Voyage Trimmed!?

It's not too rough though. It just does what it's supposed to really well. ;)

Maintenance aside, as long as the ride continues to draw crowds, (more than the other two woodies combined perhaps), why change it because some people find it too intense?

^Best answer is probably that more people would find it more rideable if it were less intense...so it might draw even bigger crowds with the new braking. MANY people might find Voyage too intense - believe it or not, we're not what you might call average. Although, once they get the troublesome spot *fixed*, they may return it to "normal speed".

Trust me, Matt, I'm in your camp in terms of "personal preference". I can *rest* when I'm too old to ride... ;)

*** Edited 8/7/2007 8:17:01 PM UTC by rollergator***

But wait, who says the ride is less intense now? I have yet to hear that that mid-course has lessened the intensity of the return run. Perhaps the first drop into the triple down perhaps, but the natural gravity pull should propel the ride into warp speed regardless.

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RavenTTD said:
Is there any chance this has more to do with rider complaints of roughness instead of or in addition to maintenance issues?

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It's maintenance ... getting The Voyage open at 10 am was becoming a nearly impossible task. Even that little bit of trim has made a big difference already.

Paula

ASK PTC for a trade in on the new trains :)

Chuck

^LOL, forced to wonder how much of the *inspiration* for PTC's new trains came from Tom R. getting a few laps in on Voyage... ;)

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rollergator said:
^LOL, forced to wonder how much of the *inspiration* for PTC's new trains came from Tom R. getting a few laps in on Voyage...

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hmmm... lets hope so!

I've heard (3rd hand, so don't quote me, I know how 'we' coaster geeks can be) that Tom R. said "that ride is tearing MY trains apart!"

Thats obvious, The wheels are squarring off and it's tearing up track.

Chuck

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Raven Maven said:

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RavenTTD said:
Is there any chance this has more to do with rider complaints of roughness instead of or in addition to maintenance issues?

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It's maintenance ... getting The Voyage open at 10 am was becoming a nearly impossible task. Even that little bit of trim has made a big difference already.

Paula

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Thank you Paula for posting the reason.

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Acoustic Viscosity said:
It's not too rough though. It just does what it's supposed to really well. ;)

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Agreed on that. Even while I was going through the most intense coaster experience of my life I couldn't help but be amazed by how smooth and graceful the tracking still was.

It's not like the ride was flying through that section anyway... I've had a few rides where it entered the block pretty slow as it is, so I don't think the trimming is going to be that noticeable.

One time I saw it stopped (via video monitor in the station) for about 5 minutes, then start up from a standstill. Honestly, you could not tell much of a difference for the ending by the time it got there.

I think the only really rough part of that ride is right after the 3rd 90 degree turn before the camera. There are some other small parts, but that's probably the worst area. I think it sucks too, but at least it's at an already slow section.

It's the whole "rough" versus "intense" thing again. These two terms are NOT interchangeable. Voyage is intense. Psyclone was rough. BIG difference.

I don't think Voyage is rough either but I keep hearing that complaint and it coming from enthusiasts just confuses me. I was the one who coined the term "violent intensity" referring to Voyage. Maybe I was a bit hard on HW for the trim. If they can't open on time I guess something had to be done. It is too bad though because although I do expect tons of reports that the ride is still wild, I know that I will feel a difference on some of the better airtime moments. Either way, it is still the best ride ever built and we still have ERT sessions without the trims. When this thread started I was having a bad day with several things happening one after another. Then I read the news I thought would never happen and I probably overreacted a bit.

The two sweetest airtime moments to me are the two hills following the triple down. The float over right after and the strong latteral float over after it. After that, I really wouldn't mind a brake so much.

If those are still air filled, I see no problem. If not, The ride will definately suffer IMHO

They do what they have to do, I really think some tweeking of the banking and know different trains would help but the trains are a huge expense. The banking could be changed relativly easy if that section was being retracked. However I don't know that that is a option or would help.

Chuck, just thinking that long left turn prior to the lift hop might be better less banked and keeping the train pinned out.

I rode this opening year and just rode it again last weekend and to be honest, I never even noticed the trim. I didn't know about it until I started reading this thread. The quality of the ride isn't affected really, especially at night when it's running hot! Nighttime rides are the BEST on this thing!!! Even at the end it was slamming up against the upstops so hard they made lots of noise and kept rolling all the way back into the station. My friend who was with me wondered "what is that sound?" so I told her that was the sound that a GOOD rollercoaster makes! It means it's running hot and hard enough to hit the upstops for long lengths of time!!!

I noticed that there was a track bending machine in the lower levels of the line... I am guessing that they found it economical to buy the machine and dies and just keep it right there on site for speed of replacing the track. Just an interesting tidbit I thought I would mention. :)

^Thanks...both for the good news of the ride's current status and for the info about the track-bending machine.

No one's built anything like this before (or at least in a LONG time). I guess they're kinda learning as they go along with this ride, so I'm not too surprised to find that both PTC *and* HW are changing things up a bit and "re-tooling" so to speak....

In my own opionion, a park with that much wood should have one of those in hand as it would be a good investment and it keeps their main rides running with out being down for retracking 2 weeks at a time.

I wonder if they'll have this problem with Voyage fixed when they go to weekend only operation when they can work on these rides during the week.

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BeccaRaptor said:
that was the sound that a GOOD rollercoaster makes! It means it's running hot and hard enough to hit the upstops for long lengths of time!!!

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Rotting Lumber makes that sound all the time...

As much as Holiday World keeps up with their wooden coasters and how much I love the Voyage, PTC's are not the way to go on a ride of that caliber.

Look at the way GCI's latest rides track. Smooth, gracefully, and require very little track work. PTC's cannot handle as much and are not easy on the track, requiring much more track labor. Voyage is a FAST ride, alot of laterals and turns stress the track alot with that heavy train. You put a train like the MF train on it, you'll have a day/night difference in both riding and maintenance.

That's my assumption, I don't know for sure but I think its one good guess. Amazing ride, bad trains. Never liked PTC's, as well as G-trains (which are by far worse), but nothing runs as well as a MF train plain and simple.

^I do understand the appeal of the MF trains, but there's things to remember.

One, no GCI has ever been built like this. Voyage is just on a much more vast scale then anything GCI has built. I mean, sure Thunderhead tracks wonderfully but Thunderhead isn't 6500 feet long and doesn't go 67mph. Could the MF trains take that? I don't know, but it certainly would be a very different ballgame then these GCI's in the 80 - 100ft range.

Also, MF trains don't just track well on their own, the engineering on a GCI coaster is very different then a GG or CCI type ride. Curves are banked gracefully, drops are swooping and swift, and strong laterals aren't really in play. I just really find it hard to believe you could slap a MF train on a ride as aggressive and wildly designed as Voyage and be positive it would be comfortable just because Kentucky Rumbler or Lightning Racer is, yah know?

I mean I like the MF trains a lot but I'm skeptical they would just magically run like a dream on a ride not designed by GCI. *** Edited 8/9/2007 11:07:43 PM UTC by matt.***