I find most dive coasters are more enjoyable sitting in seats inside the rails rather than outside.
Griffon
- Thread starter Zachary
- Start date
I'll take a little bounce in exchange for having nothing below me on Griffon - as well as Valravn and Skyrush.
I stumbled across this photo. A teaser banner hanging in the closed LeMans Raceway station for the yet to be named "Griffon".
Man I remember that sign so clearly! Can't believe it was 12 years ago.
I miss riding Griffon at least Sheikra is only about an hour and 15 minute drive, or a just hop on the bus to go over and come back without driving. Which a very nice idea, just hope they don't get rid of that. Love Griffon also remember our Griffon Vs. Wasp ride with @Nicole during HOS in 2013. I hear the wasp have had encore adventures even still.
Is everything down today??? Good thing I'm going next week. Griffon, tempesto, Pompeii, plus the train issues. Hopefully this will get straightened out. How are the crowds today?
It is horrible..I waited 2 hours for verbolten which had 3 trains and single station loading despite the line. Waited like 30 minutes for the train. Apollo wasnt too bad. I don't think the crowds are any worse than normal.. The issue is all rides are running low capacity mode, a bunch are broke or not running (griffon, Pompeii, tempesto, rapids) and they are obviously short on employees. Yesterday griffon was running but Mach tower was down. I waited 30 minutes just to ride the swings... Though wait times were better closer to closing.
My brother and I were just hanging out watching Griffon for a few minutes and we were both wondering what that red thing hanging below the track before the first drop is for. We're assuming it has something to do with the holding brake since we didn't see one on the second drop, but I figured I'd check with the experts here on this forum and see if anyone can answer it for us. Here's a picture for reference:
On Griffon there is a chain that is used to slowly release Griffon from the top of the drop. It uses a separate chain dog instead of utilizing the one for the main lift because they both work in opposing directions from each other. The box under the apex that you've pointed out is the storage for the extra length of chain that would be required to pull the train hanging over the edge backwards to a level position.
Thanks for the response! The part in question isn't the box; however, the part we were wondering about is more like 3 red bars that converge together at the end that hang from the track. The picture I took wasn't that great, but here's a better one to point out what we're curious about.
That's Griffon's wattle; it becomes engorged with blood and turns bright red during courtship, as well as to intimidate other males
As far as I know that's the case that stores the chain. Sorry if that's not specific enough, that's all that I've been told. As a side note, do you happen to know when that picture was taken? Just curious
The side angle picture I just found on Google to get a better angle. The first one I sent, I took at about 7:30pm this evening!
Ahaha I legit made the joke to my brother that it's probably its wattle. He wasn't amused. He's 13 and he's just now getting into the coasters. Rode Griffon, Apollos, Tempesto, Alpengeist, and Loch Ness all this year the first time and he's obsessed now and bombarding me with a million questions about every little thing about every little coaster. I guess that he just assumes that I'm 27 and have been riding coasters for about 2 decades that I should have all the answers ?
Yeah, I agree that it's the chain holder box thingy - if you are able to be in a position to look at it from the side when a train enters or leaves that section you'll see chain pile up or exit the box. On the Google image, you can kind of make out the left and bottom edges of the box and some chain in it.