BGW Pantheon POV posted

I have to admit, this looks far more interesting than it did in renderings.

Because, you know, the POV tells us everything we have to know. 😁

I thought the opposite, honestly. Still looks like a fun ride, but a bit quirky if that's the right word.

We are planning to visit in April sometime, so I look forward to riding and making my actual judgment then. Can't go wrong with these new Intamin's though.

That let's-try-that-again double launch is pretty interesting, don't know that I've ever seen something like that. It reminds me of how I used to get people on my death coaster in RCT: build a normal ride with a hill that it can't clear with the current tested and approved launch speed, then once the train is full of passengers, up the launch speed a few ticks so the train clears and continues on to the, shall we say, more torturous portion of the ride.

Also, fun tidbit... These are the newest/latest variant of these Intamin trains and differ from those found on Velocicoaster/Taron to some degree. I just don't recall the differences (I want to say lap bar design and/or seating height?).

The trains on Taron/VC are probably some of the most comfortable behind B&M IMO (especially compared to the monstrosities on Maverick/I305/etc...).

That live switch track gives me the heebie-jeebies. We've been doing switch tracks forever and even stuff like tilt coasters, but those are always when the train is at a stop. I know launched coasters roll back into brakes successfully and it's not like this is fundamentally different (rolling back into an active station is probably worse than rolling back over a switch track in transition), but I think it's still the first time I've seen a switch track on a "live" section of track and it's weird. (Maybe Switchback at ZDT's does?)

Also, the whole theme feels extremely forced. Like, the different sections of the ride representing different Gods? That doesn't make much sense to me at all and I didn't even think or know it existed until after I watched the POV a couple of times.

Capacity sucks too I bet.

Looks slow.

Y'all don't disappoint. 🙂

Too short.

I hadn't noticed at first that there's a switch track. Good observation Andy. I'm struggling to understand what the safety feature is in the event that the switch track gets stuck half way. There doesn't appear to be anything mechanical, so I'm assuming the controls tell the motors to be brakes until it verifies that the switch track has made it to the right spot, in which case the motors are switched to "neutral" while the train travels backwards, then they fire again when the train travels forward again.

I probably have that all wrong. Please help.

I watched the video again, and the train definitely accelerates during the first forward pass and appears to accelerate going backwards as well, so it's a forward/reverse launch a la Wicked Twister, may she rest in peace. So after the first forward pass, the motors won't fire backward unless the controller receives the all clear signal that the switch track is in place. Until then, they are powered off and act as brakes. That's a lot that has to happen in just a few seconds, and I can't help but wonder if the end experience is worth the hassle.

The switch appears functionally equivalent to the one on Hagrid's at Islands of Adventure, only instead of going up a spike, it half-way goes up a hill, then goes up a reverse spike instead of into a cave.

I have, for whatever reason, avoided any kind of info. about Hagrid's. I wonder if Pantheon relies on software to avoid firing the LSM's on the backwards run before the straight piece is in place or if there's some kind of mechanical interlock where they physically cannot be fired unless the straight track is in place.

It would have to. Pseudo-code:

If switch is in position then fire reverse motors else stop ride

Modern PLC safety controllers can have a cycle/scan time as fast as 40 micro seconds (.000040 sec). It's gonna know exactly when that track is in place and ready. Unfortunately we cannot see how quickly the track changes positions from this POV, but I'd imagine the track is about in place by the time the train leaves the launch towards the top hat.

And if all the conditions aren't perfectly met, that train will come to a complete stop on its way back down.

This operates the same as Hagrid, right, just bigger? You can see that switch track operate here at 1:55

Edit - didn't refresh the thread before replying, still you can see the switch.

I'm always a little skeptical of being totally reliant on software when it's life and death, especially if there's a way to incorporate a physical interlock without completely messing things up.

Rick -- Yes, its effectively identical to Hagrids other than the track layout and the fact that Hagrids just continues in reverse from where it passes over the switch track (to the drop track). Edit: IIRC, there's technically a 2nd & 3rd switch track on Hagrids, because there's two different sides to the drop track portion of the ride. Some trains go left, some right.

Andy -- There likely is some physical interlock to make sure that the alignment of the track is bang-on location. But without a signal from the computer that it is, the brakes won't know to release on the rollback preventing a stoppage.

I'm sure another Intamin with such a complex trackswitch system will be nothing more than reliable and a high capacity machine.