It’s been the joke for years… Dollywood is just gonna give up and make the launched wooden coaster (that isn’t even a wooden coaster anymore) a chain lift coaster…
Well… it’s happening. The launch will be removed in favor of a “high speed chain lift”
In addition to the article, Dollywood posted a video on Twitter regarding this change: https://twitter.com/Dollywood/status/1701611625071919200?s=19
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Aw man, I’m finally going to Dollywood for the first time middle of November. I know this ride has not been very reliable but, it has been a bucket list ride for me ever since it opened. I hope this is for the best but I wish I could experience the launched version.
Interesting that they’re using a chain lift to emulate a launch, I always thought cable lifts were faster. Hopefully this doesn’t detract from the ride at all
The whole scenario is perplexing. While the launch hasn’t been free of issues it seems that the majority of the issues with LR has been the structure and a fair amount of the rollbacks were actually the ride shutting down because the structure triggered a fault. For me, adding a lift that pushes the same speed as a launch would create similar issues… Maybe it’s just a slower acceleration profile.
As for the cable lift, you don’t really see those outside of alpine coasters and Intamins… I think having RMC play with something else new would be a whole different can of worms lol
From what I understand, the LSM fins require perfect alignment to launch (hence the constant issues from the shifting wooden structure), while a chain lift will have a much higher tolerance. I do agree that the should just replace the entire thing with ibox track, and a steel structure for the lift, at this point, but anything that gets it to be reliably operational is certainly welcome.
I never even thought about that aspect of things. I had always assumed it was just a safety system trip where the worry was the structure was compromised but yea the fin segments not being perfectly in line would be horribly bad in many ways.
