The progress over the last week has been remarkable, the structure for the first drop is now just about completely in place along with a good amount of the first uphill after the first drop. The Zippin Pippin is really starting to make it's presence known along the northwest edge of Bay Beach now. I got a little carried away with excitement today and took 68 pictures of the progress, the highlights are below but click on any picture to go to the complete photo album to see all of the details. To get us warmed up here are a few overall images of the work that has taken place since last week.
I was able to get up close to the structure and get some real fun shots looking up the first drop and up the first uphill after the first drop. The track itself isn't in place yet but the walk ways that will be used to inspect the roller coaster are being put into place.
The area where the current structure and footings are going up is referred to as Zone 1 and Zone 2 by the crew. The last area is Zone 3, the out and back part of the coaster, this area has not had any serious work done to it yet. I took a walk out there to document what it looks like now, and got some good shots looking back towards Zone 1 and Zone 2.
Walking back to Zone 1 and Zone 2 there is still a lot of foundation work to be done before the structure for Turn 2 can be created; it appears they are leaving this area open for now to get equipment in and out of the area. With the layout of Zone 1 and Zone 2 there is an inner section and outer section so the inner section needs to be completed before the outer section can be started.
The newest foundation work this week is the section that will be the lift hill and the section after the third turn which will head towards the out and back part of the roller coaster.
During this visit they were just finishing installing a webcam at the top of the giant slide. Visit
www.zippinpippin.org to view images from the webcam.
The crew continues to put sections together on the ground which are then raised in place.
A peek at the plans shows the team is highlighting bents as they are put into place.
The next image gives you a good idea of the level of planning and detail required to pull off a project like this, I saw several pages of tables listing each bent with elevation, angle, and bank data. The
Gravity Group logo on the drawings let's you know the reconstruction of this classic coaster is in good hands!
A look into some of the storage containers on site gives you an idea of the amount of work that remains, there are still a lot of screws and nails to be used.
There are many piles of wood that are pre-cut and pre-drilled at the site waiting to be used, they are all labelled and tagged.
Tomorrow the public is invited to the job site to see the progress, if kids donate $1 to the construction they will get to sign the tallest bent on the roller coaster, the image below shows the bent they will be signing. There will also be free rides on the parks train and Zippin Pippin t-shirts for sale. I'll be bringing my four children out to sign this piece.
Before I left the job site I had to snap one more picture showing the amazing progress that has been made over the last week, this last image sums it up and is taken looking north toward the bay.
I'll add another post tomorrow showing the bent signing festivities.
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