Colossos - Battle of the Giants
| Colossos - Battle of the Giants | |
|---|---|
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| Data | |
| Location |
Heide Park Resort ( Soltau , Lower Saxony , Germany ) |
| Type | Wood - sitting |
| model | Wooden coaster |
| Drive type | Chain lift |
| Manufacturer | Intamin , timber engineering Cordes |
| Designer | Ingenieurbüro Stengel GmbH |
| costs | 45 million DM |
| opening | April 21, 2001 / reopening April 19, 2019 |
| length | 1344 m |
| height | 51, 2 m |
| Departure | 49.5 m |
| Dimensions | 350 × 200 m² |
| Max. gradient | 61 ° |
| Max. speed | 110 km / h |
| Max. acceleration | between −1.5 and 4.5 g |
| Travel time | 2:23 min |
| capacity | 1030 people per hour |
| Trains | 2 trains, 5 carriages / train, 3 rows of seats / carriage, 2 seats / row of seats |
| elements | First drop, camelbacks, turnaround element, floater hill, 480 ° downward helix and bunny hop hills |
| Inversions | 0 |
| Subject area | Land of the Forgotten |
| Theming | Monster from below |
Colossos - battle of the giants (formerly only Colossos), cf. Ancient Greek κολοσσός kolossós , German '(huge) statue' , is a wooden roller coaster in the Heide Park Resort near Soltau ( Lower Saxony ). Up to 2006 it was the second fastest ride of its kind in the world at 110 km / h. The roller coaster designed by the engineering office Stengel and built by Intamin was opened on April 13, 2001 after construction costs of approx. 45 million DM. It is 1344 meters long and has 2 trains. Colossos was taken out of service for 3 years in 2016 due to a complete renovation of the rail, on April 19, 2019 Colossos was reopened with new rails and a new theming.
Driving sequence and technology
A new rail profile was specially developed for the railway designed by Werner Stengel . It was realized by the Swiss roller coaster manufacturer Intamin and the German timber construction company Cordes. After the lift hill is a 120 degree turn, the car runs with a maximum of 110 km / h to at an inclination of 61 ° first drop down on the two Airtime follow -Hügel. Then comes the U-turn and a long hill on which “floating airtime” can be felt. The rest of the ride consists of a downward sloping 480 ° helix and three bunny hops. Since the 2019 season, there has been a monster on the third Bunny Hop, which at first glance tore the rail from its anchorage. In reality, however, you drive through the monster and don't go off the rails. Before and during the passage through the monster, it spits fire and roars. This is followed by a 180 ° curve. At the end of the journey, the train is braked with eddy current brakes and brought back to the station by friction wheels .
Accelerations of up to 4.5 g occur during the entire journey . In addition, up to −1.5 g act in places , so the passengers are "pulled" out of their seats with one and a half times the acceleration due to gravity.
The travel time of the 1344 meter long roller coaster is 2 minutes 23 seconds per run. There are two trains on the track, each of which has a capacity of 30 people, which leads to a maximum theoretical capacity of almost 1500 people per hour. The passengers are secured twice by first having to put on a seat belt and then the safety bar. The rows of seats in a car are arranged in what is known as “stadium seating”, so the passengers sit 10 cm higher from row to row , like in a stadium , in order to get a better view.
During the planning phase, due to the new trains and rails, it was not possible to precisely calculate how these would affect the speed of the train, and it was only later that it became clear that the roller coaster was faster than planned. This is why eddy current brakes have been installed in the First Drop and in the descents of the first two hills since the opening , which slows down the train a little to keep the accelerations on and between the hills bearable. These eddy current brakes are now designed to be switchable and can be switched on and off automatically by the control of the web as required. The need for flexible braking is related to the fact that roller coasters can have significant differences in maximum speed depending on the weather conditions.
In 2012, the upper part of the park's Statue of Liberty was installed at Colossos. The roller coaster is now part of the "Land of the Forgotten".
In 2015, the entry area was expanded to include a crane so that wheelchair users can be lifted on and off the train.
On July 28, 2016, the roller coaster was taken out of service until further notice due to unexpected repair work and replacement of rail parts.
