Shivering Timbers-208 ReTrak or Titan Track?

Michigan’s Adventure posted this picture today on their Twitter, showing a retrack in progress. Looks like steel track being added, but I can’t tell. Anyone else able to tell?

Near the top of the hill - those are definitely titan track. You can see the edge of the hollow tube.

Unfortunately it does seem that the days of the traditional wood coaster are coming to an end.

I'm surprised no park has really gone all-in yet on this type of retrack, instead, doing a few hundred feet here and there. I know cost and all that, and perhaps it doesn't have enough "in field time" so it is a bit risky for parks to commit to, but I also wonder if GCI/Skyline or whatever can even meet the production demands of that track if say Michigans Adventure wanted to retrack all of timbers in a single off-season.

The reason no one has gone all-in is that not all portions of the ride age the same. Why spend money on titan track for sections of the ride that were recently replaced or in otherwise good shape?

Richard Bannister:

Unfortunately it does seem that the days of the traditional wood coaster are coming to an end.

At least, the days of the 100'+ traditional wood coaster* may be. There are still a few awfully good smaller woodies being built, like Wooden Warrior at Quassy. But we won't see many more like Gwazi or Hersheypark's Wildcat.

Looking through RCDB, I'm surprised at how few new wooden coasters are being built - I knew it would be a minority, but ... 2 out of 253 worldwide in 2024? 4 out of 165 in 2025? Zero announced to date for 2026?

*30m+, if you prefer

Thou shall not steel. 😢

To be fair, a number of parks are doubling down on wood with TGG's CNC'd track. This is especially true at Kings Island.

Schwarzkopf76:

Near the top of the hill - those are definitely titan track. You can see the edge of the hollow tube.

The problem is it doesn't look like titan track. It's missing the slope on the inside of the track, which confuses me. You can see what I mean in the image I attached

Yeah, clearly you can see...well, not much. Pixels, and lots of 'em. I'm not sure how one can tell what kind of track it is...or isn't.

That looks like RMC track to me.

SteveWoA:

I'm surprised no park has really gone all-in yet on this type of retrack, instead, doing a few hundred feet here and there.

Yes, and the result is just weird. Having random bits of complete smoothness in a wooden coaster is, for me, a bit like mixing a few bars of Enya into something by Eminem.

I can sort of understand rebuilding a wood coaster in stages, but it's not only repairs – Worlds of Fun actually built Zambezi Zinger new that way which I cannot fathom.

FWIW, I did see somewhere that Tremors at Silverwood has been fully converted to steel now.

Are they using steel in sections of the coaster that would have greater wear and tear (and thus require more maintenance)? Could see them doing that as a way to reduce maintenance costs. But no idea if that is what they are actually doing.

I took the image above and decided to let AI take a crack at cleaning it up, just because why not... This is what it spit out, which I will say on the right looks very much like the new engineered precut (not RMC or Titan) which I found interesting.

Take it for what you will!

But did you thank the AI?

You always respect the AI.

Or you can be like my mom saying to Siri, "Idiot! You know nothing!"

I tell Alexa to **** off a lot. Like, an unreasonable amount. But then, she's always asking me, "Would you like to do some totally useless thing that you didn't ask for?"

I'll put in a good word for you guys.

(that's like the 2025 version of "I'll pray for you")