Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it.

All styles are virtually the same, however, their bending techniques have improved with age so they can make a rounder sort of style. You can run a Viper train on Tenn Tornado if you wish...its the same gauge and precision.

Tenn Tornado is the best Arrow Looper hands down. Why? The computer technology the are using now allows better bending techniques, They had this technology 10 years ago, but Toomer was reluctant to upgrade Arrows systems.

Agreed John. The ties are spaced differently depending on the part of the coaster you are at. this creates most of the differences you see.

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All I need is 4.5 million bucks and a half a mile long sliver of land and maybe someone could build me my very own Shivering Timbers. ;)

A bit about the Mine Train track example. Gemini and Cedar Creek Mine Ride at Cedar Point have the same track as the Gold Rusher. The only difference is that the Gold Rusher has a system of spines that serves the same purpose as the wooden structure used on the CP mine rides. You can see here that the ties have their own support. I'm guessing that since the GR goes in and around the hill in the middle of SFMM, a shorter support system to minimize structure and cost and it was determined that a double spine would be the best way to implement it. However, you can see in this picture that Arrow used a Magnum style track design on the mine train at SFGAdv. Aren't mine trains cool?? :)

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Scott W. Short
scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

Arrow's wild mouse coaster at Michigan's Adventure is smooth and it uses a completely different type of track.

I think that it was upper management having too much a hand in design than old computers in older Arrows' roughness. Ron and some others probably wanted everything done a certain style and there was probably little disagreement toward him, because he ran the company. in fact, I recall him saying that he didn't even ride his coasters (probably not always this way, but years toward his retirement).

As for smoothness, you need not look further than Schwarzkopf designs for proof that lack of technology was cause for roughness. Most of those designs were probably drawn out longhand with a set of french curves, calculators and slide rules, and a small army of engineers working together to get everything done. Much like Arrow, but the results were very different.

TT was such a nice change for them. Why did they use the exact same loops (isn't it 40 foot vertical and 24 ft rad. screw?) for 20+ years? Lazyness? They already had those engineered from '76 and just did the math to see how high it had to go? I just don't understand why.

For me, that's a big reason TT is so much smoother, they finally got unstuck out of their cookie cutter loops, and lame transitions to connect them.

(I always had this vision of old arrow coasters being contstructed this way: They just took some of their stock loops out of their storage, erected them, and went and found pieces of track that would connect them :) )

I love TT (Just rode it for the first time last month) I hope whatever form Arrow continues in will further their progress.

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- Peabody