Timberliner Tour 01/24/10

Did anyone attend the Gravity Group Timberliner tour?

Looking for pictures and videos.

Uh...no. Wasn't invited.

Payback will be so sweet. :)

Paula

Are these still the best trains that nobody has actually ridden in yet?

^I agree!!!

I will laugh my a$$ off if these trains "ruin" some of the great coasters. Im not rooting for these to be failures, but I've never heard such a rave about trains that haven't been used by the general public.

Especially given that the trains are certainly still a work in progress. What some of us saw at Gravitykraft was the IAAPA show car and the rolling chassis that tested on the Raven, and there have been some changes to the design since then. Heck, I suspect that Saturday's visitors probably prompted a few more changes.

That said, the Timberliners are different from anything else ever built because they are not derived from anything else. They are designed based on the mechanical requirements of the ride and are designed to optimize performance in a variety of areas. Knowing that these are a completely new design from the upstop wheels on up..that's what makes them exciting. We shall see how they run in real life.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

As I understand it, The only real thing that needs work is the lap bar.

I understand those who say, The trains may tame some coasters.

Look at it this way, For the past century, They've had to design the coaster around what the TRAIN CAN DO or NOT!, Now thats almost impossible to out design the train.

Chuck, saying even GCII isn't designing to what the train can do, But to traditional forces standards they choose not to surpass. Not a knock, Just sayin.................

Chuck, I distinctly recall hearing about phone calls between GCI's field and office people during the construction of one of their rides (I forget which one...) to double check measurements between the actual train and the actual curve to make sure they weren't building something the train couldn't handle....

There have been some tweaks on the Timberliner train, but as I understand it mostly those tweaks were about standardizing components and making it more serviceable, not any real changes to the design. But yes, the lap bar does still need some work.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

What kind of work?

RideMan said:
Chuck, I distinctly recall hearing about phone calls between GCI's field and office people during the construction of one of their rides

I'm assuming you meant Gravity Group and not Great Coasters.

I assumed he meant GCI, as his response to Chuck wouldn't have made sense otherwise.

No, Jason, I mean Great Coasters. Their train can do some amazing things, but there is still a limit to its roll rate and minimum curve radius. The same is true for the Timberliner. The point is, GCII is already building rides that push the limits of their trains, and Gravity Group is building rides that push the limits of the modified PTC trains (modification which, by the way, as I understand it was originally done for GCI's Gwazi). I think it might have been Thunderhead, but I am not sure; the story was definitely in regard to a GCI coaster.

Right now, GCII can push harder with their designs than Gravity Group can because they have a high performance train in the Millennium Flyer. The Timberliner will give the Gravity Group a high performance train that may actually exceed the performance characteristics of the Millennium Flyer. What is interesting about that is that as I look at the Gravity Group designs, it looks to me like the Gravity Group designs do not necessarily require as much flexibility in the train in the "yaw" dimension, where the Timberliner handily beats anything else ever built. But we have seen how well track holds up when Millennium Flyer trains are running on it; as much as anything the real selling point for the Timberliner may be that the trains should be even less damaging to the rides than the Millennium Flyers are.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

^And comfort, I hope! And 'throughput' as they put it.

RideMan said:
I think it might have been Thunderhead, but I am not sure; the story was definitely in regard to a GCI coaster.

I (vaguely) recall that same situation Dave, and yes it was T-head to the best of my recollection...*almost* certain.