Ron Toomer
You name whatever company you want, they've got "rough" coasters. Many people complain about Mantis, Iron Wolf, Batman: The Ride and several other B&M coasters becoming rough with age. Blame that on bad engineering? No. It's called wear and tear. It's a really simple concept that apparently a few people aren't able to grasp.
Its true that there is a fairly significant number of Arrow coasters that could be considered "rough" but there are a few that are also very smooth. It all depends on a persons opinion, and that's a terrible basis for an argument involving something like "shoddy engineering."
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Considering "wear and tear": I just don´t see why a B&M ride is about to get rough after 5 to 6 years, when mobile Schwarzkopfs run as good after 20 years as they did on day one of their existence.
It must be the maintenance. Take Dragon Khan, it really IS jerky and bumpy in parts. A closer look at the wheels shows why: The polyurethane layer is nearly gone. It looks like thee train runs on bare steel. It would be intersteing to see if the roughness would be gone whith new wheels, or if the wear and tear is as well taking its toll on the track or the supports.
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i was a teenage rollercoaster designer
The problem with Arrow, like you stated, was that they didn't have any competition. With almost no other companies out there, Arrow was the best. They had control of the market, and parks were ordering new rides every year. With no other coasters to compare Arrow rides to, no one new they could be much better. Like I said before, if it's not broke, why fix it?
Then in the 1990's comes B&M, and later on Intamin became a major player in the coaster companies. B&M amazed the world with their incredible coasters which left Arrow in the dust. Parks were now calling them instead of Arrow. Without any new coasters being ordered, Arrow probably didn't have the money to improve on their designs.
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*** This post was edited by CoasterKrazy 4/7/2003 7:44:15 PM ***
B&M introduced Raptor at Cedar Point and Nemesis at Alton Towers in 1994. Both rides are widely popular and problem-free.
Ha! What Raptor are you talking about? The cobra roll cracked, and just the year before last, the rail seperated from the tie at the bottom of the first drop. Prior to painting the rails, the rusty water soiled many people's clothes. The control system has been notorious for seeing ghost trains. I love the ride, but it has been far from perfect.
So far your entire arguments have rested on comparisons to modern engineers. Never do you ask where these engineers were in the 80's or where they'd be today were it not for Arrow in that decade.
And as ClarkChavez mentioned, the burden of proof isn't on me... I'm not the one calling anybody a moron.
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And it's also odd that they can't understand the qualification thing, yet calls someone much more experienced in the amusement park industry and such a moron... Makes ya' think, huh?
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Am I really that shy?
NYSuperman - For as much as you've gone on about proper debating skills, you didn't do a thing to address my question. Good job.
Prove to me that rough B&M coasters are the result of poor maintenance and poorly performing Arrows coasters are the result of bad design. Prove it, don't tell me it's obvious. The only person it's obvious to is you and your buddy Nate. The rest of us have the experience and humility to respect the achievements of people who were doing things nobody else was doing *at that time*.
NASA's Apollo program experienced two notable failures. Were the engineers responsible for that program also *morons*, all specifically based on the fact that someone else came along decades later and did the same thing better? Or are they morons because you, sitting on your ass somewhere, have the benefit of hindsight and *no* experience to know what actually goes on in the development of a product?
For someone who goes on so much about proper debate, you haven't done anything to prove, empirically, that Ron Toomer is a moron; and since you made the claim, it's your responsibility to back it up. Show me data that *proves* Ron Toomer and Arrow did something lesser than their ability and means allowed at any given moment, and that resulted in an injury, accident, or change to their rides. I want proof, not your obvious, self-serving conclusions.
*** This post was edited by Chernabog 4/7/2003 8:36:13 PM ***
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- "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
If I sold a product like no other, and everyone wanted one, I would sell it all day long. Some one comes by later and offers something similar but better, people start buying that instead of my product, good for them. Problem is those people improved on my product and without me, they wouldnt have the product they sell today. Happens all the time.
It is safe to say that without Arrow, the coaster scene would look different. We might not have parks that have sixteen rollercoasters, and may not even be riding the ultra-smooth creations available today with technology. Who knows? Way to go Ron Toomer, I am glad you were around.......may not ride your coasters today, but still happy you made them....
nys said:
If a park chooses to take care of their B&M ride then it will remain smooth throughout the years, like Batman The Ride at Six Flags Great America, which is going into its 12th season this year.
I find that kind of funny since people complain quite a bit about another certain B&M's roughness at that very same park.
And through my own experiences, Top Gun (PGA) was as smooth as you can get, while the B&M across the midway from it was rougher than any Arrow I've been on. I'd bet it isn't like that all the time, but it was for me. So tell me, do parks really maintain rides differently?
I'm tired of this attitude that "Every coaster is sacred" and "Designers are coaster Gods who demand respect." That's crap.
Oh come on, nobody does that, not even me! ;)
Smell ya later.
*** This post was edited by PT300 4/7/2003 8:55:15 PM ***
NewYorkSuperman said:
"Arrow rides were never good!"
Proposterous! That is perhaps the most inane thing ever written on the board.
BTW, B&M seem to have problems with steel quite often, most public case being Raptor. They use the same steel as Togo and stress cracks seem to like to form. Riddler's Revenge is welded about every month in certain places to keep the ride running and smooth. On Medusa West, there is also no way to run it in the rain. It freezes up and e-stops the ride. What a great job ConSign did there. So these are just some (more) friendly examples that every company has their problems.
I just thought some others I don't recall getting mentioned, Xcelerator had to have some extra bracing put in. Hypersonic had to get new trains, Wicked Twister had some steel problems, Texas Tornado (Zonga) when it was Thriller needed the transition out of the second loop to be fixed because it was hurting people, Vekoma has had their share of trouble with the GIB and Flyingdutchmen, and I think I'll stop there.