In January 2017, Heide Park announced on its website that Colossos “unfortunately cannot start operations again as hoped for the start of the 2017 season, despite all efforts”. The park was also unable to name an opening date at the time. In March 2017, Heidepark announced that the track would no longer open during the 2017 season. The reason for this is that the rail is no longer in the original parameters. Since the rail is custom-made, it cannot be replaced in individual parts, but has to be completely renewed.
Since Heide-Park belongs to the Merlin Entertainments Group, he could not decide the fate of Colossos himself, but had to wait for the group's decision. This was announced at the start of the 2018 season. Due to the high popularity of the Colossos attraction, Merlin decided to have it maintained and renovated, which is equivalent to a new building due to its complexity and high costs. Based on surveys, Merlin decided not to convert Colossos into a hybrid rollercoaster, but to continue running it as a pure wooden rollercoaster. At the beginning of the 2018 season, construction vehicles arrived and began with the first ground work. Towards the end of the 2018 season, Heide-Park announced that Colossos would in future carry the name affix “Battle of the Giants” and that the announced surprise would be a new theming of the roller coaster.
On April 19, 2019 Colossos - Clash of the Giants was reopened.
Records
According to the Guinness Book of Records , the track was the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world until spring 2003 and was replaced in 2003 by Balder in Liseberg , Sweden . Although other railways overtook Colossos in this rating in the following years, Heide-Park adorns the entrance of the station building to this day with the Guinness World Records certificate, which names Colossos as the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world.
For a long time she “fought” for the title of the highest wooden rollercoaster in the world with Son of Beast ( Kings Island , USA ), which was higher but was not always recognized as a “pure” wooden rollercoaster until 2006 due to its steel loop . After an incident in 2006, the looping of Son of Beast was dismantled in order to equip the runway with lighter trains. This lacked the controversial steel section of the railway, which Colossos lost every title in a global comparison. Colossos had already lost the title of the fastest wooden rollercoaster in the world in the same year with the opening of El Toro (Six Flags Great Adventure) . However, in terms of speed, as already mentioned, there is theoretically more to the roller coaster than is expected of the visitor. The current record holders in terms of altitude are the 56 meter high “T Express” (Everland / South Korea) and the 55.2 meter high “El Toro” (Six Flags Great Adventure / USA).
In 2003 a new track record was set on Colossos: Klaus Peter Beier from Alpen / NRW and his friend Roland Speck from Voerde / NRW managed to beat the old record of the wooden roller coaster “Colossos” with 46 trips in a row and even the magic number “100 " to reach. After a little over six and a half hours, they did it.
additional
In the Internet and some other sources, the height of the runway is usually given as 60 meters and the park advertises accordingly. In other and older publications, however, the more realistic height of 52 meters can also be found. The fact that tracks higher than 52 meters also reach a higher speed than Colossos speaks for this height. On the official website of the manufacturer Intamin , a height of 53 meters is specified for Colossos.
The layout of the Colossos was taken from Six Flags Great Adventure as a model for the El Toro roller coaster created there . The technology tested at Colossos was also used to build the Balder and T Express roller coasters .
photos
Braking track and station house from Colossos
Complete overview of Colossos
Size comparison
New train on the lift
Old train on the bunny hop
The passenger crane
Web links
- Colossos on the park website
- Data and pictures on RCDB
- Report with many (technical) details about the railway
- Construction documentation
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of the 10 fastest wooden roller coasters in the world (available from Rollercoaster Database) . Article from Airtimers.com, accessed November 24, 2012
- ↑ WELT news channel: ACHTERBAHN renovation - Colossos returns | Documentation on YouTube , October 7, 2019, accessed October 9, 2019.
- ↑ Colossos. In: CoastersAndMore. Retrieved May 10, 2008 .
- ↑ Colossos - Out of service until the end of 2016 due to repairs. parkerlebnis.de
- ^ Colossos wooden roller coaster. Retrieved January 20, 2017 .
- ↑ Son of Beast - History. In: rcdb.com. Retrieved March 21, 2008 .
- ↑ New world record on "Colossos" ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Ralph Latotzki et al. a .: Achterplan² European wooden roller coasters , special edition of the club magazine park + ride of the Freundeskreis Kirmes und Freizeitparks eV
Coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 24 ″ N , 9 ° 53 ′ 0 ″ E