I visited the job site this week on Thursday the 16th hoping to be able to get inside the fence and get some good close up pictures again. It turns out crews were working so I was able to wade through the drifts of snow we received last weekend and enjoy a nice cold sunny December noon hour checking out the latest progress on the Zippin Pippin Roller Coaster.
The first thing I noticed was the structure now extended nearly all the way to the turn around of the out and back, the structure is now split out at the far western edge of the layout, the two sides have just about finished diverging and should start converging to close the final loop of the structure. This will mark the completion of the most dramatic part of the construction and then more detailed work will begin. The new areas of the structure are shown below.
With the foundation now complete (see image below) the structure should be complete just after Christmas, just a couple of days longer than originally hoped but still on schedule.
Where the out and back splits for the turnaround you can see the banking the track will take on the LH side of this image.
At the other end of the out and back you can see the return path into the brake run on the left hand side and on the right hand side some of the track has already been laid for the lane that heads into the out and back.
I peeked inside of the zone 1 and 2 oval and snapped a picture looking east and west to see the inside of the structure.
I also got an image of what a rider in the front car of the train would see just before the ride starts, of course there wouldn't be any snow if there were people on the ride!
You can see they are getting ready for some of the more detailed work on the site, the steel structure that will make up the roof of the loading platform is now on site.
At the queue entrance, which goes under the lift hill structure more foundation work is now under way.
That is the update for this week. In the next week or two I hope to do an email interview with the Gravity Group to ask them some questions about this project and other general questions. If you have any questions leave a comment and I'll pass along the question (assuming it's reasonable).
I hope to post next week but if I don't I would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season!
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