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
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.