First off, thanks to
@Alexandermbush for keeping this thread alive with project updates! I probably wouldn't be tracking this project anywhere near as closely as I have been otherwise.
Thankfully, months of consistent digging
finally paid some crazy dividends here. Below, you'll find a composite map showing the site plan for Universal Studios Hollywood's upcoming roller coaster, codenamed Project 409, overlaid onto a satellite image of the existing area.
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As you can see, this site plan was an
incredible catch. Oftentimes we only get foundation plans or, if we're lucky, a ride path. The docs I got my hands on for Project 409 include a depiction of the
actual ride hardware planned for the site though—truly a gem of a find.
Given that we can see a top-down perspective of the planned coaster track itself, there is far less uncertainty here than with other similar project leaks in the past—we instantly know track locations and rotations—that only really leaves heights and speeds unknown. In an attempt to catch as much of the minutiae of the coaster layout as possible though, I've been working with some friends (namely
Intim305) to decipher those missing details. Below shows what we came up with as our "best guess" at the layout.
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Purple elements are station-area bits, blue segments are gravity-fed portions, green areas are launches, red areas are brakes, and orange aspects depict maintenance area features. Parts of the layout where our confidence is lower use gray direction of travel markers and text labels.
One of the biggest hurdles we ran into with this layout was working out launch locations. There's a lot of straight track in this layout that
could house launches, but it seemed unlikely that
all of the straight segments
actually had launches planned. We could clearly see two-tube Intamin track in two segments of the layout (the launch after the dive drop and the mid-course brakes in the image above). At first glance, I assumed those were the coaster's only two launches. It really wasn't until
@intim305 started modeling the coaster in NoLimits that we concluded the launch situation had to be notably more complicated than I was originally imagining.
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Though the coaster station is perched high on a steep hillside (it will be in the area right behind the Universal City sign in the photo above), the speed required to complete the first half of the layout wasn't really working as a purely gravity fed experience. We were pretty sure there had to be a launch out of the station but didn't really see one in the plans.
When Intim305 reached the valley portion of the layout (between the parking garage and the road behind Jurassic World in the image above), he encountered a similar problem. The speed required to complete the accent into the dive drop just wasn't there while keeping the heigh and speed of the Stangel dive/wall stall under control. We suspected that there must be a launch between those elements.
After a lot of close inspection, we concluded that track segments where the coaster's spine get considerably darker are almost certainly launch segments. Below I've included an image showing the difference we're talking about:
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Inspecting the plans closely, there are only three segments where this "opaque" triple-tube Intamin track appears: the very beginning of the coaster before the 180 degree banked turn, the valley before the accent into the dive drop, and, interestingly, the valley between the inverted stall and the junior dive loop. That last one caught us totally off-guard—the did seem oddly straight and flat through that segment, but the layout didn't feel like it needed that fourth launch to complete the course. If our opaque spine theory is true though, there definitely seems to be a launch section there.
At this point, the big lingering question with Universal Studios Hollywood's Project 409 seems to be what type of coaster is this exactly? All the rumors have said Intamin and these plans seem to confirm that 100%—this thing is covered in Intamin "tells." Beyond the fact that it's a multi-launch though, there's nothing I've found in the plans to confirm a specific, known Intamin model. Screamscape, who did
successfully call the manufacturer and even leaked early concept images, claims it's an Intamin spinner. Rumors
shared by Alicia Stella over at Theme Park Stop echo the same. I don't think we've found anything in the docs that makes those claims notably more or less likely. We should highlight though that the layout in the concept art leaked by Screamscape does not match the final layout in the docs we have obtained (note the lack of a spike).
If anyone wants to take a look at the site plan we're working from for yourself, I've included an obscenely high-resolution copy below for your viewing and analyzing pleasure. Let me know if we've missed anything!
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Intim305 is currently well into a NoLimits pre-creation of this layout. I'll be sure to share it here when gets it finished and posted! Super excited to see how this thing could end up riding. The layout and better yet, the location, looks incredible!
