Trim Brakes

[The Beast Rider]

^Honestly, I doubt that. That would require maintenance workers going out and manually adjusting the counterweights on the skid brakes, something I highly doubt they would do with people on board the ride. They would probably test the skid brakes in the morning and have the ride ready for guests in the morning. Also the ride never ran with "no brakes." There was always some form of trim brake installed on the ride and operating. Adjusted yes, but totally gone, no.

As for Firehawk's "trim brake," both as X-Flight and Firehawk the ride never had a trim brake before the loop, the sound you heard could have been any number of things.

Trim brakes to save on maintenance is a terrible way to run an amusement park.

Lets see, numbers of parks run trim brakes on coasters to save on maintenance costs every day (KI did on The Beast since day one). Every day hundreds of people come to ride those coasters and ever year those coasters provide great rides and those folks keep on coming back. Awful way to run an amusement park? If properly maintaining a ride, keeping the riders safe, all while providing a world class coaster ride is an "awful" way to run a park, then I'd really, really like to know what a better way is.

They also used to have trimless rides for coaster events at the park. I can't believe they would adjust them every day, but who knows. Stranger things have happened. The Beast does run quite slow first thing in the morning. They run Magnum with the trim off early in the day.

As for Firehawk, I wondered if there was a trim brake on it. I was talking to a maintenance guy one day at the park about Firehawk, and he mentioned a trim brake. I didn't think about asking him where it was, I wish I had now.

By the way, a properly maintained ride would not need a trim brake. It is called maintenance. $100 hamburger? Ouch!

[The Interpreter]

The $100 hamburger? That's a lot of bull.

Terpy, who just had to

[The Beast Rider]

The $100 hamburger? That's a lot of bull.

Terpy, who just had to

For 100 bucks, it better be!!

[The Interpreter]

Yay! Someone got it! That's udderly bovine.

And now back to braking news....

Terpy, lover of groaners

[Browntggrr]

They run Magnum with the trim off early in the day.

And there is a reason for that.

Magnum has a computer that determines how long the trims are to be engaged based upon the previous train's weight.

The test trains of the day are empty or close to being empty, perhaps two or three employees. If the trims were 100% on with an empty train, the train could valley coming out of the pretzel given the right temperatures and wind off the lake.

And as Gordon has previously mentioned, with skid brakes or mag brakes, there is no way to turn them off without removal.

[dare-to-fly]

Yay! Someone got it! That's udderly bovine.

And now back to braking news....

Terpy, lover of groaners

Okay...I think if you add the "lot of bull" to these, that's your funniest combination of puns yet! (I'm being serious by the way.) What will you say next I wonder?

[The Beast Rider]

They run Magnum with the trim off early in the day.

And as Gordon has previously mentioned, with skid brakes or mag brakes, there is no way to turn them off without removal.

That still remains the single best option.

[Gordon Bombay]

^Honestly, I doubt that. That would require maintenance workers going out and manually adjusting the counterweights on the skid brakes, something I highly doubt they would do with people on board the ride. They would probably test the skid brakes in the morning and have the ride ready for guests in the morning. Also the ride never ran with "no brakes." There was always some form of trim brake installed on the ride and operating. Adjusted yes, but totally gone, no.

As for Firehawk's "trim brake," both as X-Flight and Firehawk the ride never had a trim brake before the loop, the sound you heard could have been any number of things.

Trim brakes to save on maintenance is a terrible way to run an amusement park.

Lets see, numbers of parks run trim brakes on coasters to save on maintenance costs every day (KI did on The Beast since day one). Every day hundreds of people come to ride those coasters and ever year those coasters provide great rides and those folks keep on coming back. Awful way to run an amusement park? If properly maintaining a ride, keeping the riders safe, all while providing a world class coaster ride is an "awful" way to run a park, then I'd really, really like to know what a better way is.

They also used to have trimless rides for coaster events at the park. I can't believe they would adjust them every day, but who knows. Stranger things have happened. The Beast does run quite slow first thing in the morning. They run Magnum with the trim off early in the day.

