VF Posts Renegade Construction Pictures

Cool no comment. Back to the ride at hand.

Thunderbird was the first coaster they did a slab on instead of grade beams.

I wonder if they learned something from doing the slabs on Thunderbird and have now made that their practice. It might make the ride last longer.

I know a slab will help the park on landscaping costs since a worker won't have to run a weed wacker under the structure! :)

Those slabs are very, very interesting. How often do we see a completely new way of doing things when it comes to building wooden coasters?

Just about the entire run of Shivering Timbers is slabs, As is Twisted twins.

Now a whole slab under the coaster is somethning new to me.

Chuck

ST is a little different than this.

During the Kentucky Rumbler construction tour, Jeff Pike mentioned how the entire coaster was built on a 3' thick concrete slab which runs the entire track length. He said it's like house construction in that the whole structure is tied together by the slab and should require less maintenance over the years.

Well that does make sense.

VF has been doing well posting new pics - you can really get a sense of size and scale of this thing.

This is a big coaster!

I always thought individual footings for wooden coasters was not the most effective way of constructing them. But, I just assumed the ride designers knew what they were doing. Apparently someone decided that slabs were more effective which makes perfect sense to me. Now the individual supports won't raise and lower at different rates. Should make for a smoother ride over time.

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Swoosh said:Maybe you will get one someday, I know that we will be getting our GCI very soon

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Really now? Do tell! :)

Now how does that saying go? ;)

^ Too late for that now, D....

Kitty, bag...bag, kitty... ;)

:)

I hate you. ;)

So does anyone know how the ride is going to be situated in the park? I know the general location, but which direction will the lift hill be pointing to and where will the first turnaround be for instance? Does the ride leapfrog over the service road or anything else?

Ok. The station will be almost parallel with the General Store. It'll come out of the station and turn 90 degrees and it'll go up the lift hill which is going up kinda right next to Thunder Canyon. It'll swoop down, and go around TC, and turnaround, and come back. It'll go over the service road, and come back. So if you have your back to the waterpark on that path on the way to TC, you'll be facing the station. These new pics look awesome.

The slab doesn't just float, right? There are footers below it..?

Pretty sure there are pilings that go deeper into the ground than just the slab, but I'm an ME grad, not a ConE. ;)

^ Good thing, cause otherwise I'd be able to make some joke about "*ConE-ought* to build some flyers already"... ;)

Of course, Conneaut HAS theirs...do you? :)

Back on topic...*given* that CF knew GCI had been building "virtually-maintenance-free" woodies for YEARS now, is anyone else surprised it took THIS long to build one?