I am so repetative but I just wanted to throw some more examples in there.
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*** This post was edited by GoliathKills 4/8/2003 3:05:03 AM ***
NewYorkSuperman said:
Schwarzkopf's rides are just as old and much better, solid rides. My proof to you is that other people WERE doing it better by hand back in the day Ron was bending hangers. Schwarzkopf was wildly successful as well and his rides are much smoother and much more rideable. Schwarzkopf strived to improve his rides and the result is a collection of rides that are still crowd-pleasers today.
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger. I'm about to stomp all over sacred enthusiast ground.
(Before I go any farther, let me say that I adore Schwartzkopf rides But...)
Why the hell do so many enthusiasts look at Schwartzkopf rides with rose-colored glasses? Yes, they're great rides, for the most part. But one of the big secrets to their success is that the restraints are lapbars. The old Schwartzkopf rides with OTSRs beat the hell out of you just as much as any Arrow does (Revolution at SFMM and The Bullet at Flamingoland come to mind immediately, as I've been on them).
Most Schwartzkopf rides are clones, or similar variations on the same theme. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", right? Sound like any other familiar argument?
Schwartzkopf had a half-designed ride and suddenly went out of business, leaving the park high and dry with footers. Said park turned to, guess who, ARROW, to come to the rescue. Wait, that wasn't Schwartzkopf's fault, you say? Doesn't matter, I'm trying to prove a point here, I can discard any facts I want, much like how the problems with Raptor don't disprove B&M is perfect...
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--Greg, aka Oat Boy
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"I can't believe I just left a nuclear weapon in an elevator." -- Farscape
Schwartzkopf had a half-designed ride and suddenly went out of business, leaving the park high and dry with footers. Said park turned to, guess who, ARROW, to come to the rescue. Wait, that wasn't Schwartzkopf's fault, you say? Doesn't matter, I'm trying to prove a point here, I can discard any facts I want, much like how the problems with Raptor don't disprove B&M is perfect...
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I wrote something about this about 90 posts before;)
Who else should they have turned to? Arrow was pretty much the only other coaster factory around back then . Plus they have tried without luck to build a succesful suspended coaster. But why didnt they turn to Arrow in the first place? Was it because Stengel/Schwarzkopf could convince Busch that they could get it right? Why didn´t Arrow manage to erase the errors after they did the same mistakes with the BAT that MBB did with ALPENFLUG (oops, I am repeating myself).
You do have a point that the smoothness of Schwarzkopf is due to the lapbars (and to Stengels efforts to keep laterals as low as possible from day one of his designing career.).
Someone said this in another thread : "Arrow had something the others didn´t have: BALLS!"
On another note: The Stengel book stated a reason why both factories had financial problems. When a park wanted to build a coaster they would go to Schwarzkopf and asked for the costs. Then they went to Arrow and asked them if they could do it cheaper. Then they went back again to Schwarzkopf and asked if he could make it cheaper still (common use). In the end both factories didnt make much money, but the park was clearly the winner in this race.
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i was a teenage rollercoaster designer
Arrow coasters are still rough when they come out of annual rehab and even if they have brand-new wheels. The primary problem with Arrow roughness is not maintenance, although it doesn't help anything if the ride is not well-maintained.
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Try riding Vortex at Paramount's Kings Island. It went through a major re-hab last year and is amazingly smooth. Arrow coasters still rough after re-hab? Not.
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NewYorkSuperman said:
I hate the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" argument. Not only is it a poor business strategy (Arrow got shot out of business when everyone saw how much better rides could be), but it's totally lazy. That was another argument Nate and I presented. Arrow was lazy. I would respect Arrow if they took pride and strived to be the best. I just don't see where they did that.
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How is "if its not broke don't fix it" lazy or bad business strategy? If you have a good product, that no one else can provide, why would you change it? BAD business strategy would be to change your product when you have no reason to. Why spend the money on R&D when parks are already buying the product you have?
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NewYorkSuperman said:
I don't know how else to describe it. Go out to your local Arrow coaster and just look at the transitions. You don't need to be an engineer to recoginize a severe transition.
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So any person of the General Public can look at an Arrow ride and say "Those transitions are bad?" Well, you can think whatever you want, but they can't. The reason we know that Arrow transitions aren't perfect is because we are enthusiasts. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a clue.
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Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it.
Sure, I'll give it a shot sometime. But I have a terribly hard time believing that it's just as smooth as a B&M coaster. That one example doesn't prove anything. I've ridden several other Arrow coasters directly after annual rehab and they were less than perfectly-smooth, namely GASM, Anaconda, Lochness, BBW, and an Arrow Corkscrew.
-----I didn't say that it was as smooth as a B&M coaster, but it is still very smooth. There aren't any coasters that are "perfectly smooth." If there were, other posts on this thread concerning rough B&M coasters wouldn't exist. Take a look around, because they do.
NewYorkSuperman said:
Because Arrow didn't change their product at all and they eventually became obsolete and overshadowed by the innovations of other firms, namely B&M. Perhaps if they did strive for improvement over the years then they would still be around today producing rides. Maybe their quality would have greatly increased and fought off the competition. But it didn't-- they're 6 feet under.
-----Their product has greatly increased, with the arrival of Tennessee Tornado at Dollywood. Sadly, it wasn't enough to keep them afloat by themselves, but they are hardly six feet under. Like I said before, why would they change their product? There was no competition, so there was no need to change. When competition did come, it was too late for Arrow to change because the parks wanted B&M coasters. If they aren't going to build Arrows, then how is Arrow going to change?
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Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it.
Closed topic.
