I think you should be ably to turn the car around on the top portion no problem and then you leave all the real functionality of the train facing forward. Interesting. We will see!
-Remember there's nothing but air beneath the chair.
In my pic here from Cedar Point you can see the bolt pattern holding the seats on is not a square/rectangle pattern, the bolt holes are spaced further apart for the front of the seat pillar vs the rear, so if you unbolted the pillars and turned them around, the holes would not line up.
Also, here's a pic of the top of the train and how the chain dogs and rollbacks are integrated rather than bolt on, and pretty much how it would not be possible to turn em around. Though mainly it's just a cool shot that's pretty rarely seen
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
And yes - I agree with every person in this topic (save 1) that says that is completely impossible, and if it were it would be a painful experience with headbanging galore.
Top 5 wood-5-Goliath 4-Ravine Flyer II 3-Phoenix 2-Voyage 1-El Toro Top 5 Steel- 5-Velocicoaster 4- Maverick 3- Fury 325 2-Steel Vengeance 1-X2 Coaster Count: 444
I appreciate the picture FParker, but I am not seeing what you are talking about. From what I see it looks like the part that I am proposing that they rotate looks like it would line up just fine. In addition, I think the actuator rods would be unaffected if the train was forward or backward. If they only flip the seat portion the chain dogs and anti-rollbacks would still be facing the correct direction and would not need any modification.
I really don't want to push it any more than this last post, but I really think that this is possible.
-Remember there's nothing but air beneath the chair.
^ The bolts on the back of the seat posts are closer together than the bolts on the front of the seat posts. Unfortunately, the angle of the picture makes it hard to tell. If they were to turn the seats around, they'd have to drill additional bolt holes. The question then is would the new bolt holes be far enough away from the existing holes that they wouldn't create a potential point of failure.
The bolt holes are reenforced though the entire chassis in blocks of metal that is a part of the frame. You can see that in the first of my 2 pics on the front of the car where each bolt is, back is the same. Here's a pic of the same thing on the back, and you can see from the blocks that they are quite a bit closer together in back, the reinforcements are like a few inches apart in back and about a foot apart in front. It would be nowhere close.
(Hint: You can hit the green box in the upper left corner of the pic to get any of my pics up to original size which is pretty huge, at least in Firefox, assume it works the same for all browsers)
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
2013 - Batman Backwards - Rumor - (9/18/12) Screamscape sources report that pretty much like we heard from Six Flags St. Louis over the summer… the ride mechanics at Great America have been doing a little Frankenstein work with Batman during the off-hours. They too are said to be testing the concept of backwards facing seats on Batman: The Ride as a sort of extra “new” attraction they can promote for the Summer 2013 season.
With the much improved PTC ratchet bars on Viper (done by that park, I presume) it's good to know we have a crafty maintenance staff.
Even if it's a rumor, I wouldn't put it past them to try. Not sure about the comfort of a backwards Batman (I never need to feel another B&M *snapping* corkscrew - what's the point in that??), but I give em credit for looking into it at least.
Well, lastly... no matter what the park does, unless B&M signs off on it, the state of IL would condemn the ride. If the seats or train were turned backwards, unless it expressly says it can be done in a printed ride manual which the State of IL would have on file from 1992, it would not be allowed to operate out of manufacturer spec.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
If anything is going backwards, it would be V2 (though not really sure why), Demon (Ex Joker), or Eagle. I assume Vipers track would not be able to take the 6 seaters backwards very well at all, and the rest wouldn't be possible.
tp41190 wrote:If anything is going backwards, it would be V2 (though not really sure why), Demon (Ex Joker), or Eagle. I assume Vipers track would not be able to take the 6 seaters backwards very well at all, and the rest wouldn't be possible.
There's no point in running V2 backwards, and that'd be difficult as well to do as the currents would have to be reworked by Intamin. Demon backwards would be absolutely unethical, and Eagle is never running backwards again after the fiasco in 2011 after what happened. Never got to ride Blue this season.
"Remove this man before I commit an act of violence against him." -Ron Swanson
Last I heard Eagle may run backwards sometime in the near future, hopefully they do something about the condition of the track though. Also take it for what you will, but I've also heard B&M has decided inverts can run backwards and are offering the bits and pieces (up to and including new chassis) to allow parks to do so. Again, take that for what you will.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
FParker185 wrote:Last I heard Eagle may run backwards sometime in the near future, hopefully they do something about the condition of the track though. Also take it for what you will, but I've also heard B&M has decided inverts can run backwards and are offering the bits and pieces (up to and including new chassis) to allow parks to do so. Again, take that for what you will.
Hope they retrack the small helixes just before the brakes. Those are un-rideable for me.
FParker185 wrote:Also take it for what you will, but I've also heard B&M has decided inverts can run backwards and are offering the bits and pieces (up to and including new chassis) to allow parks to do so. Again, take that for what you will.
I wonder how much interest there is to run an invert backwards from parks. Of all of the coaster types, it just seems weird to choose inverts. A sit down would be pretty cool alone. Or even the wing riders, with an every other seat configuration.
FParker185 wrote:Also take it for what you will, but I've also heard B&M has decided inverts can run backwards and are offering the bits and pieces (up to and including new chassis) to allow parks to do so. Again, take that for what you will.
I wonder how much interest there is to run an invert backwards from parks. Of all of the coaster types, it just seems weird to choose inverts. A sit down would be pretty cool alone. Or even the wing riders, with an every other seat configuration.
Pretty high Interest I'd say, gotta stop posting at all unless I'm sober. Luckily that stayed under wraps for a few months
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073