The Beast Rider

Well, I'm not really interested in the SOB accident, most everyone knows how that turned out by now. I threw that in there because I was reading some of the other SOB posts and it got me wondering if maybe that is why they slow all the coasters to a crawl with trim brakes at every turn.

Did the SOB accident make Cedar Fair shy about letting their coasters run, or are they really just trim brake happy? They have trims all over The Beast to kill the ride, and stop FOF completely halfway through. Then, they have an almost complete stop on SOB and Vortex, and to top it off, they have some pointless ones on Racer and Beastie for goodness sake. I just got back from Coastermania at Cedar Point, and low and behold, there are trims all over those coasters now too. Mean Streak has several which take any fun that is left in there out, and then there is the one on Magnum. Don't forget about the one on Mantis and the midcourse on Raptor, and now poor Gemini has not one but two, and boy does the second one sure kill the ending. Also, new for 2008, a fancy new trim on Maverick. That makes an interesting sequence: into the tunnel, slam on the brakes, launch out of the tunnel, directly into the trim brake. They really need to take a lesson from Holiday World. They are not using the trim on Voyage this year at all, and Legend and Raven don't have any to be found. In fact, from seat of pants feel, the Raven runs faster than The Beast does.

It would be nice if they would think about the economy a little, not to mention $4.00 for a gallon of gas. It makes that $7 locker and $3.50 Coke seem a little (OK, a lot) overpriced. Maybe the management at KI needs to look at Holiday World's business model. They have free soft drinks and reasonably priced food, which is delicious. They also have roller coasters that are not trim braked to death, or stop in the middle of the ride for no reason. They also do not stop rides at the first sign of a sprinkle and keep them closed until the pavement dries, or kick riders off the ride even when the que line is empty. I do not understand the rain policy anyway. They could put the old skid brakes back in The Beast station and completely cover them with the lift chain grease and it would still stop before a collision due to all of the trimming the ride receives.

I have been finding these stories about high prices of fuel more and more interesting as of late. Demand is dropping, supply is rising, but yet the price just keeps on rising too. Every economic textbook that I have ever seen has taught that dropping demand and rising supply = lower prices. I guess all those textbooks are wrong. It would seem that greed is very much the motivating factory in this conspiracy. I only hope that all those that are causing this economic disaster are the first ones to get caught up in the carnage.

Sounds great!! Does any of that apply to Platinum pass holders as well as gold? Also, I heard that the ACE Beast walk back will be continued this year. Do they do that on opening day?!

I have found that Stunt Crew Grill is not too bad, but it is not great either. Even Chick-fil-a is not all that good. The quality definately needs to improve by leaps and bounds, especially for the price. I wouldn't mind paying what they charge if the food quality was on par. I have to agree with Bodda about bringing the cooler. If the quality isn't quite a bit better this season, there will be a cooler full of food in my trunk.

If they'd show it a little TLC and get ride of the trim brake on Racer, it wouldn't lack umph at all. Other than that, I agree with 2,500,000,000% No, then it would just be a maintenance nightmare and be rough as hell. The trim brake is there to prevent having to constantly give the ride TLC, same reasons they exist on Beast. Yes, we wouldn't want maintenance to have to maintain something. Lets just put a trim brake on it, even though it kills the ride. A ridiculous attitude to have. It might be a little rough, what do you expect when you get on? It is a wooden coaster, not a Cadillac.

Or the ACE Beast Bash or anything else that Paramount (and Jeff and Maureen) used to do for us Dont know about The Beast walk back in the morning, suspect we will be saying ba bye to that too. A date for Beast Bash was offered, but Russ Johnson declined the dates because they were before Halloween Haunt. It simply wasn't fair for the Kings Island employees to be forced to work extra late when they closed at 1am anyway. Many of them had to be back in the morning. Due to the fact that most of the interest in Beast Bash came from the Halloween attractions, he chose not decline the dates offered. That's why there was no Beast Bash. It had nothing to do with Cedar Fair, Paramount, Maureen leaving, etc. The walkback WILL continue this year. This year ALL accredited coaster clubs will be invited to join in on the walkback. Everyone in attendance must present a valid, up-to-date coaster club membership card and must sign in each morning. Ryan This sounds very interesting. When do these walkbacks happen, and where do you check in? We'll announce the location of the walk back when we get that information. A person from the marketing department will be there with the sign in sheet. Remember that you must present an up-to-date membership card from an accredited coaster club in order to participate. The walk back will be to The Beast only. Walk back to The Beast is perfect. Is this just on special days, or every day that the park is open?