As for Firehawk, I wondered if there was a trim brake on it. I was talking to a maintenance guy one day at the park about Firehawk, and he mentioned a trim brake. I didn't think about asking him where it was, I wish I had now.

By the way, a properly maintained ride would not need a trim brake. It is called maintenance. $100 hamburger? Ouch!

A properly maintained ride does require a trim brake. The trim brake keeps the ride running in a consistent and efficent manner, which is why KI uses them. They keep maintenance costs and wear and tear down allowing the staff to focus on other areas. As for the Firehawk trims, both as X-Flight and Firehawk (and Borghawk at Carowinds I believe also uses this term) they refer to the brakes before the station turn around as "trim brakes." However, there are no other brakes "trimming" the trains speed before that.

[BavarianBeatle]

Many roller coasters are designed and built with trims. The purpose of the ride designer is not to make the ride go as fast as possible at all costs, but to create the illusion of danger while keeping the passenger perfectly safe. In other words, the height and appearance of a ride creates the illusion for those who are afraid of those things, but it is often necessary to slow the ride to avoid at the very least bruises and or whiplash type injuries in the corners.

And, I must add that I find reading the bovine puns to be a mooooooooving experience

[The Interpreter]

Ow. I am not sure I have the four stomachs for this!

[bear295]

You know, I have gone back and read through the vast majority of the Trim Brakes threading. My first impression: I sure hope that "dare-to-fly" doesn't drive a car because his perception of speed is very skewed. I've been riding Beast since the year that it opened. Yep, rode the 40 passenger original trains and was there the year they went to the shorter trains. There has been a trim brake on the downhill into the helix since day one, only then it was a skid brake.

Like others, I was disappointed with one of the new magnetic trims. In particular the one in the "outwoods station" (don't remember what KI calls it. They do have a name for it.) There was always a skid brake in that area but it was smoother and more gentle than the mag brake. I was disappointed with the very hard discernable braking near the end of that platform. But I really don't believe that it is any slower than the "skids" were going into the turn to the tunnel run.

As for requiring trims. CCI used to pride itself on designing coasters with no trims anywhere on the run. Most of those are still running. CP Mean Streak was originally designed and built without a trim at the bottom of the chain drop. However, it was tearing the structure apart so badly that the decision was made to trim it enough to ease some of the stress on the structure.

Well thought out and planned designs won't need trims on the run. I regress; CCI used to pride itself. But with the skyrocketing cost of materials and manhours, trims came and are here to stay. Sometimes "YEA" sometimes "YUCK".

All said, I don't honestly feel that there is a noticeable difference in the speed of Beast from year 1 to today.

[Gordon Bombay]

You know, I have gone back and read through the vast majority of the Trim Brakes threading. My first impression: I sure hope that "dare-to-fly" doesn't drive a car because his perception of speed is very skewed. I've been riding Beast since the year that it opened. Yep, rode the 40 passenger original trains and was there the year they went to the shorter trains. There has been a trim brake on the downhill into the helix since day one, only then it was a skid brake.

Like others, I was disappointed with one of the new magnetic trims. In particular the one in the "outwoods station" (don't remember what KI calls it. They do have a name for it.) There was always a skid brake in that area but it was smoother and more gentle than the mag brake. I was disappointed with the very hard discernable braking near the end of that platform. But I really don't believe that it is any slower than the "skids" were going into the turn to the tunnel run.

As for requiring trims. CCI used to pride itself on designing coasters with no trims anywhere on the run. Most of those are still running. CP Mean Streak was originally designed and built without a trim at the bottom of the chain drop. However, it was tearing the structure apart so badly that the decision was made to trim it enough to ease some of the stress on the structure.

Well thought out and planned designs won't need trims on the run. I regress; CCI used to pride itself. But with the skyrocketing cost of materials and manhours, trims came and are here to stay. Sometimes "YEA" sometimes "YUCK".

