General Carowinds discussion
By Capler
#68975
Ty-Rant_13 wrote:Hey all!

I've been lurking this site for a while now because I had to follow the conversations of Fury 325, the coaster that appears to be better than Leviathan in every way... except the name. :lol: Canada's Wonderland is my home park and during the most recent Coaster Crew/CWMania event, Guardathon, us enthusiasts were treated to tons of information. One of the more interesting details was that they were receiving complaints about the noise from the neighbours (Wonderland was built first, and yet they still complain...), so Wonderland decided to fill Leviathan's spine with sand (sometimes Wonderland seems a bit too generous). As far as I know, they did not fill the rails with sand. Having said that, I can tell you that Leviathan is still a noise machine! You can hear the roar from almost anywhere in the parking lot, half of Medieval Faire (one of our themed areas), and all of International Street (our entrance strip of shops leading from the front gate to Wonder Mountain at the centre of the park). There have been many times when I've been waiting at the bus stop at the base of the first drop, and my phone calls keep getting interrupted every minute or so by that beautiful roar (and the person on the other end instantly knows where I am). If it is only the rails that are filled with sand, Fury is still going to be a beast! If anything, I would think sand in the rails, while it could quiet it down a bit, would be more for added durability or something, as opposed to leaving it hollow. It's the reverberations in the spine and not the rails that causes the roar!

Essentially, this is not a big deal. Leviathan comes way closer to our front gate than Fury does to yours, and, while it can be a little distracting at times, the employees and guests hear each other just fine. That would not be the reason for adding sand, especially not just in the rails.

Also of note: I was really curious about that awkward looking box support before the brake-run as well, so thanks for clearing that up! I wanted to note that one of Leviathan's supports is indeed right in the middle of one of the roads in the parking lot, but all supports near a road not behind a fence are blocked off by four yellow concrete posts to prevent any direct collision with the support. They are not ugly, or even that noticeable (everyone's eyes are glued on the the track instead), so this could happen with these sets of supports as well, depending on how worried Carowinds is of such an incident.

I look forward to hearing the reviews of Fury 325, but I'm sure you guys are in for a treat! I'm tentatively scheduling a trip down there in 2017 (2014-Cedar Point, 2015-Kings Island, 2016-Kings Dominion, 2017-Carowinds) but It might be sooner... (B&M Giga... It calls to me! :D ) Your park looks amazing and with all the recent additions, I could soon be calling this my second-favourite Cedar Fair park! (Behind Wonderland, of course! :wink:)

P.S. My posts won't always be this long, I promise! There was just a lot to go over in my first post.


Welcome to the conversation. You may want to consider combining some of those park visits during the same trip down. You could do Carowinds and Kings Dominion during the same weekend. If you have extra time, you could throw BGW in for extra measure. The same could be done with Kings Island and Cedar Point. Just rent a car and drive overnight.
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By Jarsh
#68977
Noise dampening, yes. Smoother ride, no. Unless we're talking about vibrations, but that is from the train, not the track. The rails are 1/2" thick steel. They aren't gonna move enough to make the ride rough. Some vibration issues might come from the track, yes, but the majority of the roughness comes from the trains.

Mantis was the roughest B&M I've ever been on and lots of people feel the same way about it. It the rails were the cause of it's roughness, you'd be seeing more than just the trains being replaced.
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By redrunner97
#68978
Personally, I don't really care either way. I love a good B&M roar just as much as the next guy, but I don't think it's essential -especially not when you have three other coasters in the park that make the same sound. If the new entrance plaza and the amphitheater are benefiting from the rails being sanded I don't get what harm it's doing. Besides, it's not like this is going to completely silence Fury, I mean it's a 95mph roller coaster. And if I'm not mistaken aren't Gatekeeper's rails sanded too? That one still has some roar to it, so I'm not worried at all. It's hardly a big deal to me lol. Just rolling with the changes that Carowinds is bringing. The future never looked better!
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By Axel
#68983
uscbandfan wrote:Michael Fehnel posted a couple of hours ago that the rails are definitely filled with sand for noise dampening and for a smoother ride.


*EDIT.. never mind, I found it..
Last edited by Axel on January 22nd, 2015, 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By tylerSC
#68989
^^I have heard Leviathan is a great ride, but have never been to the Wonderland park. So hopefully Fury will be even better. The only giga I have personally ridden is Millenium Force, so it will be interesting to see how Fury will compare. As MF has always been a top award winning coaster. But now perhaps Fury may reign supreme.
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By CodyH3333
#68991
I asked mike on twitter if there was any problem for track installation to be delayed..this was his answer to me
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By chknwing
#68992
more than likely if someone hit then they are just repouring the top of the footer. the bolts probably got bent. that footer is extremely deep down to bedrock most likely. repouring the whole footer, you would have seen some serious jack hammering machinery/truck over there.
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By Ty-Rant_13
#68993
Jarsh wrote:Noise dampening, yes. Smoother ride, no. Unless we're talking about vibrations, but that is from the train, not the track. The rails are 1/2" thick steel. They aren't gonna move enough to make the ride rough. Some vibration issues might come from the track, yes, but the majority of the roughness comes from the trains.

Mantis was the roughest B&M I've ever been on and lots of people feel the same way about it. It the rails were the cause of it's roughness, you'd be seeing more than just the trains being replaced.

As I said, the sand is mainly for "something else" which is now confirmed to be maintaining the smooth ride. I don't personally know how heavy a B&M sit-down train is, but at ~150 km/h, even the 1/2 inch of steel could start moving a fair bit! It's a shame there will be any level of noise cancelling, but I really don't think it'll be much. Probably won't even notice.

Having been on both Leviathan and Millennium Force, I can say without a doubt Leviathan is a better ride (though I am willing to give MF a second chance one day).
By Edwardo
#68997
I've never in 20 years heard of sand bro g used for a smoother ride. They never started doing it until they built Talon, and that was specifically done because of noise ordinances. Not to smooth it out.
#69000
Can y'all stop going onnnnn and onnnn about the sand? :yawn: Not trying to be rude but if we don't stop we're gonna end up with 10 pages debating over sand. :lol:
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