Thunderhead (Dollywood)

(The original development updates for this project are reposted below. Download link at bottom of page.)

This is a re-creation of the Thunderhead coaster at Dollywood. I am having a bit of trouble trying to get the layout to work right now.

3/04/05 Thank you for the help, Phyter. The new and improved layout is on it’s way. The main issue with mine that was really messing up my work was that the turn after the station fly-thru was extreamly mishap, and that then caused the rest of the layout to be off. Coupled with the other problems here and there, it explaned why nothing fit.

I am now in the process of adjusting the layout. I hope to have a finished track by the end of March, although who knows what other setbacks may come along. Expect a very complete support structure!

3/10/05 The new overhead layout is essencially finished. I will now begin work on adjusting the size of the hills and making sure it’s to scale. The red dots and lines indicate the old layout, the black track it the CAD layout of Thunderhead. You can see my new layout fits almost perfectly on the CAD layout. Thanks again, Phyter!

3/18/05 I now have a good, basic layout for Thunderhead. It looks good, rides like the real thing, the elements are now shaped (for the most part) properly. It is, however, far from finished. The train still comes into the brakes too slow, and there is still some problems with trying to get all the track to fit together right. Check out the screens below to see the progress (and that I also discovered the White environment!)

6/05/05 Things haven’t been going as fast as I would have liked, but it’s making steady progress. My main frustration is trying to figure out where exactly the respective heights are at different points of the track. Banking actually hasn’t been as big a problem as I thought, but heartlining is still a problem. By the request of DCs221, I am going to try to learn how to use the Swiss Helix Army Knife, which should hopefully fix some problems. Now that summer’s here, I’ll try to devote a lot more time to the project. My goal is to finish it by the end of June, but knowing me, that could be of next year.

6/29/05 Okay, okay- mid-July! In the meantime here’s a few more screenshots. Check out that beautiful 78* banked turn, and compare it to earlier versions.