All said, I don't honestly feel that there is a noticeable difference in the speed of Beast from year 1 to today.

Well said bear! Although, I have to point out that The Beast has had the same trains since day one, just heavily modified to accomidate different seating arangments, different lap bar mechanisms, different congifgurations of padding and headrests, and so forth. The chassis on all of the cars are original, yet were cut down when they were modified from four rows to three. Many other parts of the trains are also original.

[Garret]

"spoken by a person that likely had no idea on how much money is spent on maintenance for park rides in a given year"

You mean like 99% of the general public? I don't care about maintenance costs, I don't care why they do what they do, I know there has to be alternatives to killing roller coasters, I care about ride experiences, and as far as Vortex goes that ride experience isn't fractionally as good as it was before they trimmed that corkscrew to DEATH. The train used to fly through that section giving an awesome sensation, it is dead as I knew it.

I go to KI to ride rides, not to evaluate their intentions and/or motives.

The brake before the corkscrew on Vortex is not a trim brake. It is a Mid Course Brake Run, which is very handy in keeping two trains from entering the same block and possibly colliding. The MCBR could make the train come to a complete stop, but it ususally only slows you down because KI is pretty good at dispatching trains. Not to mention, the MCBR on Vortex has always been there.

While not originally designed to be trims, the C block brakes on The Vortex have been used as such since the tracks first separated from their supports in the corkscrew in 1988. I'm also kind of surprised to hear your remarks on the dispatch intervals. Compared to the times we used to run, today's times stink. I know the stupid additions of the 2nd operator dispatch and the exit gate that needs to be locked after each train unload kills times, but it's still pretty bad aside from those things. Normal operation for Vortex was to not even use the ready brakes to hold trains. Using the safety brakes was at most a once or twice a day occurance and had to be because the darn things got stuck out there half the time and had to be pushed.

As far as The Beast, it's almost made me sick to my stomach watching how far this ride has fallen from greatness. I agree with the others who say it practically gets worse every year. The seat belts and waist bars dumbed the ride down enough. The speed at which it makes the loop today is an embarassment to its former self. Anyone saying the ride is as fast today as it was in years past never rode it in it's original 4 train/4 row per car configuration. Those trains were heavy, and they were fast. As in The Vortex C brakes, the brake shed on The Beast was never put there to trim speed. They were there to stop a train and start one aided by feed motors. This block division was necessary when running with 4 trains. Keep in mind, before the days of seat belts and waist bars, exit gates, entrance gates, 2 man dispatch, physically checking bars, etc., a 20-25 second load time was the norm. Today the ride is sad, it's almost depressing riding Beast anymore.

[Garret]

They run Magnum with the trim off early in the day.

And there is a reason for that.

Magnum has a computer that determines how long the trims are to be engaged based upon the previous train's weight.

The test trains of the day are empty or close to being empty, perhaps two or three employees. If the trims were 100% on with an empty train, the train could valley coming out of the pretzel given the right temperatures and wind off the lake.

And as Gordon has previously mentioned, with skid brakes or mag brakes, there is no way to turn them off without removal.

Magnum's trims (before the pretzel) are set by the Mechanics and are not within the control of the ride operator. They were never intended to be there by Arrow and installed after the section of track was raised and bent into a flatter configuration while the ride was closed for the lift chain break in it's innaugural 1989 season. Ride operators manually time trains to alert maintenance of the need to raise or reduce the air pressure in these brakes. The ride safety system is unaware of these brakes and they have no speed detection means to auto-adjust like the safety brakes do. The Magnum's computer is oblivious to train weight, trim level at the safety's and ready's are determined by the trains speed using proximity sensors (the square green boxes you see at the entrance and exit of both brake sections and the light blue boxes in between each air brake). In recent years, the use of these brakes has diminished quite a bit as the rides popularity has waned and less than full trains become common. Last year, they weren't in use at all when Maggie blew through the safety brakes and bumped into the ready's.

