NL2 Riverview Bobs

Thanks for the compliments, Juscz, and yes, welcome to the forum

Tonight I'll be dealing with a problem the left curve generator is causing with TA1, and then hopefully I can mock up the turnaround and see whether the horizontal plan or the profile diagram provide a more accurate turn as some of the heights are different between the two.

Most of tonight was spent on measuring the distances between bents on the preamble to the lift, and I noticed that the straight line generator makes track which fades from left to right; i.e. not straight. A lot of time will be dedicated to fixing all the straight runs of track in the coaster. The other thing is that Church's line towards the second left turn on the rollout (which goes under the brake run) isn't straight either, as far as I can see. It may be something I have to adjust manually.

I did spend some time mocking up TA1, but then I realised that the angle of the pieces used was wrong. I'll see what I can do in the morning. Just for a laugh I froze the coaster between raising all the height mark nodes and deleting the superfluous ones. Can you say, "Nice air"?

Did you save the track before you tried this? If you did, I would be like "Phew!"

[herman116]

Looks like it's gonna be veeery intense. XD

lol240 wrote:

Did you save the track before you tried this? If you did, I would be like "Phew!"

I'm doing it a different way - making and saving each of the ride's 30 or so parts separately (flat) and then bolting them together like a Meccano set. This means that I can then analyse the positions of each component and make sure the footprint is correct before raising all the height marks. It also means I can fix things more easily and then when I've put in the 15th piece (the maximum number of moves you can undo) I've already built half the coaster

This is something cool about NoLimits vs real life: you can see mistakes before you build them. Consider the photo below, which is of that gorgeous first turnaround:

It's a bit hard to see, but there's a kink in the track just at the point where the train stops descending from the right and starts to head around the bottom. That kink becomes a lot more pronounced when the g-force comb is turned on - the laterals go into the red at that point and it's not because Church was iffy with his banking, but because the height of the vertex is wrong. I'm going to have a closer look tomorrow, but my bet is that this is correct in the profile diagram but not in the horizontal plan. All the figures (except one near the top, corrected with the profile diagram) used to build this fan curve were also as per the horizontal plan.

Here's another photo of that turn, from behind at ground level

The turn-around looks great, Lobster. Sure brings back memories. As I am totally new to what yopu are accomplishing here, am looking forward to how it all comes together.

^ What I've just noticed is that your username is proudly on the news headline section on the CC top page! Even Oscar must have found your deep thoughts on Riverview Bobs, impressive! Big congrats!

Keep sharing more of yours!

[Coasterkidmwm]

Looking good Lobster! I see what you mean about that track kink (and I'm glad you're noticing stuff like this).

I'm genuinely curious to see how the G's play out on this thing because at some point they have got to start going bananas lol so keep us posted please.

[mkingy]

Brilliant stuff, definitely making some consistent, solid progress.

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone.

This weekend will consist of remaking the curves and the lengths of straight sections and trying to put everything together flat. It's actually quite time consuming: because I'm taking a perfectionist attitude I often have to measure the angles of curves and the lengths of straight sections several times as I'm building them in the sim, even if I know what those values should be. Even so I'm not infallible - when I built out TA2 (the high front curve) I noticed that I'd incorrectly transcribed one of the bent heights. I also spent the best part of an hour the other night carefully recreating the rollout to the lift only to realise on completion that I'd missed out a few feet of diagonal straight track! Very frustrating, but worth it in the end.

Hi lol240,

Thanks for pointing out that point about my response to your making the Riverview Bobs.

To repeat myself, I am really excited that Lobster is doing this roller coaster. It is facsinating to see what he is doing and then watching the actual black and white youtube footage of the Riverview Bobs, with the two boys riding this roller coaster. Besides getting a really good feel for the track layout of this great roller coaster, Lobster's images are also allowing me to get a better feel for the myriad angles that this coaster took along its 17 hill path.

I am really glad that Six Flages Great America in Gurney, Illinois has built this huge wooden roller coaster called "Goliath". Watched the youtube footage and it strikes me as an absolutely amazing roller coaster. What I especially find compelling is that, like the Riverview Bobs, Goliath goes down an initial hill and then immediately goes up a hill that is a high, banked, 180 degree turn. And it does this at high speed. Then, like the Riverview Bobs, it has a few hills on a straight-away before going into a series of more 180 degree banked curves, a couple of which create complete inversions at high speed (not a feature, of course, of the Riverview Bobs). The fates willing, my wife and I are definitely going to ride this SFGA Goliath roller coaster this summer.

