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Flamingo Land | Sik | Intamin 10 Inversion Coaster | 2022

Fluorineer

Mega Poster
Honestly those rolls look so much better with 3-tube track than 2-tube

Does someone know what was up with Intamin at some times and why they were making such heavy use of 2-tube track, despite it requiring an insane amount of supports? I mean, Colossus is still sorta fine, but Ride of Steels' helixes are just eye cancer. What is the advantage there? To me it seems like, even a short support requires much more material and labor compared to what can be saved with 2-tube track vs 3-tube track.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
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Does someone know what was up with Intamin at some times and why they were making such heavy use of 2-tube track, despite it requiring an insane amount of supports? I mean, Colossus is still sorta fine, but Ride of Steels' helixes are just eye cancer. What is the advantage there? To me it seems like, even a short support requires much more material and labor compared to what can be saved with 2-tube track vs 3-tube track.
I'm going off probably a decade's worth of forum murmurings and no actual tangible source, but I had always heard that some of the reason for Ride of Steel's hundreds of supports was as a result of the lake it sits over. It was easier to cast many smaller foundations to spread the load out (over casting a pad or ground beam type foundation). When they cloned the ride, they didn't bother re-engineering the track and supports.

As to why they did it on Colossus - no idea. My guess is that it's simpler to add more supports and only bend a 2-rail track, than to bend the more complex profile and welding of the cross-ties of the 3-rail track and save yourself a few relatively simple supports.
 

bob_3_

Giga Poster
I'm going off probably a decade's worth of forum murmurings and no actual tangible source, but I had always heard that some of the reason for Ride of Steel's hundreds of supports was as a result of the lake it sits over. It was easier to cast many smaller foundations to spread the load out (over casting a pad or ground beam type foundation). When they cloned the ride, they didn't bother re-engineering the track and supports.

As to why they did it on Colossus - no idea. My guess is that it's simpler to add more supports and only bend a 2-rail track, than to bend the more complex profile and welding of the cross-ties of the 3-rail track and save yourself a few relatively simple supports.

The most confusing thing about the RevB redesign is only one of the heartline rolls has an square frame support, what makes him so special.

Screen-Shot-2019-12-12-at-13-05-37.png
 

Fluorineer

Mega Poster
The most confusing thing about the RevB redesign is only one of the heartline rolls has an square frame support, what makes him so special.

In general, the spacing of the supports and the length of individual track pieces do not correspond to the length of the heartline rolls at all, every single one of them is supported differently, and it probably gave every engineer at B&M a heavy episode of OCD. My guess would be that the track pieces and the placement of the supports are entirely computer-generated with the assumption of it being placed on a flat surface. It would make sense, it's supposed to be a stock model and should be as cheap as possible, and support-aesthetics really only matter, if you care about landscaping the area surrounding the coaster (a good example of this is Fenix).

I mean, if this:

1576157828202.png

is cheaper and/or easier than figuring out new terrain-matching supports, then I suppose Intamin really doesn't give much :p
 

Antinos

Slut for Spinners
Track segments are sized to fit in a standard 53' shipping container. Supports are placed based on loads exerted by the train and track weight. If those heartline rolls only require a support every 60 feet, they aren't going to place supports every 40 feet.

Additionally, the manufacturer is going to Target minimizing cost such that they can maximize their profit margin - they're going to run business cases that holistically compare the different track styles with how many supports and foundations would be required. In some cases, like @Hixee pointed out, a ton of supports might actually be cheaper due to the geography that the ride sits on. In most cases, one will probably find that minimizing supports and foundations will be the most cost effective way to build a ride.
 

AidanCKY

Mega Poster
The most confusing thing about the RevB redesign is only one of the heartline rolls has an square frame support, what makes him so special.

I suppose its packaging -maybe to keep the foundations spaced away from each other. Looks like the square supports take up less room. The last roll into the station also has one.

It is curious that this ride has mostly square supports too, i dont think you see it too often.
 
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