[dakota2112]

While not originally designed to be trims, the C block brakes on The Vortex have been used as such since the tracks first separated from their supports in the corkscrew in 1988. I'm also kind of surprised to hear your remarks on the dispatch intervals. Compared to the times we used to run, today's times stink. I know the stupid additions of the 2nd operator dispatch and the exit gate that needs to be locked after each train unload kills times, but it's still pretty bad aside from those things. Normal operation for Vortex was to not even use the ready brakes to hold trains. Using the safety brakes was at most a once or twice a day occurance and had to be because the darn things got stuck out there half the time and had to be pushed.

As far as The Beast, it's almost made me sick to my stomach watching how far this ride has fallen from greatness. I agree with the others who say it practically gets worse every year. The seat belts and waist bars dumbed the ride down enough. The speed at which it makes the loop today is an embarassment to its former self. Anyone saying the ride is as fast today as it was in years past never rode it in it's original 4 train/4 row per car configuration. Those trains were heavy, and they were fast. As in The Vortex C brakes, the brake shed on The Beast was never put there to trim speed. They were there to stop a train and start one aided by feed motors. This block division was necessary when running with 4 trains. Keep in mind, before the days of seat belts and waist bars, exit gates, entrance gates, 2 man dispatch, physically checking bars, etc., a 20-25 second load time was the norm. Today the ride is sad, it's almost depressing riding Beast anymore.

The Vortex corkscrew track separated from its supports in 1988?

(and Beast does a loop?!? Maybe you mean helix.)

[bear295]

You know, I have gone back and read through the vast majority of the Trim Brakes threading. My first impression: I sure hope that "dare-to-fly" doesn't drive a car because his perception of speed is very skewed. I've been riding Beast since the year that it opened. Yep, rode the 40 passenger original trains and was there the year they went to the shorter trains. There has been a trim brake on the downhill into the helix since day one, only then it was a skid brake.

Like others, I was disappointed with one of the new magnetic trims. In particular the one in the "outwoods station" (don't remember what KI calls it. They do have a name for it.) There was always a skid brake in that area but it was smoother and more gentle than the mag brake. I was disappointed with the very hard discernable braking near the end of that platform. But I really don't believe that it is any slower than the "skids" were going into the turn to the tunnel run.

As for requiring trims. CCI used to pride itself on designing coasters with no trims anywhere on the run. Most of those are still running. CP Mean Streak was originally designed and built without a trim at the bottom of the chain drop. However, it was tearing the structure apart so badly that the decision was made to trim it enough to ease some of the stress on the structure.

Well thought out and planned designs won't need trims on the run. I regress; CCI used to pride itself. But with the skyrocketing cost of materials and manhours, trims came and are here to stay. Sometimes "YEA" sometimes "YUCK".

All said, I don't honestly feel that there is a noticeable difference in the speed of Beast from year 1 to today.

Well said bear! Although, I have to point out that The Beast has had the same trains since day one, just heavily modified to accomidate different seating arangments, different lap bar mechanisms, different congifgurations of padding and headrests, and so forth. The chassis on all of the cars are original, yet were cut down when they were modified from four rows to three. Many other parts of the trains are also original.

You are positively wrong about The Beast having the same trains since day one. The original trains were red blended into yellow and had 4 seats per car instead of the 3 seats today. Guess I will have to do the research and dig up the photos of the original trains. They were too long and way too heavy and were replaced somewhere around year 3 with the 3 seat trains.

[The Beast Rider]

You know, I have gone back and read through the vast majority of the Trim Brakes threading. My first impression: I sure hope that "dare-to-fly" doesn't drive a car because his perception of speed is very skewed. I've been riding Beast since the year that it opened. Yep, rode the 40 passenger original trains and was there the year they went to the shorter trains. There has been a trim brake on the downhill into the helix since day one, only then it was a skid brake.

Like others, I was disappointed with one of the new magnetic trims. In particular the one in the "outwoods station" (don't remember what KI calls it. They do have a name for it.) There was always a skid brake in that area but it was smoother and more gentle than the mag brake. I was disappointed with the very hard discernable braking near the end of that platform. But I really don't believe that it is any slower than the "skids" were going into the turn to the tunnel run.

