Cable Lifts - CoasterBuzz

I know MF was the first coaster to use a cable lift system, and Déjà Vu also uses a cable lift, but how many other coasters have used this?

Actually MF was not the first. I believe Double Loop at Fuji-Q Highlands has one and it was built in 1988.

But others include all the newer Intamin Mega's and Hypers. Thunder Dolphin, Expedition Ge Force, and Goliath all have cable lifts.

------------------
Da Poodle

Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!

Um...all of the Boomerang coasters...

Don't you mean GIBoomerangs?

The Boomerangs dont have an elevator lift as the rest of them do.

------------------
Da Poodle

Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!

swimmerkev said:
Don't you mean GIBoomerangs?

No most Boomerangs have a cable dog lift on the first hill, in fact I have yet to encounter one that doesnt. However, the MF dog is much more advanced then the boomerang dogs (they just catch and release by a train coupling like system I believe). By the way how does the little metal stip attach to the MF trains, magnets? And if magnets what keeps the train attached on the way up but allows it to release on the way down?

------------------
I don't care what anyone says, Magnum is better then Millenium Force.

Exactly. Yes, boomerangs have a cable/sled lift system, but it is very different than the "Elevator lift system" I thought MF was the first till I rode Double Loop. It was more primative than the Intamin elevator, but very similar!

Touchdown: Mf's lift isn't magnetic, there are little "fingers" that pop up and engage the train.

------------------
- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson
*** This post was edited by Peabody 3/16/2003 9:31:05 PM ***

I just assumed there was a dog on the bottom of the train that fell into a hole in the sled.

Do the rocket coasters also have the pop-up fingers?

------------------
Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"faster, cheaper, and more often" that's somebody's new sig -UpsideDawnGrrrl
My shirt in my photo seems to be for "Aging Bull"

Pop up fingers? WTF?

It works very simularly to a chain lift. There is a dog that is usually down. When the computer dispatches the train, the trolley goes backwards slowly pushing up in the dog. The dog then drops in a hole near the end of the trolley and the trolley slowly moves forward. When the dog hits the trolley it cants move. The train starts to move. Then the train accelerates after a certain period of time. It lifts the train to the peak of the lift hill then the train moves faster than the trolley. The dog rides on top of the rest of the trolley as the train goes down the hill till it passes it, then the dog just falls back down.

You can actually hear the dog fall when the fith car goes over the kicker wheels because they push it up also. The dog makes a clunking sound.

Either way, it's not magnetic. The anti rollback dogs are magnetic though. There are tires that ride on the I beams that the trolley runs in. When The wheels are rolling, there is a magnetic feild that lifts the dogs. That makes the lift hill silent. When the train stops, the dogs fall and the train rolls back a few inches where one of the dogs catch.

Unless it is slightly wet or it is the red train cresting the lift, in which case you'll hear the anti-rollback dogs engaging with the track. :)

ApolloAndy and SteelMonsters are describing it pretty well. The Millennium Force train engages with the catchwagon using a pretty much conventional chain clutch. The only significant difference between the lift system on Millennium Force and, say, Magnum XL-200 is in the way that the gizmo engaged with the train operates. on Magnum, that's a roller chain running in an endless loop up the hill and down the underside. On Millennium Force, it's the specially designed catchwagon.

All of the Vekoma Boomerang coasters also use a cable lift. In Vekoma's case, they use a catchwagon that hooks to the back of the train with something that looks a bit like a set of ice tongs. When the catchwagon nears the top of the first lift, a mechanism outboard of the track engages with a lever on the catchwagon which forces the clamp open, allowing the train to fall down the hill. One park learned a couple of years ago that the catchwagon clamp does not allow the catchwagon to roll relative to the train, so when the hoisting cable broke, the catchwagon remained attached to the train, and got pretty nastily jammed when the train twisted through the first sidewinder. Whoops!

A huge difference between the Intamin hoist and the Vekoma hoist, besides the use of a chain clutch instead of a positive-locking connection, is that the Intamin hoist is attached to both ends of the catchwagon. This is because the catchwagon engages behind the center of the train. In order to not crash into the underside of the train, the flexible catchwagon has to extend from the attachment point to a point ahead of the front of the train. This means that by the time the attachment point of the catchwagon gets past the top of the hill, most of the catchwagon's mass is on the wrong side of the lift hill, so a return cable on the back side is needed to pull the catchwagon back over the top of the hill.

Any questions? :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

While where on the subject of Millennium Forces lift hill, I have a question to ask.

What is the copper ring and the device that couples around it in this and this picture? I guess it's a overspeed or some kind of sensor but I don't know.
*** This post was edited by SteelMonsters 3/16/2003 11:49:05 PM ***

I'm not positive, but I believe that is the brake disc and brake caliper. Remember there is no braking device on the catchwagon. I haven't seen it up close, so I don't know what kind of mechanism is used. But as the catchwagon is speeding down the hill and into the station it would require very little force from the drive motor to bring it all down into the station, as the catchwagon is probaby heavier than the hoisting cable (another guess...). So a set of brakes might be useful as it gets close to the station. :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

ApolloAndy said:
I just assumed there was a dog on the bottom of the train that fell into a hole in the sled.
Do the rocket coasters also have the pop-up fingers?

Darn, that's what I meant, I got it backwards! :( Oh well, I was right it's not magnetic :)

------------------
- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

Andy asks:

"Do the rocket coasters also have the pop-up fingers?"

Yes, but only one, and its in the middle ;)

Moosh

------------------
A park without a hyper coaster is like dancing about architecture.

*groan*

And here I thought I was being very nice by biting my tongue while readin about those pop up fingers...then Moosh "pops up"

------------------
I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/CPLady.htm

LOL, CPLady. Since I'm no expert on cable lifts the only thing I could contribute to this thread *was* humor. I was going to stay out of it until I read Andy's post...then I just couldn't help myself.

------------------
A park without a hyper coaster is like dancing about architecture.

While on the subject of Cable lifts...

Does anyone know how the lift hill on Tivoli's Rutschebanen works?

The beginning of the lift hill: http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery1054.htm?Picture=8

The trains engages with the cable so smothly it's impossible to notice when it catches the cable. Anyone who's old enough to know how the old stuff works ;)

Hmm... that looks very odd...

------------------
What do Catholic priests and K*Mart have in common? Little boys pants half off!

I just wanted to add something. This weekend, I drove around CP, all the way to behind the Mean Streak (sneak through the Chausee. works every time). I looked at the top of MF, and saw a tall post
at the very top with a gold ball on it. My question is, was that always there, or am I not completely oblivious?
------------------
Well, I used to be able to see TTD from my house, then I moved.
Life's not fair.

Millennium Force has one of those things as well.

I am not sure how it works, or even IF it works, but it's for lightning protection.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.