Beast, first time in 24 years, no brakes on drop!
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I rode this morning and was pleasantly please to find a very enjoyable ride. The coaster now utilizes both magnetic and fin brakes. All skids are gone.
The bad news: The ride is still trimmed. Most notably just at the end of the brake shed. There are still trims on the second drop, brake shed and drop to the helix.
The good news: The coaster is running the fastest it has in years. The coaster has been clocked at over 55 at the bottom of the first drop and the speed through the brake shed is now faster than it has run since it opened.
If you sit in the back of the train, you now get yanked over the first drop creating....gasp....air! Now not totally out of your seat air, but never-the-less air.
The ride is good. But a downside to all this is that Beast is now a totally consistant ride. Gone are the days of lowering the trims or rain affecting the skids.
The coaster was also majorly re-tracked in spots. To allow for the the fin that cathes in the magnetic brakes as well as fin brakes (Oddly enough...... it uses the same fin... has that been done before?)special "tie-rods" now secure the track sides together.
I will say it sure is odd seeing that ride with fin brakes in station..... but it is here to stay.
We have a trade off..... a totally consistant ride for a brakless first drop. I guess it's a fair deal.
Shaggy
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Im the #1 Canobie Lake Park Fan!!!These are my top 3 coasters:
1. S:RoS @ SFNE 2. Yankee Cannonball 3. Cyclone
I look forward to knowing what I will get, Shaggy. I praise them for giving the ride some consistency. I have yet to have a really good ride on Beast, so perhaps this will change my less-than-stellar opinion.
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www.tripowered.com ~ tripowered for her pleasure
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Doesn't it seem as though morons always have the caps lock on?
Shaggy,
Thanks for the update. Finally, the news is out! =:^)
-Sean (who hopes to get a ride or two in about 13 hours)
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Doesn't it seem as though morons always have the caps lock on?
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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.
I was there today, and the brakes, similar to the old trims, you can tell that they`re there. The Beast was up, but they were having trouble with the two trains as bars kept getting stuck, (the third train is not on the track yet) so for most of the day, it was one train operation and an hour wait. I`m going to bed now since I was up at the park for the ACE walkback and stayed all day! (I did mangae to get three rides on The Beast though.)
Shaggy, you forgot to mention who Jeffrey Siebert said was the designer of the Beast.
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I`ve ridden Son of Beast 67 times!
*** This post was edited by coastersrz on 4/13/2002. ***
*** This post was edited by coastersrz on 4/13/2002. ***
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Who will be riding The Beast on Sunday...
The Beast didn't change much besides the brakeless (heck yeah) first drop. I felt a pretty good amount of airtume on the first bunny hop even with the trim brake it has. The brake shed trims are still there using basically the same force as they used to.
I think it's safe to say The Beast has improved. Once again, PKI improves one of their rides, I hope they keep on doing the same thing with other rides to come.
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TJ Quinn
Coasterz,
It appeared to me that the new braking system may not be lining up the lap bar unlocking devices properly. I even got stuck and had one of those infamous *bzzzzzz......bzzzzzzz.....bzzzzzzz* drills where the ride op has to get the driver to hit the unlock button on the panel a few times. If they had just given me the nails, I could have just released myself and saved them the hassle ;-)
Now here's the really odd thing. Since it is using the pinch brakes to stop in station, the train should be almost perfectly lined up each time. But it's not. It is similar to when the ride had skids. There is still an orange piece of tape at the front end of the station that the driver *apparently* has to line the stopped train with.
So have a big 'ol question mark looming about that. If for some reason the driver is still controlling the placement of the stopped train, then they are apt to miss the unlocking device and create this problem regularly. I cannot imagine that the driver is still "driving" in the trains and stopping them manually with these pinch brakes. It kind of thwarts a big part of the reason they were installed.... to avoid overshoots and set-ups.
Of course there were only two trains running.... so the trains were *on time.* When trains were on time with the former skid brakes, then the driver *had* to manually drive the train in and stop it by hand. In that case the driver would release the brakes in the brake run, then switch the panel to manual and hold all brake, and brake release buttons, until the train found it's stopping point. Perhaps the new fin brakes are working the same?
Finally, when I rode they were operating with two trains. The coaster opened late (they were training the crew) and then closed a short time later. I rode again after is re-opened the second time and it still had two trains running. I left the park at 2, and am suprised to hear you say they took it down to one train. I personally thought that the downime issues were perhaps a combination of things. The crew, except for perhaps one person, looked brand new. So I think it was a matter of training, coupled with the ride systems first day with the GP, coupled with the third train still in the sop getting fins.
Either way, it had a rocky start, but I have faith in Beast. It is one of PKI's more reliable rides.
Shaggy
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Shaggy
A.K.A. John K.
I don't see how this will make the ride more "consistent" plenty of other woodie have Fin brakes, most in fact. And all of those have vastly different feelings depending on when you ride them, take Raven and Legend for instance.
Anyway I think maybe I will use my season pass next saturday woo hoo.
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Does CCI know how to make a bad coaster?
The Beast's brakes are nowhere near as noticable as Mean Streak's- but you can feel them just the same.
All I can say is, wow, the speed...
BzzzzzzzT!
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MagnumForce said:
I don't see how this will make the ride more "consistent" plenty of other woodie have Fin brakes, most in fact. And all of those have vastly different feelings depending on when you ride them, take Raven and Legend for instance.
The difference is that The Legend nor The Raven has brakes on the first drop....or on the first hill.....or a mid course break run.....or anywhere else for that matter except at the end of the ride.
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If the shoe fits, find another one.
Ravenguy, you don't get what I am saying, they have nop brakes throughout and they are still different with everyride. Why will the beast be any different?
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Does CCI know how to make a bad coaster?
It makes it more consistant in operational terms.
When Beast utilized skids, many things varied ride to ride. Stopping points, speeds, lift set ups etc.
By using fin brakes, the coaster now has much more accurate stopping points in station.... unless the drivers are sill controlling them.... which I doubt.
Weather conditions, such as heavy rain or extreme cold should not affect the ride like it once did. With skids, once they were wet enough, trains would slide past stopping points and sometimes trigger ride sensors that shut the ride down. During cold teperatures, heating lamps were used to keep the hydraulics, used for raising and lowering skid brakes, from freezing. When they were cold, the hydraulics were prone to raising slowly and trains would stop beyond the target point in station or on the brake run. Fins, or pinch do not rely on hydraulics. They rely on compressed air.
The speeds can now be maintained. Obviously they will vary dependant upon weather and weight conditions, However the days of adjusting the "trims" are more or less over. There is no more daily "adjusting" to them. Someday I will tell you the infamous Beast coffee can story.
Beast was prone to lift set ups. With fin or pinch brakes installed along with new sensors and a new computer system, the ride can more accurately time the placement and stopping of trains. Thus allieviating the amount of times trains get stopped on the lifts.
From what I hear, the final brake run & station is actually able... in theory... to hold three trains. Before, it would only allow two. This tells me that sensors have been relocated and the blocking has been restructired on the ride.
That is the consistancy I spoke of. Operationally... not so much ride feel.
Shaggy
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