As for requiring trims. CCI used to pride itself on designing coasters with no trims anywhere on the run. Most of those are still running. CP Mean Streak was originally designed and built without a trim at the bottom of the chain drop. However, it was tearing the structure apart so badly that the decision was made to trim it enough to ease some of the stress on the structure.

Well thought out and planned designs won't need trims on the run. I regress; CCI used to pride itself. But with the skyrocketing cost of materials and manhours, trims came and are here to stay. Sometimes "YEA" sometimes "YUCK".

All said, I don't honestly feel that there is a noticeable difference in the speed of Beast from year 1 to today.

Well said bear! Although, I have to point out that The Beast has had the same trains since day one, just heavily modified to accomidate different seating arangments, different lap bar mechanisms, different congifgurations of padding and headrests, and so forth. The chassis on all of the cars are original, yet were cut down when they were modified from four rows to three. Many other parts of the trains are also original.

You are positively wrong about The Beast having the same trains since day one. The original trains were red blended into yellow and had 4 seats per car instead of the 3 seats today. Guess I will have to do the research and dig up the photos of the original trains. They were too long and way too heavy and were replaced somewhere around year 3 with the 3 seat trains.

I believe that Gordon is right about the trains. The trains have been modified a number of times over the years. I also believe the chassis of the trains is the original, but has been heavily modified to remove the fourth seat.

Also, you don't have to look back to the beginning of The Beast notice the slowing down. It is easily noticeable just from a few years ago. It really started to go downhill with the addition of the magnetic trims.

[Browntggrr]

Magnum's trims (before the pretzel) are set by the Mechanics and are not within the control of the ride operator. They were never intended to be there by Arrow and installed after the section of track was raised and bent into a flatter configuration while the ride was closed for the lift chain break in it's innaugural 1989 season. Ride operators manually time trains to alert maintenance of the need to raise or reduce the air pressure in these brakes. The ride safety system is unaware of these brakes and they have no speed detection means to auto-adjust like the safety brakes do. The Magnum's computer is oblivious to train weight, trim level at the safety's and ready's are determined by the trains speed using proximity sensors (the square green boxes you see at the entrance and exit of both brake sections and the light blue boxes in between each air brake). In recent years, the use of these brakes has diminished quite a bit as the rides popularity has waned and less than full trains become common. Last year, they weren't in use at all when Maggie blew through the safety brakes and bumped into the ready's.

From Rideman:

On Magnum, the trim brakes don't have any associated hardware. There are some calipers there, with air lines feeding them. No switches, no relays, no nothing. I don't know if the braking pressure is determined by the PLC or by an operator with a regulator knob. I do know that on consecutive rides you can get different degrees of braking on Magnum, and it does vary with wind speed and direction. But then, the trims on Magnum are just that; they are not block brakes.

As you can see in his explanation, the brakes are able to be adjusted for each individual train.

Since we both know that the brakes are not controlled by the operators, it is the PLC that determines how fast the train is running due to how heavy the train is.

Perhaps in my previous post I was not clear in mentioning that while there is no way for the PLC to know how heavy a train is, yet, the weight of a train increases (or decreases) how fast the train is moving which then triggers how long the brakes are engaged.

[Garret]

While not originally designed to be trims, the C block brakes on The Vortex have been used as such since the tracks first separated from their supports in the corkscrew in 1988. I'm also kind of surprised to hear your remarks on the dispatch intervals. Compared to the times we used to run, today's times stink. I know the stupid additions of the 2nd operator dispatch and the exit gate that needs to be locked after each train unload kills times, but it's still pretty bad aside from those things. Normal operation for Vortex was to not even use the ready brakes to hold trains. Using the safety brakes was at most a once or twice a day occurance and had to be because the darn things got stuck out there half the time and had to be pushed.

