Today was my first official visit to the job site, complete with hard hat :-)
Mayor Jim Schmitt and his chief of staff Sean Stephenson met me at the construction site. I was very impressed that the mayor came out to meet me, his energy and enthusiasm for this project is amazing. We donned our hard hats and started looking around. Some things were immediately obvious, the bulk of the treated lumber that will make up the structure of the coaster is now on site and anxiously waiting to be put in place. Here are some of the pictures of the lumber, as I was leaving the site another load was arriving.
For the last couple of weeks we've seen the foundation work for some of the straight sections going into place, now footings are going in for the first turn, these shots show the concrete that will support the first curved section of track, after loading the trains you will slowly take a 180° turn before climbing the lift hill. When you first load you will be facing the giant slide, refer to my last post for an overview of the layout of the track.
I had a chance to talk to some of the people working on the foundation. They described this as a very challenging project due to the spread out nature of the footings and the precision required. They hope to wrap up the concrete work by Thanksgiving.
The next photos show the area of the track where the first drop occurs, note the angled straps that will anchor the supports for the taller sections.
Mayor Schmitt talked about his trip to Memphis when they were considering purchasing the coaster and how fond the local people were of the original Zippin Pippin, how both children and adults enjoyed the ride. He also mentioned they were working on plans to bring one of the original trains up from Memphis, perhaps positioning it near the coaster so people will be able to sit in it and have their picture taken. They also may bring back a large gear from the original lift mechanism and have it on display.
I asked one of the workers creating the foundation if they were using the plans from the original coaster. He said the layout of the track and hills are the same but the foundation and structure were redesigned.
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