Pre-fab Wood Track - Retracking?

There are several large wood coasters, which don't have a good reputation because of the roughness of the ride, or because the parks have trimmed or reprofiled the thrill out of those rides in order to save the coaster from tearing itself apart.

These coasters come to mind: Rattler, SOB, Mean Streak, Texas Giant.

Would it be possible to retrack these coaster with the prefab wood track that is being used in the industry today? Do you think this would bring those coasters back as a signature ride for the parks?

yep. Pre fab wood makes woodies so much smoother. ride a woodie that you know has prefab wood and one with natural wood. the one with natural wood is much more bumpy and painfull . pre fab is smooth as glass.

I'd like to try a Pre-fab, but I haven't been to Euorpe yet, and Great Adventure wont' get theirs till next year...

I bet that cost a lot of money. Thats probably why most parks don't do it. This is just a guess. I know I'll be corrected by someone. ;)

Actually, I'd agree with you. It would cost a lot more to rebuild it with the pre-fab than to just up keep the ride...

I'd even venture to say that it would cost less to just replace the re-profiled parts with your own wood than to specially order an engineered pre-fab piece.

I can't speak for price, but I remember that Intamin was talking about how easy replacement for track pieces. A local mill does the prefab and has every piece on file. The park calls up and orders another "E384" and they can make and deliver right away.

right away being three weeks by container ship?

Right, Peabody, for a coaster already done with Pre-fab. I think he was asking about switching SoB, Rattler, ETC into Pre-Fab coasters.

Charles: My understanding is that a local mill does it, so it can be had right away.

Tekno: Oh...I need to read more carefully :)

If they can get local mills to do the prefab track pieces, then why is SFGAdv getting the prefab pieces from Germany for initial construction? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to just get a local mill to do it like you said?

Don't know...good question! Maybe it's cheaper to do the initial order with the supplier overseas, and then for a small replacement order, a local (to the park) mill could handle it, and would be cheaper than super-quickly flying over a replacement part. Of course, this is all just guesswork to me! I do remember back when colossus opened something about for emergency replacements a local (to the park) mill being mentioned. *** Edited 5/26/2005 4:46:06 AM UTC by Peabody***

From what I understand, Most who've rode em say they feel like a steel coaster. Now my thought is, If I wanna ride steel. I'll go ride steel.

No, I don't like wooden coasters that are rough but I do love latterals, airtime, quick changes and how'd they do thats that don't seem possible with steels. Even the S:ROS's.

Chuck, who knows it's possible to make a conventional woodie smooth and long lasting. VIPER SFGAM? Phoenix and others. The bigger ones are gonna need some reg yearly maintence and some replacement.

I'm just curious as to what coasters use the Pre-fab wooden track.

Colossus (in Germany) and Balder (Sweeden?) Check em out at RCDB

Thank you kind sir. :)

Can PTC's even run on pre-fab track?

I'd imagine the initial order would come from a mill closer to the designers so they can get more hands on which helps with quality and schedule.

You cant recreate that feeling of rushing through a wood structure like Balder on a Steel coaster.

But whatever, if its fun I will ride it. I dont care if its wood or steal.

Oh, and I highly doubt you can retrack an existing coaster with it. I would think the entire structure would have to change.
*** Edited 5/26/2005 4:29:29 PM UTC by eightdotthree***

The way the track is attached to the structure reminds me very much of Gemini, with the exception of course that the track is prefab wood instead of prefab steel.

I thought I would just bring this back from the depths of CoasterBuzz forums because of the discussion regarding Texas Giant in the news section.