Busch Gardens Railway
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Tweedside -> Italy ~1600feet
Italy -> Carabu ~4000feet
Carabu -> Tweedside ~2000feet
With 3 trains you wait until a train is about 1/2 way to Carabu to kickoff the other two. With 2, if you give a 1.5 minute pause to leaving Italy as the other leaves Carabu; the timing is near perfect.
If you add a 4th station:
Tweedside to Italy ~1600
Italy to Germany ~1400
Germany to Carabu ~2400
Carabu to Tweedside ~2000
A 1000 foot difference is very hard to time up and account for.
Italy -> Carabu ~4000feet
Carabu -> Tweedside ~2000feet
With 3 trains you wait until a train is about 1/2 way to Carabu to kickoff the other two. With 2, if you give a 1.5 minute pause to leaving Italy as the other leaves Carabu; the timing is near perfect.
If you add a 4th station:
Tweedside to Italy ~1600
Italy to Germany ~1400
Germany to Carabu ~2400
Carabu to Tweedside ~2000
A 1000 foot difference is very hard to time up and account for.
Deleted post to better reword,
Alpen is the issue here right. As long as first thing in the morning at opening it starts at Festa, and it clears the spot it's supposed to before the other two trains move it'll be fine.
Yes the timing will be hard but, it's not impossible.
But this is really only an issue if they run all three trains at once. And they very rarely do.
Alpen is the issue here right. As long as first thing in the morning at opening it starts at Festa, and it clears the spot it's supposed to before the other two trains move it'll be fine.
Yes the timing will be hard but, it's not impossible.
But this is really only an issue if they run all three trains at once. And they very rarely do.
Balmoral Castle is back with an impressive looking tender.
If they added a 4th station they probably would run 3 trains more regularly. This would ensure that the wait times at the stations don't get to be too long. Loading and unloading at each station takes a few minutes. Adding another station will take what was a 20-25 minute round trip into something like a 30 minute round trip.
Also they run all 3 more often than you think. I'd say on average about one day a week
Running the 3 trains still doesn't make it an impossible task though, is my point.
In this theoretical situation where a 4th station is made, the three trains could still do make it work providing they got the timing down. Which is hard but not impossible.
In this theoretical situation where a 4th station is made, the three trains could still do make it work providing they got the timing down. Which is hard but not impossible.
Is there any possibility that they could regrade the track in that section so that the new station is either a lesser grade that Alpen Express could handle or at the same grade as Caribou?
Also, would it be possible to remove a car from Alpen in order to get this to work? Thinking there may be a small trade off in capacity, but if they're not running it much except for high capacity days then it would probably still have a similar impact either way.
Also, would it be possible to remove a car from Alpen in order to get this to work? Thinking there may be a small trade off in capacity, but if they're not running it much except for high capacity days then it would probably still have a similar impact either way.
I would think that it would likely be expensive to just add a new station and have to re-block everything, this could be added to the project cost.
Per the VB discussion, it seems that if the park found a justification for an improvement to existing infrastructure in the development of a new experience (in that case VB with a refreshed Oktoberfest, in this case train upgrades for a new hamlet), it can be done.
Yes but you would have to regrade a lot of track. At some point the train would have to make it up to the grade that Caribou is at. So if you regraded this portion it would just move the upward grade somewhere else along the line.
Perhaps this isn't the case and there is a way a to around this but I think this is why it's so costly they would essentially have to redo all the track.
Maybe someone with more expertise can elaborate
I am not sure the logic here. Running a 3rd train or even a 4th station adds costs. It makes no sense on average days.
If they ever did add a 4th station, I could see them skipping stations on slow days. I doubt they would run 3 trains just because of a 4th station. Hell on slow days they only run 1 train now.
Its a simple matter of physics. A shot steep incline will require more power over a shorter period of time v. a long gradual incline requiring less power of a longer period of time. You trade work for power. It is really the basic principal of the incline plane.
Has anyone thought of reversing the trains direction? That way there is no steep incline that prohibits Alpie from stopping at Germany. Would the trip from Tweedside to Caribou be to steep?
Correct. And even through the train is open on both sides, that adds confusion for entrance/exit initially.
The biggest issue I see is the Tweedside station. With the train going clockwise, the engine slows down and stops at the relative same point before the crossing. With it going counter clockwise, the chances of the engineer perfectly stopping the train so it's all on the platform, but off the crossing is a task to say the least.
It would require moving the water source to the other side of Caribou station so they could refill it while at the station.
Edited for clarity
Frankly, that (moving the water tower) seems like a very minor thing to fix.
Frankly, that (moving the water tower) seems like a very minor thing to fix.
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Looking at the Google map for that area, it apprears to not be as simple as laying track into the maintenance zone from the other end - they'd have to tear out the existing backstage area and rebuild it to go the other way including any and all road access to the tracks.
Assuming that's the case, then I guess it's just as unlikely as the regrade I previously suggested.
So, how much mass would need to be removed from AE so it could move from a dead stop in the proposed section?
Also, what is the probability of having a train station at the back of the Festhaus serving straight into the Festhaus, FHP and the current catering area? Thinking slimmer than FHP servicing a new hamlet...
Assuming that's the case, then I guess it's just as unlikely as the regrade I previously suggested.
So, how much mass would need to be removed from AE so it could move from a dead stop in the proposed section?
Also, what is the probability of having a train station at the back of the Festhaus serving straight into the Festhaus, FHP and the current catering area? Thinking slimmer than FHP servicing a new hamlet...
Like I said not an expert ?. Thanks for the clarification.
My point about 3 trains is that the attendance threshold for them to run 3 would probably be lower than currently. The idea is that as attendance moves up there is not a long wait which will prevent them from having more people waiting than there are seats on the train. They don't want to have to monitor the number of people who can go through the gates and figure out how many seats there are on the train. So it's always run in this manner. If the round trip is longer than the likelihood of having more guests then seats would increase.
Just to clarify, I was just talking about the water tower piece.
It seems much more likely to me that they would shut down a stop before they would add people and the additional expense of a train. That is generally how BGW thinks.
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