Construction Update 12/10/2010

For the second week in a row the site was closed during my visit, next week I plan on visiting Thursday instead of Friday in case the crews are taking Friday's off. I still walked around the site and got some good pictures of the progress. I also attempted to take some pictures that would work well with the Microsoft Photosynth site, the results aren't quite there yet but you still get the idea. After the structure is complete I plan to make an extended visit and walk around the entire roller coaster getting pictures the whole way around it including close ups of areas of interest, if it works the results should be pretty cool and allow people to virtually walk around the site. To get a glimpse of what this looks like check out the embedded Photosynth below or click here to go to the full site.



Now it's time to get on to the new progress for this week, the first think you'll notice is we now have snow on the ground, the forecast is calling for a major storm Saturday so the Pippin is going to be cold for a while! In the photo below you will see the snow and the structure for the first hill on the out and back.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

If you look closely at the picture above you can see the area where they plan to reroute the train through the roller coaster structure, a close up of this along with a picture of this location on the plans is below.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

From Zippin Pippin Construction

The shot below shows just this first hill of the out and back along with the train pass through area.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

This portion of the structure supports two lanes of tracks, one for the out, one for the back, if we flip to the other side (facing south rather than north) we can see the outline of one of the last hills of the out and back prior to heading into the final brake run and loading station. It's a little bit difficult to see since the track itself has not been laid yet, on the far left you can see a valley and then as you move to the right the track will be rising again to get over the train pass through area, if you would like to see a larger resolution image click on the picture.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

Out at the far end, the turn around of the out and back all of the footings are now complete.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

While out at this end of the ride you can get a great view of the entire standing structure.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

From Zippin Pippin Construction

Standing at the Northeast corner of the site and looking back you get a nice view of the lift hill with the start of the out and back structure in the distance.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

From Zippin Pippin Construction

Finally from the Southeast corner you get a great view of the run of three hills that come after the hill leading out of turn 3.

From Zippin Pippin Construction

That is the update for this week, hopefully next week I'll be able to get back on site and get some close up shots of more of the details of the construction. It's clear that at the pace the construction is moving the structure should be complete in about two weeks.