What are they (HW/SS) up to now? (Timberliners on Voyage)

Actually Dave, I think your well crafted explanation actually indicated the potential issue, which they addressed. Spot on. Nice job.

And throughout this whole thing, the one thing I am NOT surprised about is the customer service that HW rises to. I think the number of parks that would have made certain that the customer was not inconvenienced during this testing/development time is a lot smaller than the number of parks that would not have. Kudos to the Koch family and HW staff for all they do!

Now that I have seen Will's video I'm vindicated a little bit. :) If you haven't seen it, he demonstrates exactly how the Voyage train is different from the others. Also, it's telling that they are going to run two *6-car* trains (since they only have 12 Raven cars). That suggests that the ride controls might actually count brake fins, which again gives a good reason for not intermixing the 7-car (and 7-brake fin) PTC train and the 14-car Timberliner.

I wonder if they will leave the Raven train modifications in place when it goes back to the Raven. As noted, there's no reason the modified train couldn't run on the Raven, it's just that the modifications are not necessary for the older ride.

In response to another question that has come up: Yes, the Timberliner demo chassis was tested on the Raven. I don't know why they ran it on the Raven instead of the Voyage, but I submit some guesses--

1) The Raven is the shortest of the three rides at Holiday World, meaning first of all that it is the one on which they could get results the fastest, and second it would be the easiest one on which they could recover from something going horribly wrong.

2) The Raven is arguably the one with the best access from outside the park, making it the easiest ride to put a demo train on.

3) There are places where you can stand and see almost all of The Raven to watch it run. Given that the Timberliner tests on the Raven were instrumented, unmanned tests, being able to watch the train run was presumably kind of important.

4) All of the critical areas on the Raven are easily accessible. The ride doesn't twist in and out of its own structure as the Legend does, and it doesn't dive into difficult terrain as the Voyage does. If Bad Things™ were to happen on Raven, recovery would not be too difficult. If Bad Things™ were to happen on the Voyage, it could be extremely difficult to fix. What do I mean by Bad Things™? How about the chassis coming apart or stalling out in the bottom of the turnaround? That would be a lot easier to fix on Raven than on the Voyage.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That seems like a lot of work for just a few weeks of use. Perhaps they should put a 90 degree turn on Raven to take advantage of the new capabilities of the modified train. :)

So it seems that they are going to have to remove a car from the Blue PTC train as well as the change to the Raven train.

So shouldn't the ride be renamed to The Ravage for then next 2 weeks?

Ravage, LOL

Well, it can't be too much work if they were getting it all done in just a day or so.

+1 to Jeffery :)

AWESOME news!

Assuming that the alterations do not have to be rolled back, it will be interesting to see if they make any difference in performance when the train goes back to the Raven. We will know for certain whether it had a positive effect or not next season, if the other Raven train also gets modified. :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Wasn't the beta train very short as well? I wonder if they figured that it wouldn't complete a longer course like Voyage's.

Watch the video of TL testing. Appears that train has no problems making the full circut and has some serious speed on it as well.

^^^I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that any performance improvement is likely to be minimal since Raven was designed in "the olden days". That would make it less likely that HW would see fit to retrofit the *other* Raven train...

But then again, it IS Holday World, and even "relatively minor" improvements in the guest experience are things they find value in... :)

The beta train was only 4 car long. I think completing the course was the first goal as was evidenced by the cheers when it returned to the Raven safety brakes in the original test video. I would liken the tests to building a boat and testing it on a smaller river before trying it on a raging rapids.

Imagine a train valleying in one of the Voyage tunnels...not good.

I would love to hear what the run time is, from top of the lift to brakes, of the new train versus the old one with the mid-course wide open.

^Me too.

Anyone else think the squealing didn't seem right on the testing video? Seemed awfully loud, I don't really recall hearing any wooden coaster squealing the whole ride like that before...

That 'squeaking' is part of riding the Voyage. We heard it on HWN the first year and think it is its own unique sound. Not a problem to me. If they dont get TL done for HWN this year, hope I get to ride the Ravoyage car.

Haha maybe the squealing is the sound of a wheel following the track instead of just slamming side to side.

mfivsdarienlake said:
Anyone else think the squealing didn't seem right on the testing video?

Not the least bit unusual. Heck, I'm hard-pressed to think of a wooden coaster that didn't make that sound.

Tekwardo said:
Boo!

On that note, it sucks that I actually decide to go this year and loriu, ttdaddict, moosh, and so many others AREN'T going.

That's alright, hopefully we'll get to see you in July. And yes, Lori and Lisa will be at CMania. Haven't missed one in 11 years and don't plan on missing one any time soon.