I am sure my father would have loved the Goliath roller coaster and he would have said that it was every bit as good as the Riverview Bobs: in many ways similar, but, of course, with decided differences. He probably would have said that a major difference (besides the Goliath being much taller) is the fact that one is not being slammed around much in the Goliath roller coaster (that's what the youtube footage seems to show, anyway). On this point, he used to always tell me, "When you went down on the Bobs, you HELD on to that bar or you would have been flung out. The Bobs shook you and slammed you every way it could." (I am, of course, paraphrasing here). He no doubt believed this, but I doubt it was true as the urban legends of folks being thrown out of the Bobs by standing up on them are, as far as my inquiries can determine, just legends: certainly non substantiated by facts. Safety codes back then might not have been as tight as they are now. But there was a safety bar over everyone's lap who rode the Bobs and anyone of the required height would have been held into those Bobs cars by that safety bar. Indeed, as far as I know, the Riverview Bobs never had any fatality. Maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong on this assertion.

Looking forward to futher progress, Lobster.

Juscz wrote:

I am sure my father would have loved the Goliath roller coaster and he would have said that it was every bit as good as the Riverview Bobs: in many ways similar, but, of course, with decided differences. He probably would have said that a major difference (besides the Goliath being much taller) is the fact that one is not being slammed around much in the Goliath roller coaster (that's what the youtube footage seems to show, anyway). On this point, he used to always tell me, "When you went down on the Bobs, you HELD on to that bar or you would have been flung out. The Bobs shook you and slammed you every way it could."

Your father's comment reminded me of this wonderful description of riding the Bobs which I saw reprinted in Robert Cartmell's book, "The Incredible Scream Machine". It's from the Chicago Tribune on May 16, 1976:

It begins quickly, faster than other roller coasters, because this is the king. Down and through the short first tunnel, racing already, even though it doesn???t have to, not yet, because the first hill is yet to be scaled. And then you see it, soaring unbelievably, so steep that you are nearly on your back once the train begins the ascent. Already people are nervously giggling, and every so often someone too impractical to save his utterances for later, screams. We are going up and there is no way to stop the ride. We will have to endure it, and to do that we will have to scream as loudly as we can, as often as we can.

The camaraderie is evident. We are pilgrims embarking on a journey. We are nervous, and we grin with gritted teeth into the winds. No one has ever worried about dignity on the Bobs. Now we are right at the top, just a long burr on the Bobs??? savage back, about to be???flung down!

Down! Up! Fierce screeching turns! Banking so steeply that we crash screaming against each other, now tearing straight on, the undersides of the tracks we???ve been on seconds before just inches above our heads, then wrenching left, shooting ahead, then dipping down and up thinking, Geez, if I hadn???t been holding on???! And now flying around a steeply banked turn over the heads of a hundred people in line scanning our faces for panic or nausea, then into the twisting bowels of the Bobs again thinking, that???s the turn that???s in the ads, that???s the turn! And on and on and on, lights flashing and the night a wild windstorm as we???re twisting, swerving, swooping, wrenching, rearing, roaring towards the end.

I must say, it is a privilege to have a Riverview patron following this thread. I can only hope the recreation does justice to the Bobs, as my fear is that people will find it was not as fast or intense as they have been led to believe.

Lobster,

Thanks for that great bit of Riverview Bobs assessment from a former rider. Loved readng that.

The Bobs was a great roller coaster for its time. That's all anyone knew back then. Faster and taller steel and wood roller coasters came some time after it was produced (1924). I suspect there was a bit of air time to the whole thing that added to the excitement and the sense of danger.

Please don't be shy about reporting that the Bobs might not be so exciting a ride by today's standards. That' fine. Whatever you get will most certainly not diminish its status.

Indeed, Chicago's Riverview wasn't just about the Bobs. There was a whole unique aura and magic to the place. Called my mother today and asked her a bit about it. She said that in her mind the real Riverview could only be experienced at night. And she rode the Bobs a number of times (probably entirely at my father's urging).

My father may have ridden it well over 100 times (maybe well, well over 100 times) as he was literally within very short walking distance of the park while a student at Lane Tech High School from 1938 to 1942. And he went to Riverview often. He said he used to go to the park many times after school when it was relatively empty. He'd take his place in the rear-most seat (always his favorite place) and keep riding it until he ran out of nickels for the extra go-arounds.

We no doubt live in a time of taller, faster, and overall better roller coasters. But the Bobs and many other wooden roller coasters from the past deserve their resurrection and documentation through the sort of computer model you are generating, Lobster. I look forward to getting closer to the truth about the Riverview Bobs through your work, whatever it may reveal.

Cheers,

Juscz

Lobster wrote:

Your father's comment reminded me of this wonderful description of riding the Bobs which I saw reprinted in Robert Cartmell's book, "The Incredible Scream Machine". It's from the Chicago Tribune on May 16, 1976:

It begins quickly, faster than other roller coasters, because this is the king. Down and through the short first tunnel, racing already, even though it doesn???t have to, not yet, because the first hill is yet to be scaled. And then you see it, soaring unbelievably, so steep that you are nearly on your back once the train begins the ascent. Already people are nervously giggling, and every so often someone too impractical to save his utterances for later, screams. We are going up and there is no way to stop the ride. We will have to endure it, and to do that we will have to scream as loudly as we can, as often as we can.

