Trailered PTC's

I remember hearing something that Predator @ SFDL has trailered trains. What does that mean?

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Its not attention deficit. I'm just ignoring you.

It means that the front of each car has no wheels; rather, the front of each car rests on the (back end) wheel assembly of the car in front of it. Confused? Check out http://www.coasterforce.com/vehicles.htm .

Trailered trains are bad for wooden coasters, and several coasters that used to have trailered trains have switched to normal PTCs.

Rideman has the best description of trailered trains (and everything else you'd want to know but are afraid to ask :) )

http://capital2.capital.edu/admin-staff/dalthoff/coastercar.html

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The World of Thrills

Im pretty sure Raging Wolf Bobs is like that at SFWOA. I noticed it last summer.

That's probably why both Raging Wolf Bobs and The Predator are so painful.

All Arrow loopers are trailered. Not all are painful mind you. Megaloopers like Predator might be painful but try Lochness or Tennessee Tornado; they are quite smooth and fun.

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"Enjoy your voyage to the sun on the wings of Apollo's Chariot"

Predator is a Summers & Dinn wooden coaster, not a megalooper. Woodies with trailered trains are not good.

And as for Arrow loopers, well, *I* personally do feel that they're all painful (oh come on, you expected that!). Of course, it's not the fact that the trains are trailered that hurts...

-Nate

Hey, Lightning Racer has trailered trains, too!

The difference is that PTC is the one manufacturer who builds trailered trains and puts the hitch in the wrong place. Lots of manufacturers trailer their trains (including Arrow, Intamin, B&M, Vekoma, Miler...) but most manufacturers also put the wheels at the back of the car or between cars, in line with the hitch.

bigkirby: Thanks for the plug!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

PTC bought the rights to the D.H.Morgan wooden coaster train designs. When you are riding a recently built PTC trailered train, it was built using Morgan plans. Need I say more.

Thunderhawk at Dorney has the old PTC trailered trains.

Luckily our Timberwolf at WOF switched from trailered to normal PTC trains, although that created a whole new issue....ever see the entire track of a coaster move with the train? I am not referring to normal movement that all wood coasters have due to the fact that if wood doesn't move or give a little, it will break. After T-Wolf got it's new wheels, w/head rests, the trains were so heavy we could only run 1 train and had to majorly shore up the turnaround after the first drop. As the train transversed the course, we would watch the entire support structure move (in a wave like fashion) with the train as it went around the turn. It was fun to see guests faces when they would notice it was doing this.

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Waiting for the CP announcement to be made so that about 1000+ posts will be made complaining about it.

Matt- Have you ever seen Rattler at SFFT? That thing scares me when it moves.

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"With half my brain behind my back to make it fair."

Dutchman: To the best of my knowledge, the only coasters still running PTC trailered trains are Raging Wolf Bobs at Geauga Lake and Predator at Darien Lake. Both of those trainsets predate PTC's purchase of Morgan's wood coaster design. My understanding is that PTC has built *0* Morgan-designed coaster cars thus far.
Personally, I'd like to see PTC build a train with the PTC car body running on the Morgan chassis. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Rideman: My bad. I was under the assumption that PTC hadn't built trailered trains since the days of Wildcats. I have gotten used to seeing three and four seat cars from them for so long that I thought they had given up on the trailered sets, until purchasing the Morgan designs.

I'm pretty sure that Thunderhawk does not run trailered trains. Those are the old-style, three-bench cars that run on a number of older woodies (particularly Schmeck designs)

I don't know about the PTC trailered trains,but the two woodies I have ridden with trailered trains(the Vancouver PNE Coaster and the Puyallup Fair Coaster Thrill Ride)are very comfortable and track very smoothly.But then ,these coasters have Prior & Church trains or trains based on P&C designs,depending on the coaster.

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