Or the ACE Beast Bash or anything else that Paramount (and Jeff and Maureen) used to do for us Dont know about The Beast walk back in the morning, suspect we will be saying ba bye to that too. A date for Beast Bash was offered, but Russ Johnson declined the dates because they were before Halloween Haunt. It simply wasn't fair for the Kings Island employees to be forced to work extra late when they closed at 1am anyway. Many of them had to be back in the morning. Due to the fact that most of the interest in Beast Bash came from the Halloween attractions, he chose not decline the dates offered. That's why there was no Beast Bash. It had nothing to do with Cedar Fair, Paramount, Maureen leaving, etc. The walkback WILL continue this year. This year ALL accredited coaster clubs will be invited to join in on the walkback. Everyone in attendance must present a valid, up-to-date coaster club membership card and must sign in each morning. Ryan This sounds very interesting. When do these walkbacks happen, and where do you check in?

I was looking at KI's website to see if anything new was added, and came upon this interesting item about SOB. This is a copy of the description from www.visitkingsisland.com about Son of Beast. I think someone got a little carried away about the trains. Track Length 7,032 feet (1.3 miles) (The second longest wooden roller coaster in the world. The Beast® is the longest.) Ride Time 3 minutes Trains Three trains, with six cars each, holding a total of 36 riders per train. Hourly Capacity 1, 000 guests Height Requirement 48” Minimum I guess Sonny has PTC trains now, too!

It seems that not much new information has come about for the rumor coaster lately, but in looking through the 90 pages of info, there are a few questions that pop out to me. Now, IF this coaster is really going to happen, and IF the construction is as far along as is rumored, what do you suppose will happen come April 19? Will we have some sort of press release by then do you suppose? Rumor has it that there are footings in Swan Lake already, do you suppose they will try to disguise them somehow if they are in fact there? What about construction in the woods that is visible from the Eiffel Tower? Or, do you suppose they will just hide everything in plain sight like the did Maverick at CP?

Well, that was interesting. On a different note, I do wish that they could still do the occational "trimless" ride sessions. But, alas, that too went the way of the skid brakes.

Actually, I don't think you can speak for "everyone" because you obviously don't know what happened yourself. The Beast features 2 seperate blocks on it's brake shed and one in its station, the skid brakes, wet with rain, failed to slow down the train enough and allowed it to slide into the block ahead of it causing the collision. Blocks on coasters have fail safes, but the block system can fail. After the incident and the addition of the magnetic trim brakes, The Beast received a re-designed block system. It does have a trim brake there, as you descend into the double helix. Obviously I can read. I know how the blocks are set up. You are the one that said the collision did not happen in the station. Where else are passengers unloading? Do they unload in the brake run now?

Since when is there ever a time that The Racer is running that the trim is not in use? I have only experienced this once in the past number of seasons. -The majority of the time these trim brakes are not use. They were added back when The Racer's lacked head rests, still had buzz bars, and had two wooden beams running on the chassis of the car. Even back when the cars were this way the trim brakes were only used during the regular season till the end, as The Racer often requires the use of a 2nd chain to help it along its course when the fresh grease on its wheels is still getting broken in at the beginning of the season. This chain is located on the last hill before the split. When the trains were retrofitted with head rests and individual lap bars they were also given a steel beam to hold the brake fin in favor of the original wooden beam on car's chassis. These factors added a significant amount of weight but The Racer still requires the 2nd chain on the hills before the split and seldom has its old compressed air trim brakes on. -Yes and they were removed in favor of what the park felt were much safer brakes after an accident, hence why everyone has shot down the suggestion. -The station brakes were not replaced, and the collision did not take place in the station. The Beast still has the same type of station brakes it always has had. The skids were the reason for the accident, hence why they were removed and replaced with magnetic brakes. -It does not brake more and more every season, and the rain has less of an effect than you think, which is why the magnetic brakes were added. No matter how slick the track is, the magnetic brakes stop it at the same speed, this was the problem with the skid brakes, they could be affected more so by the rain. There was an incident due to these conditions and then the skid brakes were removed. As Elmer and AZ said, Beast runs fine, Beast is great, brakes wont change. WHAT?? "Two trains collided in the station during a rain-related shutdown of the ride. The second train failed to stop short of the station and slid into another train that was unloading passengers. Twenty people were taken to area hospitals with various injuries. No injuries requiring an overnight hospital stay were reported." This is a quote from the Cincinnati Enquirer about the accident. What you are saying would have required two trains to be in the same block of the track at the same time, a condition that everyone knows does not happen. Here is a link to the article. http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2001/10/1...ders_taken.html Also, in checking KI's website, it says that The Beast approaches 70MPH. According to ACE, the fastest it has been measured by radar in recent years is 57MPH.

