The Beast reprofile will extend its length by two feet

Disrespectful.

Sucks

Two more feet of STRAIGHT TRACK!

That's going to kill capacity. They need to add a fourth train.

Wasn't it originally blocked/able to run four?

CNN picked up the story. Nice win for the KI marketing team.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/beast-wooden-roller-coaster-king...index.html

If The Beast could support those two extra feet, it'd already have them.

I'm just glad they didn't forget to mention The Brady Bunch.

PhantomTails said:

That's going to kill capacity. They need to add a fourth train.

Tom Rebbie from PTC told me they wanted to run 5 trains (!). Related, Colossus at Magic Mountain was also supposed to run 5 trains on each track, but they only could ever run 3.

Steeper isn't better. A Beast with less brakes is ;)

Gravity Group is in charge, it should work out fine.

OK, so now that is two feet longer, does it count as a new ride and therefore a new credit? :-)

hambone said:

CNN picked up the story. Nice win for the KI marketing team.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/beast-wooden-roller-coaster-king...index.html

The really impressive part here is the tactical misdirection. The annual refurb of this coaster is running behind and everyone is focused on the two extra feet.

Probably needs those two extra feet to support the new trim brake installation.

This is a considerably bigger deal than most annual refurbs, though. They removed a massive amount of wood, down to the footings, and have been rebuilding it from the ground up.

BrettV said:

Wasn't it originally blocked/able to run four?

They hoped it would be, but it never was. Only ever ran 3 trains at most

Schwarzkopf76 said:

Tom Rebbie from PTC told me they wanted to run 5 trains (!). Related, Colossus at Magic Mountain was also supposed to run 5 trains on each track, but they only could ever run 3.

I've never heard anyone mention 5 trains. Was this like some point before the design was finalized?

The "official story" on the KI website says it was built for 4, but in reality they could never get it to happen. (The website alludes to the longer trains being better, blah blah, but the real reason was they couldn't get 4 trains to work, and that was in ideal conditions with no GP). There's no real way to even think about a 5th train

The reason they couldn't run 4 trains was because they were having too many setups on the lifts, ended up having better capacity with 3 trains. 4 trains operation was attempted during testing before the inaugural season but they could never get it to work out the way they intended.

Raven-Phile said:

This is a considerably bigger deal than most annual refurbs, though. They removed a massive amount of wood, down to the footings, and have been rebuilding it from the ground up.

That is true, however the park originally said they were targeting completion by March 31st: https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2022/february/beast-roller-co...ect-update

“Expected to be completed by” is never a hard date. Couple that with the strange weather patterns we’ve seen here, along with any potential supply and/or labor issues - it’s a recipe for a delayed reopening.

I think you're missing my point: They took a negative situation that needed to be communicated and skillfully worked a plan to get positive press. That is more impressive than the 2 extra feet of track, or finishing a construction project of this magnitude on time.