As far as The Beast, it's almost made me sick to my stomach watching how far this ride has fallen from greatness. I agree with the others who say it practically gets worse every year. The seat belts and waist bars dumbed the ride down enough. The speed at which it makes the loop today is an embarassment to its former self. Anyone saying the ride is as fast today as it was in years past never rode it in it's original 4 train/4 row per car configuration. Those trains were heavy, and they were fast. As in The Vortex C brakes, the brake shed on The Beast was never put there to trim speed. They were there to stop a train and start one aided by feed motors. This block division was necessary when running with 4 trains. Keep in mind, before the days of seat belts and waist bars, exit gates, entrance gates, 2 man dispatch, physically checking bars, etc., a 20-25 second load time was the norm. Today the ride is sad, it's almost depressing riding Beast anymore.

The Vortex corkscrew track separated from its supports in 1988?

(and Beast does a loop?!? Maybe you mean helix.)

Minor issue, a weld at the top of the support for the corkscrew cracked. By loop I meant complete the circuit.

[The Beast Rider]

As you can see in his explanation, the brakes are able to be adjusted for each individual train.

Since we both know that the brakes are not controlled by the operators, it is the PLC that determines how fast the train is running due to how heavy the train is.

Perhaps in my previous post I was not clear in mentioning that while there is no way for the PLC to know how heavy a train is, yet, the weight of a train increases (or decreases) how fast the train is moving which then triggers how long the brakes are engaged.

I do think the operators can turn the brakes on or off. I know they can on Gemini, I have witnessed that myself. Magnum has much the same setup as far as the trim is concerned, so I would think they would have an on/off switch, which by the way, should always be set to off.

[dare-to-fly]

You know, I have gone back and read through the vast majority of the Trim Brakes threading. My first impression: I sure hope that "dare-to-fly" doesn't drive a car because his perception of speed is very skewed.

...And there certainly are days when I wish I had upstop wheels on my Camaro. Either way, I go as fast as the cops and Physics will allow me to go, and not a shade slower.

[joecoaster]

If you want to see/ride coasters and how they SHOULD be run go to Holiday World. They run them the way they were meant to be with that out of control feeling..not being slowed down evey cpl hundred yards. Even though they had to temporarily add a trim to the Voyage last season..they retracked..fixed the problem and just like that...no trim. It's called treating your coasters with love and care. As a bonus, no headrests either. You can actually SEE while you are riding.

[dare-to-fly]

If you want to see/ride coasters and how they SHOULD be run go to Holiday World. They run them the way they were meant to be with that out of control feeling..not being slowed down evey cpl hundred yards. Even though they had to temporarily add a trim to the Voyage last season..they retracked..fixed the problem and just like that...no trim. It's called treating your coasters with love and care. As a bonus, no headrests either. You can actually SEE while you are riding.

Thank you!!!!!! And even on Voyage, you come back in to the station and what does everyone do? Cheer. There certainly is no "oh that was too fast, you ought to slow it down." Just CHEER!!!

[Browntggrr]

^^^ Great point!

It is because of physics that trims are on coasters.

Not everyone can handle the forces that an untrimmed coasters gives, thus it will give a bad ride in some people's minds. Nor can the coaster handle the forces from a loaded train day-in, day-out.

And we all know that the parks' focus is not for the enthusiast, but for everyone. Which is why during coaster events, parks will disengage brakes if possible. But realize that those ERT events are not too long, nor are the brakes off the whole time.

And for all that believe trims are not there for preventative maintenance or think that the maintenance reason is not valid: watch Supercoasters on National Geographic Channel http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/epis...s-2619/Overview. There is a small, but intresting, piece on reprofiling a wood coaster. You can see the time and effort (which does equal expensive in today's World), that is put into the wood on a coaster. It is just not slapping some wood together and screwing in a metal track. The entire area that the metal track is put on is basically hand carved with sanders.

Needless to say, it is obvious that reprofiling is not an easy, quick, or inexpensive task.

