Wooden Coasters and LIMs

This may be a dumb question ..and I'm not sure if it has been brought up before or not. Do any of your guys think it would be possible to have a wooden coaster and LIMs? I think that would make for a really cool ride. Does anyone know if there have been plans for this type of ride or not? It could be like the coaster at DCA (only wooden). Just wondering.

-----------------
"We here at Six Flags consider the handrails our friends, and since you don't sit on your friends please don't sit on ours...thank you"

Maybe if they didn't overheat and cause the wood to catch on fire.

*** This post was edited by hunter11 on 7/15/2002. ***

What purpose would it serve? How could you ever expect to get the precise tolerance required to align the fins and the motors?

-------------
Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"We used to hate people, now we just make fun of them. It's more effective that way." - KMFDM, "Dogma"

This ride is not possible due to the lack of support of wooden coasters....they would wear and tear and would have to be replaced often (aka, support structures, track etc.

Now if that part of the ride was steel, just maybe it would work, but depends on how they supported the rest of the ride, but seeing as how wood warps worse than steel, it would be a sucky ride after a while.

-----------------
You are the passengers on a most uncommon elevator, about to ascend into your very own episode of the Twilight Zone

Only Intamin Wooden Coasters such as Colossos, if even that.

-----------------
Adam Black | adam@mouseinfo.com
www.americacoasters.com | www.mouseinfo.com

Wood expands and contracts entirely too much. The tolerance are way to tight on a LIM coaster for there to be that kind of expansion.

And what the heck woudl the point be?

-----------------
The Beast and Night, They go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly

Yes, it is possible and could be done. It would require a little R&D as well as testing, but as Jeff stated, what is the point? Wooden coasters are not designed to look high tech or advanced. As a matter of fact, many wooden coasters are designed to look and feel classic and/or aged. A launch would only reverse that desire.

-----------------
My two favorite coasters are named Superman.

Well there has been a launched "wooden" now that i think about it...except its a steel with a lot of extra steel to make it look old and like a wooden...and i bet you can guess where it is...one hint...DL

-----------------
You are the passengers on a most uncommon elevator, about to ascend into your very own episode of the Twilight Zone

It is possible, and if not really known through physics right now, it would be able to be done in the future, I keep my word to that. I don't really know what the purpose would be right now for them, but maybe something would come up with it in the future. I beleive that in the next 10 years there will be a breakthrough in wooden coasters like steel coasters had years ago, from normal steels to giant loopers and height coasters. Woodies will have their time!

-------------
-ANDREW-
http://insanerides.fateback.com

I highly disagree Adnyc545, the whole point of a wooden coaster is to enjoy a classic airtime filled ride. Woodies are having their time CCI has done wonders just as John Allen did in the past. I would be very unhappy to see wooden coasters change from fun filled rides to looping wonders. There are necissary qualitites that both wood and steel should maintain not transverse.

This is however only my opinion and I do respect yours.

-----------------
Tuesday's Gone With The Wind.
Elijah Rock.
Is it written in the stars?
La Vie Boheme!!!

Woodies already had their time...70-80 years ago. The future looks much better for steel coasters, especially with newer innovations such as LIMs. I sure hope that the classic airtime-filled under 120 ft. wooden coaster will always have its spot in the industry, thouh, and I'm sure CCI and GCI will keep providing us with those.

-----------------
My two favorite coasters are named Superman.

I surely do love the classic feelings of wooden coasters, but there will be a revolution of more to a woodie. I mean think, how much longer and produced in quanity to parks do you think the norm of classic woodies will be made. It's had there times, and i still think more will pop up, but there will be more uses (i think the correct way of describing it,) in the ways that woodies work to give you other feelings. Ex. inversions, over 200 ft heights, other woods used to expand more. I don't know exactly, but i think u get the idea.

-------------
-ANDREW-
http://insanerides.fateback.com

Come on, folks, why is it that just because a thing has not been done, you always assume that it cannot be done? We now have at least two wood coasters, one of them built more than 80 years ago, that have magnetic fin brakes on them, something I am sure many of you thought impossible. We now have a wooden coaster with a vertical loop, which was also supposed to be impossible, but it's wood tracked all the way through the loop (and the loop is the only part of the ride that runs right, but I digress...).

Let's talk for a moment about linear motors. So far the only linear motors we have seen on roller coasters have been, for the most part, double-sided LIMs using horizontal or vertical fins. The Intamin Impulse coasters do something neat in that they use both double-sided and single-sided LIMs.

If wood coasters have tight enough tolerances to use pinch-type fin brakes, the tolerances ought to be tight enough to use linear motors, probably operating on the same fins. Barring that, they could easily take a cue from public transportation systems and use a steel-backed reaction plate on a single-sided LIM set flat on the track; it would look a bit like a skid brake. If it's good enough to operate a subway car, why not a coaster car?

As for why you might want to do it, think beyond high speed launches. Setting up a series of LIMs on a wood coaster lift hill would effectively eliminate something like 4,000 moving parts from the ride. Right now the development and installation costs are prohibitive, but you can see how using linear motors could possibly reduce the operation and maintenance costs of a coaster.

Creative thinking. That's what this world needs. There are too many people who know what can't be done.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

And Mr.Creative Thinker, do you have any idea how much power your LIM-Lift would suck up?!

-----------------
Why do they report power outages on TV? SANDWICH! Feel free to call me Mack. Or S00perd00perhyper.

At the moment, no. But I'll investigate it. And consider this: The coaster at Disney's California Adventure actually does use a LSM-based lift hill, not as a launch, but as a traditional lift. Disney could have just as easily gone with a traditional chain lift. I have to think that they concluded that the operation and maintenance costs of the linear motor drive would be comparable to the operation and maintenance costs for the chain lift.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Nope, I do not think it would be possible

-----------------
My mom says God has a plan for everyone... I guess I was Plan B