Intamin wood: Excessive supports?

Is there any particular reason why it seems that Intamin wood coasters (NOT pre-fab) have much larger support structures when compare with other wood coasters? It seems that they keep away from ground-hugging elements for some reason, but I still don't understand the massive structures used to hold up the track. Here's an example:

White Cyclone at Nagashima Spa Land, seems to have many more supports than Son of Beast, which is a much taller coaster: http://www.rcdb.com/ig1174.htm

http://www.rcdb.com/ig584.htm

Check out the other Intamin wood coasters, and you'll see the same thing.

White Cyclone = Japan.

Japan = Earthquakes.

;)

I believe Japan has quite a few more earthquakes than Cincy does... lol...

No, in all seriousness, I'm pretty sure that is why. In Japan there is some serious guidelines the coasters have to meet to withstand earthquakes...

wow...we put that at exactly the same time!

*** Edited 7/19/2005 12:08:32 AM UTC by pyrocoasterkid***

Wow. Right down to the second!

Even watching "Making of a Roller Coaster" on Discovery, they mentioned that even on a steel coaster (Steel Dragon 2000), which steel is a much sturdier material than is wood, they were mandated to use twice the amount of steel than would an average steel roller coaster of it's size, to conform with regulations for structures that will experience earthquakes and tsunami winds / waves.

I can imagine that a wooden coaster would end up at least three times, if not more wood than an average coaster of it's size.

White Cyclone certainly makes sense then. (I can't believe I was stupid enough to forget about the earthquakes in Japan!) But what about American Eagle at Six Flage Great America?

http://www.rcdb.com/ig9.htm

American Eagle's supports don't really stick out much further than say, Shivering Timbers' supports

http://www.rcdb.com/ig478.htm?picture=4

or The beast's http://www.rcdb.com/ig67.htm?picture=6

The other thing to keep in mind is that alot of "big" Intamin coasters were designed back in the 70's 80's before computers

Also in the case of American eagle, you're supporting two tracks and will need to handle two time the forces of a single tracked coaster.

It's also really hard to judge these things based upon pictures.

Ghostrider also has much added supports for earthquake purposes.

Chuck