[Browntggrr]

If you want to see/ride coasters and how they SHOULD be run go to Holiday World. They run them the way they were meant to be with that out of control feeling..not being slowed down evey cpl hundred yards. Even though they had to temporarily add a trim to the Voyage last season..they retracked..fixed the problem and just like that...no trim. It's called treating your coasters with love and care. As a bonus, no headrests either. You can actually SEE while you are riding.

Thank you!!!!!! And even on Voyage, you come back in to the station and what does everyone do? Cheer. There certainly is no "oh that was too fast, you ought to slow it down." Just CHEER!!!

Well if you want to compare the parks' coasters to each other, lets compare everything:

Holiday World:

Open May to October

120 total operating days

1192 operating hours

1,000,000 (approx.) guests/ year

Kings Island

Open April to November

127 operating days

1382 operating hours

3,000,000 (approx.) guests/ year

KI has triple the guests, more operating days and more operating hours than Holiday World. Thus, they have less time to keep the coasters maintained than Holiday World and it is easy to assume that KI has many more guests ride their coaters than HW does just based on the amount of guests that go to each park. That equals more wear and tear on the coasters due to the additonal weight.

I'm not really sure how cheering can be used as a barometer but, as far as cheering goes, every day on Beast people are always cheering.

[joecoaster]

Well if you want to go down that route you could also add the KI probably has god knows how many times the budget for maintenace not to mention the multitude of maintenance workers compared to a small park like Holiday World. So it goes both ways. KI decides to cut a few corners financially and I can understand that to a point. Meanwhile at HW you get FREE soda, FREE parking and sunscreen not to mention very low cost food choices and they can STILL maintain their coasters and run them the way they were built to run. I am not knocking KI. It was my favorite park for many years growing up and I will always hold it in my heart and still do my once a year trip there. Of course there were the days when I would go at LEAST 20x a season. Now I prefer to travel to parks such as HW where I feel you can get a better overall experience for the $$. But hey..I want nothing but success for KI and I truly hope they get the Coaster next year they desperately need and NOT load it with trims. These days a coaster can be built without them with planning and engineering.

[The Beast Rider]

Well if you want to go down that route you could also add the KI probably has god knows how many times the budget for maintenace not to mention the multitude of maintenance workers compared to a small park like Holiday World. So it goes both ways. KI decides to cut a few corners financially and I can understand that to a point. Meanwhile at HW you get FREE soda, FREE parking and sunscreen not to mention very low cost food choices and they can STILL maintain their coasters and run them the way they were built to run. I am not knocking KI. It was my favorite park for many years growing up and I will always hold it in my heart and still do my once a year trip there. Of course there were the days when I would go at LEAST 20x a season. Now I prefer to travel to parks such as HW where I feel you can get a better overall experience for the $$. But hey..I want nothing but success for KI and I truly hope they get the Coaster next year they desperately need and NOT load it with trims. These days a coaster can be built without them with planning and engineering.

One other thing about the food at HW, it is actually very good! As well as cheap! How about that, something else KI could learn from. I'm not saying that HW is perfect by any means, don't get me wrong, they have their faults too. But the coasters are great (untrimmed), the food is good and reasonably priced, and free Pepsi. If only some of these things could come to KI.

[Browntggrr]

Well if you want to go down that route you could also add the KI probably has god knows how many times the budget for maintenace not to mention the multitude of maintenance workers compared to a small park like Holiday World. So it goes both ways.

It doesn't go both ways. Just because you have a bigger budget does not mean you can justify leaving trims off a coaster. And if you really want to get technical, due to their location, Holiday World does not pay nearly as much money in taxes (property, payroll etc.) to their township and state compared to KI. Also, KI is not family owned like HW. If HW does not make a profit, the only people that need to be answered to is the family themselves, unlike KI where there is a board of directors and stock holders to report to.

