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Thirteen: General Discussion

Matt.GC said:
So Intamin where worried about ride comfort for Thirteen but are happy with Baco, Flying Aces and Colossus?
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I think it was more the speed of the process, to be honest; a bulkier train and/or track type would take way longer to move, and would be a far more cumbersome process. The ride system Thirteen uses was the most effective one to showcase the drop track technology on. As I said, you only have to look at how long it takes something like Expedition Everest, which has a bulkier ride system, to move its switch track, and I believe Wardley even cited Everest as a reason why he wanted Thirteen’s drop track to be executed quickly and smoothly. A fairly lightweight ride system was the only way to do that.

It’s also worth remembering that the brief for Thirteen was for a “family coaster with edge”, so there’s only so substantial the ride system could have been.
 
Aparently the issues will be fixed and modified for next season so that it can operate in the rain again in the future. :)
 
Matt N said:
I think it was more the speed of the process, to be honest; a bulkier train and/or track type would take way longer to move, and would be a far more cumbersome process. The ride system Thirteen uses was the most effective one to showcase the drop track technology on. As I said, you only have to look at how long it takes something like Expedition Everest, which has a bulkier ride system, to move its switch track, and I believe Wardley even cited Everest as a reason why he wanted Thirteen’s drop track to be executed quickly and smoothly.
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He did indeed Matt, I was being flippant. Other than the fact it sucked all the budget out of the rest of the ride, I have a great deal of respect for the concept, design, engineering and efficiency of Thirteens drop track element. It's the rest of the ride I have a problem with.

I mean it's an 11 year old medium sized, lightweight, tyre lift Intamin family coaster with a mostly dull outside layout that only drops 17m. Yet it can't operate in the rain, can't operate without a mostly loaded train, requires trim breaks on its drop and can't even get into the crypt without a second lift hill. That's just down right poor. All this from a well established coaster manufacturer that has built hundreds of installations worldwide.

So they're in a strange situation where Thirteens prototype element works well but the Billy basics of what is effectively their simplest coaster model doesn't.
 
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To address some of your points and explain why the ride has certain things in place:
  • I think the trim brakes on the drop were required due to the ride overspeeding into the second lift hill (this was not predicted during the design phase), and were a last minute addition made shortly before opening in order to prevent this overspeeding from happening.
  • The second lift hill being there might partly be due to the ride needing to regulate the train’s speed of entry into the drop track area. Every other drop track coaster on Earth seems to have some form of speed regulation and/or a block section before the drop track; you wouldn’t want a train rushing unrestrained straight into the drop track area, as that would cause huge problems, especially if the drop track was having trouble resetting for whatever reason.
  • As for the ride being unable to operate in rain and cold weather; I think rain is due to the recent occurrence with the lift hill, whereas cold weather ties into it not having enough speed due to the trim. I’m unsure why the trim doesn’t regulate itself dependant on the speed/weight of the train, as I know that many other rides with trims (such as B&M hyper coasters) do this, but it doesn’t, thus meaning that it shaves off too much speed for the ride not to stall in cold weather or with a lesser weighted train. This is the reason why the ride seemed to run slower when social distancing was in place (or at least, I certainly thought it felt slower).
But in essence, I think the level of complexity that the drop track adds to that ride shouldn’t be underestimated. I think a lot of the ride’s issues do tie into that need for speed regulation going into that particular element, and anything that drastically alters its speed seems to cause issues.
 
Matt N said:
To address some of your points and explain why the ride has certain things in place:
  • I think the trim brakes on the drop were required due to the ride overspeeding into the second lift hill (this was not predicted during the design phase), and were a last minute addition made shortly before opening in order to prevent this overspeeding from happening.
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We know why it's there. That Intamin can get the design so badly wrong that the basic parameters of how the ride (which is essentially a small scale kiddie coaster outside of the drop section) is supposed to function is entirely broken is the point. It was bodged after build, that should never be the case.
 