It wasn't intended as a life changing post. It was a simple matter for everyone to give an opinion. I realize the only ones that can change anything at all about the way The Beast runs is Cedar Fair. It is their coaster, not mine. By the way, the brake on Racer is never off, I do not know what made you think it was never used. In all my many Racer rides, I have never been on one that this brake was off.

You've never seen what The Beast can do. Wait until you hit that curve at full speed, and then say the brakes are the best part. But, all previous posts that the search bring up swears that no brakes were added to The Beast. They were there from the beginning, I'm pretty sure. Is the trim brake at the top of the hill at the turn around not magnetic? It sure does a good job of taking all the airtime out of the return side.

1. I suppose you are right on that one. If everyone did, they wouldn't be there. 2. Any. 3. Ride experience, and as a Mechanical Engineer. 4. Makes no difference to this discussion. 5. See 3. 6. The additional cost of a couple more magnetic trim brakes. However, there is one on Racer that serves no purpose that could be used, and probably one on recaR as well. 7. Magnetic trim brakes work on magnetic principles. Move the magnet farther from the target, less force is applied to said target. 7. Sigh is right.

I have an idea that I think would solve both enthusiast problems with trim brakes as well as not create too many additional maintenance nightmares, and greatly enhance the experience on The Beast. The best solution would be to remove them completely, but that seems very unlikely. As everyone is well aware, the trim brakes are used entirely too much, and I think it detracts from the whole ride experience because of it. I also know that the trims that are on the ride are in the same location that they always have been, the real issue is the way they work. While I don’t like any of them, the one that aggravates me the most is the one in the brake shed. If they won’t get rid of the brakes completely, then I think they need to, get this, add more. It seems the opposite of what anyone would want, but hear me out. This way, they could loosen them up considerably, so the slow down is gradual instead of giving you whiplash. This would let the riders feel that they are going faster, but still achieve the slowing that the current brakes do. Let the discussion begin!!

The question was answered on page one of this argument. There are still accusatory posts long after the question was answered. As dare-to-fly and myself stated, there was no illegal activity involved. I do not, however, believe that the park contacted anyone over such a simple post. They have much more important things to worry about, especially considering that the original post stated that we were on a public road, and on the bike trail. To answer the question about pictures, there were pictures taken, and they are on film that is not developed yet. Some of us still use old fashioned technology. By the way, I would guess any guest at Great Wolf Lodge could get closer than we did to the park, and this sign. I assume that they are free to walk in the grass, and could very easily walk right up to the fence between KI and GWL. This would allow that person to almost touch the sign in question, if you were to try. We never even got out of the car, which was on the public road by GWL.

I can't really tell you from that picture if it is 100% correct or not, but there are several drives to GWL that enter from the road that you have marked, and they are well beyond where you have the Gate point. If that is true, then the only way back there would be to trespass. Also, why would they have a road that is "trespassing" on their property but not have an official gate for another quarter mile? At any rate, you can clearly see the sign in question from the paved portion of GWL parking lot back by Top Gun.

I was with dare-to-fly on our exploring trip, and we never crossed over any gates or passed any no trespassing signs. Actually, where the sign was we didn't even have to get out of the car to see it. Pull into Great Wolf Lodge, drive all the way around to the back where the road ends, and the sign is clearly visible through KI's gate. You do not have to trespass at all to see any of the sights that we saw. If we were going to take a chance trespassing, we would have something more interesting to report than an "Construction Entrance" sign.

It might not be earth shattering, but it is interesting. It was more interesting to see The Beast from different angles. The lift hill lights were on when we left, which was neat in itself. Kind of like he was saying "HI". If you go to look, take your binoculars or telescope. If the leaves were on the trees, there would be no way to see The Beast from behind. It would be completely hidden with trees.