Work about to begin in Green Bay for Zippin Pippin roller coaster

Mamoosh said:
Have you ridden Vancouver's Coaster? Single-bench trains, extreme air.

Duh :)

We're talking about going from a 3-bench to a 1-bench; not a ride that was designed with 1 bench trains in mind.

Well, since this ride is totally new, couldn't it be designed with 1 bench in mind?

LOL Tek. I just love how some people are certain about trains they haven't ridden and a ride that hasn't been built.

I can honestly say that in some cases, I feel that 1 bench trains can make a ride sucky. I didn't ride Wildcat @ Hershey before the MilF trains, but I know it wasn't much fun afterwards, and people that loved it with PTCs don't care much for it now.

Having said that, I love me some Thunderhead. Love it. And I never thought GCI would top that ride for me, but when I rode EK at St. Louis 2 months ago, I was totally blown away by it. Plus I hear the coaster at Vancouver is amazing. One benchers can be really great, and no one has ridden in the Timberliners (and been willing to talk about it ;)), so I don't think that for certain putting them on a new coaster = no airtime.

What will happen to the Voyage remains to be seen, but only because we've experienced that coaster pre Timberliners. But with GG's coasters being more 'intense' than most GCI costers, I don't care what kind of train you put on there, it's going to be a heck of a ride.

It's entirely possible that the Timberliners were designed to simulate the physics of the trains they are replacing, so they may not affect the rides that will have them very much. I don't know any of that definitively, but I'm sure it can be made to work that way.

Wildcat was painful to ride with PTC's. It's a lot more fun now.

^Tekwardo - I am assuming that the ride is being built with the same layout/profile as it was at Libertyland.

If that is the case (for Moosh, and others) the radius of curvature of the hills' apex is much large, than say, the Vancouver Playland Coaster. With a larger apex, you tend to get greater vertical accelerations with 3-bench (or 2-bench) than you do with a 1-bench. That's the physics/experience part.

The Wildcat at Hershey is probably more comfortable as a 1-bench due to the curving and twists that are built in the ride. But it also has less vertical acceleration now. It's a plus and a minus (for some).

Another thing I was thinking of (which is totally my opinion) - the old PTC's probably look like an "old roller coaster that was Elvis' favorite" than the new Timberliner trains. And I think the nostalgia is something they are going for in building this ride.

Mamoosh said:
LOL Tek. I just love how some people are certain about trains they haven't ridden and a ride that hasn't been built.

If you are referring to me, Moosh, I wasn't certain about anything :) Sorry if I didn't say that. Projection, my friend :)

With a larger apex, you tend to get greater vertical accelerations with 3-bench (or 2-bench) than you do with a 1-bench.

My engineering degree is staring at you with an eyebrow raised.

Maybe I'm thinking wrong, but I seem to recall that the coaster cars were going to be used PTC's from another ride. Unfortunately, I can't find it right now...

I am assuming that the ride is being built with the same layout/profile as it was at Libertyland.

I would think (and could be wrong) that this will be more like Viper at SFGAm. Sure, it's a Cyclone clone, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be exactly like Cyclone. I figure they'll be using the same layout, but I haven't read anywhere that it would be an exact replication based on the same exact blueprints.

So they could change some things to make the new trains fit.

For what it's worth, the city of Green Bay did buy the ride's plans.

My guess is that they are not going to do anything all that spectacular with this ride. Remember, the purse strings aren't being handled by an amusement park chain, or even a private owner. The city government and ultimately the Parks Commission is what is paying for this. The tax base in Green Bay isn't all that huge (especially seeing that the Packers are not in it, they are in Ashwaubenon). This is a park that is largely subsidized by the city. The last time I was there most of the rides cost twenty cents a piece. It's probably a quarter now.

BBSpeed26 said:

With a larger apex, you tend to get greater vertical accelerations with 3-bench (or 2-bench) than you do with a 1-bench.

My engineering degree is staring at you with an eyebrow raised.

And my engineering degree didn't teach me anything about the number of benches on a coaster train and how that affects the accelerations of the ride :) That was the 90's though..

Perhaps someone else can explain it better; I could with a pencil and paper - diagram with vectors, etc., but I'm far to lazy for that.

We know ZP was running PTCs when the ride closed...but those obviously weren't the original trains. Perhaps the ride was originally designed and ran single-bench trains before the PTCs were brought in?

Mamoosh said:We know ZP was running PTCs when the ride closed...but those obviously weren't the original trains. Perhaps the ride was originally designed and ran single-bench trains before the PTCs were brought in?

Not sure how it was originally designed, but in the end it ran PTC's and before that it ran NAD trains. It would be real neat with NAD's, but I suspect it may run something else. As for its initial design, I suspect it may have been something closer to a PTC than a single bench car, as the single benches typically came along later than this coaster.

I tend to side with Billy on the aspect of "three bench trains give greater *throw*". I can easily understand where Jeff, and many others, might find HP's Wildcat to be more comfortable - but for myself, AV Matt, Billy, and others who might be considered "hardcore" - the longer wheelbase provides a more intense, rough-and-tumble kind of ride. Texas Giant is another ride where many people say it's too rough, and many others think it was....just right.

It's easy to understand why the shorter wheelbase navigates turns better, does less damage to trackwork, etc....but I'm not the one paying the maintenance crew. ;)

Skip the following paragraph to avoid Engineering musings:

Not to nerd out but assuming equal train length and that the PTCs were standard 3 benchers with axles at either end of the car, it seems to me that rows 1 and 3 would have near identical 'vertical acceleration' to a single-bench trains. If anything, the ride in the row 2 would experience less. The only major difference that I can think of is that the way the benches *pitch* would be different in that rows 1, 2, and 3 all pitch at the same rate, whereas on a single-bench train the benches would all pitch independently and thus follow the track curve more exactly. In row 3 of a 3 bench PTC in particular, there's that added "throw" sort of feeling because, in addition to the usual airtime, your seat is actually pivoting downward more than it would be on a single-bench train (since it's trying to 'point at' the first row/axle (did that make any sense? I can picture it but explaining it in words is a b!tch). Also, the difference between 3 bench and 1 bench would actually be much, much smaller over larger radius hills than over smaller radius hills (see also: Phoenix @ Knoebel's). Like you though, that's just my suspicion, I can't be bothered to diagram it out ;)

In any case, the discussion is somewhat moot, because per RCDB, the new incarnation of Zippin Pippin is going to "use the trains and much of the mechanical hardware of the former Thunder Eagle roller coaster from Race Worldin Pigeon Forge, Tennessee." Trains which, of course, were three bench PTCs.

Well there ya go.

Makes me kinda wish we had a Let Me Google That For You equivalent for coaster nerds that searched RCDB.