Intamin and the Art of Wood

I was recently searching for information and reviews on Intamins few wood coaster installations, and while I found plenty of info I could not find any reviews. Has anyone ridden any of these coasters (mainly Wild Wild West in Madrid) or any coasters with the Intamin trains, and if so what were they like?

SFGAm's American Eagle is an Intamin woodie. You should be able to find plenty of reviews of that coaster.

Have you searched www.rcdb.com for other Intamin woodies?

mOOSH

SFGAm is my home park, so I've been on the American Eagle countless times. Visually, it's one of the most impressive wooden coasters I've ever seen. The thing is simply huge beyond imagination.

As far as ride goes, it's mediocre. It really has a lot of potential, but the ride is way over braked. Without the trims, the ride can go MUCH faster than it does. Still, even under current operating conditions, there's plenty of airtime. The only thing I find boring about it is the 540 helix. It just doesn't do much for me, except for the end when you blast through the structure into the hops.

If it was restored to it's former glory, it would be a wonderful ride. It used to have six train operation, but now has only four which makes for low capacity. Sad, sad...six flags [shakes head in disgust].

I rode White Cyclone at Nagashima Spaland in 2001. It was outstanding. Killer air, agressive without being too rough, and that's after 7 years of operation. It's everything I wish the large woodies over here (Mean Streak, Texas Giant, Colossus, even American Eagle) were.

The brakes on AE weren't on too hard on the forwards side this year, which was very suprising. The forwards train would just blast through the top of the helix while the backwards train would slow down considerably. Also, the final helix, is usually very slow- you almost come to a stop on the brakes, but this year you didn't slow down very much, but I don't care about that portion of the ride- it's very rough.

There was a ton of air this year, but the Red side is a lot better than the blue, because it has more bunny hills. I love it, and the first hill going backwards is just plain scary. A good coaster in my opinion. 9/10

Officially AE is an Intamin woodie, but officially most custom Schwarzkopfs are too. Intamin was mainly a sales agent back then and not a designer. Who actually designed AE?

I've always heard that Intamin designed the Eagle but the onus of construction was on Figley-Wright Contractors. That's all I know.

Perhaps it was designed by Intamin. It was the early 80s so it may have been one of their first rides. Does anyone else know?

White Cyclone and American Eagle are VERY differrent than Intamins newer wood coasters like Colossos and Balder. Their older wooden coasters ride and feel like a wooden coaster, but their newer ones are essentially a steel Intamin hyper, but made with wood. They use pre-fabricated track, they heartline, the banking looks like it is banked perfectly for 0 lats, and they just seem like they would feel exactly like a steel coaster. Also, the trains have stadium seating and use the same Intamin T-Bars like on their hypers. Not saying that I think Balder or Colossos aren't great coasters, because they look AMAZING, I haven't ridden either of them though. I just think Intamin woodies are steel coasters.

As bad as the brakes can get on the American Eagle, it has one thing that no other "Giant" woodie of its era can claim: The Drop. The Eagle's first drop is not now, and I do not believe has ever been, braked, and it is very impressive. The two bunny hills immediately following offer some insane air. Unfortunately, it ends on something of a whimper. Didn't used to. Sigh...

Anyway, as has been said, that was then, this is now. The new Intamin woodies are supposed to be entirely different animals, almost steel-like in their precision and smoothness. Let's see if someone who's ridden one pops in. *** Edited 10/22/2004 10:21:42 PM UTC by (SF)Great American***

phoenixphan,

I rode Colossos at Heide Park in 2002. It was easily one of the major hightlights of the trip I was on. What IntaminFan said is very true IMO. I thought the ride felt more like a steel coaster than a wooden one, but I didn't take offense to it like some others did.

One way I could compare it would be to ride Gemini at Cedar Point. Even though Gemini is a steel coaster, I it feels a lot like Colossos in certain parts. The trains on Colossos felt very similar to the Intamin hypers.

The only part of the ride that I thought had some roughness was going through the helix. It wasn't "wooden coaster rough" but the train kind of bounced through it as it went over the joints that hold the track together.

If you want a more detailed review, check out my trip report at this link:

http://www.coasterbuzz.com/forum.aspx?mode=thread&TopicID=25651

-Sean

I had no idea the Eagle was an Intamin. :-P Nice!

-Tina

Wow, Tina, even I knew that!;)

But, then, I do have about 5 hours every nite to read Sean's TRs, look @ Gonch's site, and browse all the coasters on RCDB...

Well, I've been on two (White Cyclone and Pegasus at Efteling) and both can be summed up “meh.” In terms of speed and intensity, White Cyclone was better, but Pegasus was probably the more fun of the two.

At least they both look really cool!

here's a little unknown knowledge about the American Eagle. One of my grandfather's friend helped build the AE. As usual when a roller coaster was finished, the crew and builders would take the first ride on it. However, nobody wanted to ride, because the trains were not properly tested with the weight of people in them. So, as a token saftey, bags of sand were placed in the cars. When the outside train came aound to the second turn, the first car of the train flew half way off the track. The car was just hanging over the edge. Needless to say they fixed the problem and the rest is history.

Your friend was pulling your leg.

There's a review on my site of Madrid's Wild Wild West, http://www.coasterkingdom.co.uk/wildwildwest_main.htm

It's great at being a fun coaster, but lousy at being a remorsless airtime machine. If you don't go on it thinking "this will be a great traditional woodie with lots of airtime" then it is certainly enjoyable.