Coasters that leave the track?

What do you think about the idea of a coaster train that leaves and then rejoins the track for a new type of element? Like a leap over an open pit or something. Hasn't this actually been considered before?

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"It's always better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it" - ME

It's probably a very bad idea, because it couldn't be done safely.

It was tried back in the teens or 20s. It didn't work and they filled the gap with track.

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- Peabody

*** This post was edited by Peabody on 8/28/2002. ***

How in the world could you possibly hope to get the coaster (with all of it's top, side, and bottom wheels) back in place on the track?

Even if you had a way to get the coaster to realign on the track, the weight differences and balance from empty seats would throw off the momentum of the train, making the landing spot unpredictable...

Too many factors affect the speed of a coaster train creating an unpredictable situation.

I would have expected this type of question to come from a younger member.

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signature withheld for no apparent reason

*** This post was edited by jdancisin on 8/28/2002. ***

Im so sure there are a few of these in Japan....the train is attached to rails running on an overhead wire and after dropping a good 30ft it leaves the track and joins onto the other side. There are pictures somewhere, I just cant think where.

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www.thorpe-uk.com

Tried and failed.

Seems to me this would be a HUGE safety issue. In addition it would be virtually impossible with any train that uses upstops, but not completely impossible. If you consider hybrids such as Buzzsaw Falls and Journey To Atlantis coasters, those are rides in which cars - with upstops - completely leave the track to float in a flume section, only to be rethreaded back onto the track again. But that's not what you're talking about, and I know that.

Leap-The-Dips, at Lakemont, is the only coaster currently running that comes to mind in which the car rises up off the track and becomes momentarily airborn. On the second-to-last drop [the one in the middle of the structure] the track dips to the ground, rises, and then sharply dips back down a few inches. That little drop acts like a 'ski jump' of sorts, and cars are moving fast enough to 'jump' off the end. However the car never gets enough altitude to come completely out of the side-friction track bed.

Is what you're talking about impossible? No. But I doubt we'd ever see it.

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"I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!" - Homer Simpson

It isnt possible, if the train weighed to much or too little, it would crash.

*** This post was edited by B&M ROCKS on 8/28/2002. ***

My kid built a coaster like that one time, but then its passengers were just tennis balls.

Tennis balls are people, too!!

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"I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!" - Homer Simpson

now THERE you have it...the pro-life argument that life begins at conception taken to its illogical extreme....tennis balls are NOT people 'moosh, they have FUR instead of body hair....we built one that left the track as well, but the good people at PKI (Mandt and Siebert) bought out the rights........a vertical-drop, track-jumping wonder...Son of Drop Zone....

edit: actually, when we thought of the idea we were using round wooden balls, but I thought that Mag-Lev wouldbe the ONLY way to make the idea work....when will PKI build it for us, they wouldn't say....tight-lipped bunch, they are....

*** This post was edited by rollergator on 8/28/2002. ***

What if they invent invisible paint and paint a huge gap in the track with it and people will think that its a gap but its not bc of the invisible paint!

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i am emo

AMartin777... if there WERE such a coaster in existence, would you actually get on it? I know I wouldn't. I don't know of anyone who would either.

Yeah, it seems to have any chance of doing it would require the removal of upstop wheels, at least with the current technology. You would need a side-friction like Leap the Dips, where you literally leave the track (kind of). It's cool, though, at the bottom of the hills, you can feel the car landing back on the track.

"Im so sure there are a few of these in Japan....the train is attached to rails running on an overhead wire and after dropping a good 30ft it leaves the track and joins onto the other side. There are pictures somewhere, I just cant think where."

They actually don't join track on the other side. They call them Kamakazie coasters in Japan and all they do is slide down a hill, and jump off the end. Below them is water, I believe, but up top they are attached to bungee cords so they don't slam into the ground.

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I was asked to describe X in one word. The word? -- OhmygoshwhathaveIgottenmyselfintothisisthescariest
thingintheworldhelpmeIamgoingtodieAHHHH!!!

I believe this was tried once on a coaster called the Cannon. It failed on the first run and they filled in the track, leaving a not very interesting coaster. I saw a little panel about the Cannon at the Cambridge Museum of Science in Boston.

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I would not even ride a coaster in which the train was completly off of the track for any amount of time. That is not safe, it will never happen.

The closest thing that will happen like that is somesort of way of keeping the train physically attatched to something so it just creates the illusion. But even that will be very hard to do.

What if there was a trough (sorta like a bobsled-type track) on the other side and the train landed on that an ran on that for a while until it centered and hooked to the regular track again. About the removal of upstop wheels, you could just make them retractable so they retract when the leave the track, open on the trough, and then close again on the real track. It could happen!...

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Did you fill out the Coasterbuzz survey?

What if you could make a section of the track 'invisible' by using see-through plastic, it would appeare 'not-there' from a distance. But my only concern would be if the plastic was strong enough, though.

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Nigel TUK said:
Im so sure there are a few of these in Japan....the train is attached to rails running on an overhead wire and after dropping a good 30ft it leaves the track and joins onto the other side. There are pictures somewhere, I just cant think where.
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www.thorpe-uk.com

Are you talking about that prototype project, MORPH, from Sangyo?

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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean

Funny . I read a book called Hopper about a coaster that jumped off and re-entered like you said. Of course the book was all made up.

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-Sean