Matt N said:
But in essence, I think the level of complexity that the drop track adds to that ride shouldn’t be underestimated. I think a lot of the ride’s issues do tie into that need for speed regulation going into that particular element, and anything that drastically alters its speed seems to cause issues.
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So basically what we're saying is, it's poorly designed. None of this has to do with the complexities of the drop track, entering that section is little different to entering a station, where every coaster has some form of speed regulation anyway. As do mid circuit block sections. Like building a coaster without a drop track, they would have known that they needed to enter that section slowly and stop the train in there, or stop it on the block before the crypt should the drop track fail or be otherwise occupied and should have designed it accordingly like they would any other coaster they build.
 
Skyscraper said:
Aparently the issues will be fixed and modified for next season so that it can operate in the rain again in the future. :)
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Do you have a source I keep an eye on for more details. I'm interested in whats going to be done from an engineering perspective.
 
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Job done.
 
In my top 3 rides today, albeit didn't get on everything due to down time/queues.

Forgot how good that first drop is and then the other drop/reverse section of course.

Don't know about anyone else but usually find myself laughing after the Krypt section, such a fun ride.
 
pluk said:
We know why it's there. That Intamin can get the design so badly wrong that the basic parameters of how the ride (which is essentially a small scale kiddie coaster outside of the drop section) is supposed to function is entirely broken is the point. It was bodged after build, that should never be the case.
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Typical Intamin Colossus had issues with the brakes at the end…. To many were included in the design, to the point 1 of the 2 moving sets are sat disconnected
 
Ally said:
In my top 3 rides today, albeit didn't get on everything due to down time/queues.

Forgot how good that first drop is and then the other drop/reverse section of course.

Don't know about anyone else but usually find myself laughing after the Krypt section, such a fun ride.
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I always enjoy it, especially in the dark.

A few years ago, we took the daughters of some friends of ours. Their daughters were good friends with our two, but their parents 'weren't into' theme parks and whilst one had been to AT with school, the other hadn't. Neither had been on 13 and our daughters told us not to warn them about the drop-down. I still remember the youngest literally screaming in terror. So brilliant when that happens. :D
 
Does Thirteen have anti-rollbacks, or is the assumption the tyre lift can't fail in the same way a chain lift can?
 
Should they add them so they can open Thirteen in the rain?

Seems crazy to have a coaster in this country that you can't use in the rain...
 
One can't imagine that a company so obsessed with Health and Safety would run it on the wrong tyres though. Was that really the case?
 
Alsty said:
Does Thirteen have anti-rollbacks, or is the assumption the tyre lift can't fail in the same way a chain lift can?
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Skyscraper said:
Tyre-drive lift hills don't tend to have anti-rollbacks, no.
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They don't have anti-roll backs because they can't fail in the same way. On a chain lift (without an AR), only the chain prevents the train reversing. Irrespective of where it snaps in the loop, the train will reverse unless caught by an AR.

Intamin did some crazy stuff on a few of their rides where they have a chain lift without anti-rollbacks, simply by using two chains. This means that the car can be reversed down the lift, in the event that an evacuation is required. This is employed on Farenheit at Hershey, for example.

With tyre-drives, each pair of tyres is independent of each other in terms of its function of pinching the car's central fin to maintain/advance the train on the lift. In most, but not all cases they're also powered independently with a 1:1 motor/tyre ratio.

Most issues with tyre-drives of the nature we heard about here are caused by one of two things or a combination of both:
  • Tyres are left in place beyond the allowed tolerance - Like tyres on your car, they perish over time. With a coaster lift, it means that the two tyres operating in tandem are unable to exert adequate force on the fin and potentially, due to weather conditions, this can be worsened and lead to a rollback.
  • Overladen vehicles - when you're operating a ride, it's easy to become blasé about this, you're too busy pumping out trains, but each car/row has a maximum weight allowance. In this day and age it is not too difficult to breach, especially on some family coaster models. In most cases, this doesn't really matter - but there will be the odd time where it comes to bite you.
If they're looked after and operated correctly, tyre-drives are fine - after all, it's the same principle that lots of coasters use to stop their trains in reverse.
 
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