The camaraderie is evident. We are pilgrims embarking on a journey. We are nervous, and we grin with gritted teeth into the winds. No one has ever worried about dignity on the Bobs. Now we are right at the top, just a long burr on the Bobs??? savage back, about to be???flung down!

Down! Up! Fierce screeching turns! Banking so steeply that we crash screaming against each other, now tearing straight on, the undersides of the tracks we???ve been on seconds before just inches above our heads, then wrenching left, shooting ahead, then dipping down and up thinking, Geez, if I hadn???t been holding on???! And now flying around a steeply banked turn over the heads of a hundred people in line scanning our faces for panic or nausea, then into the twisting bowels of the Bobs again thinking, that???s the turn that???s in the ads, that???s the turn! And on and on and on, lights flashing and the night a wild windstorm as we???re twisting, swerving, swooping, wrenching, rearing, roaring towards the end.

That indeed is the excellent coaster description!

^ Yes, it's one of my favourites!

Work has stalled overnight. There's one angle I just cannot seem to measure correctly, and the whole ride depends on it, but it's late now and I need to sleep. Hopefully the morning and a fresh brain will bring clarity.

Okay, I've mocked up the hill on the left side of the lift and the rise up into the second midcourse (just before the lower front turnaround).

And a nice view looking from the top of the hill towards the midcourse:

I was unable to sleep tonight, so I built the two straight runs from the the end of the crossover curve to the start of the TA3 fan curve. I switched the midcourse for a station, took it for a spin, and WOW! This is going to be one amazing coaster when it's done. With the default gentle nudge out of the station it reached nearly 30 miles an hour at the bottom of the drop curve and had no trouble navigating the rest of the track. That beautiful hill just before the end of the second run gives mega butterflies even though at that speed there's no airtime. And yes, that's a double up into the midcourse, and then a double down following the rise out of the drop curve. Note that the second half of the double down is in a trench in the ground, so in the second shot I've raised the coaster 10 feet so you can see it more easily.

Here's the double down at the correct height above ground:

And here it is again (raised)

From the right side (raised)

From the left side (raised)

As you can see, it's shaping up to be an impressive little ride for its short lift. All gs are in check so far - yellow in spots but no red. I'm going to keep on building out from here until the final piece falls in to place and THEN we will see what this beast is really like!

[Coasterkidmwm]

This does look like an extremely difficult ride to recreate because of the tightness of everything, so honestly great job so far and it looks like you're solving your own problems and chugging along well.

Amazing to see this coming together!

Wow it's marvelous that each track piece is starting to take shape! Yay the flat layout is becoming the tall structure that will impress visitors! I also noticed that plenty of people (over 1000!) had seen your thread!

Wow amazing!

Okay, I just rode in the back and there's a pump on ever single turn transition. Why? I created mathematically perfect turns. By definition they should be smooth. I did remove the pearl coloured nodes with roll nodes on them - these messed with my banking no end because the banking changes ON the bent, so they would zero the banking between bents. Yuck. But I still don't see why my turns are full of pumps.

I'm afraid... I can't help you out this time because in fact, I don't have NL2. Have to say that I'm a NL1 user. However you don't need to get discouraged, though - there are skilled track builders on CC. They are willing to give you a hand!

[mkingy]

Define pump? could you take a short POV video?

mkingy wrote:

Define pump? could you take a short POV video?

I will do a video, but for now I've decided to keep going on the basis that it would be better to finish the recreation and then sort out any niggles once I understand how it should run and be put together.

An engineer guy I know who worked on the restoration of the Belmont Dipper has sorted out the problem I was having measuring the crossover curve. It turns out that the radius value on the plan is wrong! He has corrected it and that means I can now finish the recreation.

Today I did LOTS of work on the fan turn. I discovered I'd made some mistakes through misunderstanding the blueprints. Careful examination revealed that while the radius of the turn was constant throughout the full 260 degrees, the spacing of the bents wasn't always equal, and this is why my previous attempts looked fairly ugly. I've also fixed two bents which were the wrong height in both the horizontal plan and the profile diagram. Bent 83 caused a weird change in elevation on the uphill side of the fan turn, and bent 99 caused a lateral red spike (this was the kink on the downhill side of the fan turn). Raising it one foot not only removed the spike but brought the curve in line with what Church obviously intended it to look like. Here's the revised fan turn from the top of the lift:

And a photo from a similar angle of the original ride:



And from the right hand side of the first drop:

There's still some more work to do before I head into the crossover (the exit looks a bit steep to my eyes) but I think I've got over the worst of the hurdles for now.