X-Flights dual-track station and wood retracking at Worlds of Adventure captured on film

Still dont get how that station will work....

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Drachen Fire, Will it be swimming with the fishies?

It's like the dual flumes of White Water Landing at Cedar Point. One train goes one way, the next the other. There appears to be a rotating track section for this, similar to the one for Big Bad Wolf's transfer.

What makes this a better design is that there is never idle time for any train. For example, with Millennium Force, the train in the exit station drains, and then it sits empty for a while. On X-Flight, you've got unloading followed by immediate loading on the same train, with no pause in between.

However, there is a pretty huge downside to this design, and it's one that I fear the park will have trouble with given its reputation for stacking trains. In order for this system to work, you've got to meet the interval in both stations every time. If you don't, the third train gets stopped on the brake run. The reason that's bad is that it will take a while to roll through that long turn into a station from a dead stop. Imagine if that were to happen even a few times an hour. It would noticeably hurt capacity.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com

Because this is Vekoma I think the section won't be rotating horozontally but rather vertically much like the switch on Disneyland Paris' Space Mountain. It flips around with the other piece of track underneath. Ive seen other companies use this on monorail systems.

I just don't understand why are the footers are so large. They are 7 feet tall! Is that the reason for them, a rotating track?

Also, this ride will feature roll-overs like Serial Thriller as opposed to the corkscrews on Stealth. The animation is really good on the officail WOA site.

Matbe the footers are so large so it looks taller then it really is. I mean Mind Eraser a boomer is basically right next to it and taller then X-Flight. Maybe they wanted it to appear as tall or taller then ME. Or it could be for themeing. But with Six Flags thats a slim possibility.

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Don't mess with the X in 01

"It flips around with the other piece of track underneath."

That's what I said... Like BBW at BGW.

I was thinking, but didn't post, the same thing about the footers. My theory is that this is a phenomenon for any ride that is a "stock" model, because the tall footers allow you to compensate for variations in terrain. Many SLC's are like this, ditto for the Intamin Superman mirrors.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com

"I just don't understand why are the footers are so large."

While I'm not familiar with the topography of x-flights plot of land, I have a pretty good idea of why the footers are that way after riding several other Vekoma coasters with similar footers. X flight (please no arguments, you know what I mean by this) is basically a clone, or stock ride, not a ride custom designed for that plot of land. Other stock Vekoma rides like SLCs and Boomerangs seem to be designed for a perfectly flat piece of land. When a park buys a SLC (or an X-flight) and puts it on a piece of land that's not flat, some footers seem to be need to be tall, to "level" the area it's being built on. Know what I mean?

This is just a guess based on what I've seen before. Anyone else notice this like on SFA's Mind Eraser? It's built on a strange piece of land and some of those footers seem to be 10-12 feet tall, while some are flush with the ground, but the tops of all footers seem to be even.

-Peabody

I was thinking the same thing about the whole stock terrain models. Now I don't know what kind of terrain Batwing is being built on, but X-Flight is built on relatively flat ground (at least it was flat) Now there are not onlyhuge footers, but trenches and everything there now. I don't know if they are planning on landscaping or other stuff. But it seems like they dug out A LOT more dirt then they needed to. They might have dug a trench also to use for the que line (like SUE) where it goes down and around?
As for the transer track. I know there is some pretty big complex track pieces they were lifting in the parking lot. But they were WAY in the back so it was very hard to get a good pic or see exactly how it will be transfered. I can tell you there is a lot of room between the ground and the actual track though, and there is a HUGE gap between the track on the first hill (pullout) and the ground.

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
RollerCoasterGod
E-mail: RollerCoasterGod@aol.com

This is only the second time that Vekoma uses double station.Only the space mountain (DLP) has tis system.And it works relatifly simple.AT the Space Mountain (DLP) there's a maoving track before the station.That's the reason why there can be 2 trains in the station.The space mountain (DLP) has 6 trains running on a 2:05 minutes ride.The X-flight/Batwing ride time is about 1:50 minutes.So there can be about 4 trains on the track.But I think there's a moving track before the staion.Just like the Space Mountain at Disney land Paris has.

Thuur Crompvoets
Http://www.vekoma.8m.com within 6-8 weeks it will be http://www.vekomarides.com
Vekoma@europe.com

Man! Those footers are Huge!!!!

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No Bad Coasters, Just Some Better Than Others.

I think I understand how X-Flight's dual loading station will work but please correct me if I'm wrong. I think it will be similar to the way Big Thunder Mountain Railroad's works with it's dual loading station. There will probably be a switch of some sort and this will divert a train onto which ever track doesn't have a train on it.

I think they built the footers so big because if they put the dirt back, the footers will have better ancorage. It could be for theming but Six Flags doesn't usually bother with theming. Also, does anyone know when the trains are arriving or have they already?

I went and drove by X-Flight for the first time since they started vertical construction on 3/18 and the first thing that I thought was wow that track looks huge. That could just be since I haven't seen or been on a roller coaster in 4 months. Does anyone else think that X-Flight's track is big?

I don't know about the track being huge? If anything when I was stading next to it, it seemed smaller than the average coaster track. B&M tracked seemed twice as big (even though it isn't) when I stood to that BKF track last year.

As for the dirt, I think they are just moving it all out towards the WAYYyyy back end of the parking lot and to other places to use for dampers. I don't see them bringing any other dirt back to the coaster yet. They should be able to though if they wanted to for a lot of the coaster. They are though pushing a lot of dirt around though, that's already there.

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
RollerCoasterGod
E-mail: RollerCoasterGod@aol.com

As for the second part of this post, I realize that tracking is necessary on all wooden coasters every year, but if you ask me Raging Wolf Bobs needed a WHOLE lot more "extensive" tracking than Villain or Dipper. It was literally a pain in the neck, back, and all over to ride that last year. It used to be such a good coaster. Does 6FWOA have real carpenters or just idiots replacing boards with no knowledge of cause and effect?

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I refuse to add a signature. Damn, too late.

They do have real carpenters, and they do a pretty good job with things in the pass. As for Villain, it did get a REALLY strange "kink" towards the end of the year on the first hill pullout and up the second hill. It did a violent jolt to the left, as for the rest of the ride it was perfectly smooth. Now for the Big Dipper, I have the slightest idea what was/is wrong with that. Maybe it's just old wood and they want to keep it new and safe (which very well could be the case). As for RWB...MANY people call me crazy, but I love the ride (still). I have gotten great airtime and laterals on the ride last year. Yes it shakes like crazy, but unlike other rides that do the same thing (ahem...MStreak)It has GREAT padding so you don't leave with bruises. RWB is more or less like riding a car with really bouncy shocks. Where Mean Streak is like riding a bouncy car without shocks. Strangely enough, I haven't heard many bad things about RWB from the public? Mainly just woman about the "chest problem." Granted the carpenters are probably no CP carpenters, but I would bet they are far above par then most parks have. And very well will be getting better as SFWoA grows in leaps and bounds.

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
RollerCoasterGod
E-mail: RollerCoasterGod@aol.com