Back to the trims:

HW has less stress on their coasters and longer times to repair them. Whereas at KI you can have 100 more maintenance workers and a bigger budget, but all those workers can't work on repairing the coaster at the same time, nor can all your maintenance needs be put into fixing a wood coaster while other rides sit idle. Bigger park equals bigger expenses, there is no arguement there. And if KI were to have a bigger budget to fix the rides w/o trims, that cost will directly effect ticket prices.

Think about your comment that Voyage needed to have a trim added in 2007. Sure they fixed it for 2008 (if that is why they added a trim), but Voyage was not even a full two years old when the trim was added. If the same problem persists, year after year, you will see a trim there full time.

[joecoaster]

Well if you want to go down that route you could also add the KI probably has god knows how many times the budget for maintenace not to mention the multitude of maintenance workers compared to a small park like Holiday World. So it goes both ways.

It doesn't go both ways. Just because you have a bigger budget does not mean you can justify leaving trims off a coaster. And if you really want to get technical, due to their location, Holiday World does not pay nearly as much money in taxes (property, payroll etc.) to their township and state compared to KI. Also, KI is not family owned like HW. If HW does not make a profit, the only people that need to be answered to is the family themselves, unlike KI where there is a board of directors and stock holders to report to.

Back to the trims:

HW has less stress on their coasters and longer times to repair them. Whereas at KI you can have 100 more maintenance workers and a bigger budget, but all those workers can't work on repairing the coaster at the same time, nor can all your maintenance needs be put into fixing a wood coaster while other rides sit idle. Bigger park equals bigger expenses, there is no arguement there. And if KI were to have a bigger budget to fix the rides w/o trims, that cost will directly effect ticket prices.

Think about your comment that Voyage needed to have a trim added in 2007. Sure they fixed it for 2008 (if that is why they added a trim), but Voyage was not even a full two years old when the trim was added. If the same problem persists, year after year, you will see a trim there full time.

Well I guess you could go back and forth like this and find reasons for either side. If you look at HW's schedule you could say wow..its open DAILY beginning May 3rd and KI is only open weekends. Yes HW does close about 3 wknds earlier than Ki but I do not see it as one has more operating days then the other ..that argument does not wash. Now KI does have a much higher attendance of course. But what about the parks out there that match that attendance or open year round that do not have trims? I guess there will be another excuse for that. It's a choice each park makes. No one is ripping on this or that park. People who love coasters (for the most part) love coasters without trims and that is a fact. We can't always get what we want but we can always ***** about it. ;-)

[Browntggrr]

Well I guess you could go back and forth like this and find reasons for either side. If you look at HW's schedule you could say wow..its open DAILY beginning May 3rd and KI is only open weekends. Yes HW does close about 3 wknds earlier than Ki but I do not see it as one has more operating days then the other ..that argument does not wash. Now KI does have a much higher attendance of course. But what about the parks out there that match that attendance or open year round that do not have trims? I guess there will be another excuse for that. It's a choice each park makes. No one is ripping on this or that park. People who love coasters (for the most part) love coasters without trims and that is a fact. We can't always get what we want but we can always ***** about it. ;-)

KI has more operating days and more operating hours which equals less time to provide the maintenance needed to have a trimless ride.

What I understand to be Beast's history:

April 1979- Beast opens, with 4-bench trains and traditional lap bars.

Mid 1979- Brakes added to first drop

1980- Brakes added to helix drop.

Early 80's- 4-bench trains replaced with 3-bench trains, due to tracking problems. These trains featured traditional lap bars once again.

Late 80's- Headrests added to trains.

Early 90's- Ratcheting lap bars added. I believe the headrests were covered with a vinyl material in this year.

Early 2002- Skid brakes replaced with magnetic brakes in every trim location, except for the first drop.

Mid 2002- Magnetic brakes replaced skid brakes on first drop.

2004- Retracting seat belts added.

What I question is: how can a person know what kind of forces, Beast in this discussion, a coaster has w/o trims since the ride has always had brakes magnetic or skid?

The reason why I bring it up, is that smaller coasters (like Blue Streak at CP) does not have trim brakes on the ride at all. Yet larger coasters, ones that exert more force, have trims.