Here's my life-size copy of "Colossus the Fire Dragon" at Lagoon in Farmington, Utah. It was originally a portable ride in a travelling show so has the usual features of compact coasters. The supports are all custom except for the upper parts of the loops, but I put the concrete-filled ballast tanks around the bottoms of the loops. If you want to make this a portable ride, delete the concrete and replace it with fake water.
The layout is very close to the real thing EXCEPT for various problems caused by the PC station platform and SLV hard-wiring. Here's the list of unavoidable inaccuracies:
* Queue Entrance is on the Outside of the Layout: In real life, the queue begins on the opposite side of the ride from the station at about the center of the long side. It crosses a bridge over the brake run, then runs inside the layout beside the brake run, between that and the 1st helix, on around to the station, which it enters on the END of the platform, and the platform is very narrow. But in PC, the entrance side of the platform is very wide due to the cattle chutes, which would be in the way of the 1st helix. So, there was nothing for it but to put the queue entrance on the outside of the layout. And even doing this, the platform still is about 2m wider than the real thing on the inside, even though the exit is also on the outside of the layout, so this impacted the turn radius of the 1st helix coming out of the loops, and to some extent the rest of the layout.
* Station is 20m Long: In real life, the station is 17m long but in PC, it's only possible to make stations in 4m increments, and it always has 3-4m of padding at each end. I had to make the station this long to get a 5-car train (see below).
* Trains Have Only 5 Cars: In real life, the trains have 7 cars, which are exactly as long as the station. This is impossible in PC because, for reasons passing understanding, Frontier inexplicably hardwired the SLV to have a max of 6 cars no matter how long you make the station. WHY?!?!?!? There are Schwarzkopfs with up to 8 cars, after all. But be that as it may, the equally inexplicable 3-4m padding on both ends of the station mean that I had a choice: a 16m station with only 3-car trains or a 20m station with 5 car-trains. I chose the latter so the trains would be the closest to the real length, even though this impacted the overall layout.
* Only 2 Trains instead of 3: Because I was forced to put the ride's entrance and exit on the same side of the station, whereas they're on opposite sides in real life, the loading cycle is longer than in real life. The time required for the previous riders to exit the platform so increases the loading cycle that it's impossible to run 3 trains without them sitting forever on the brake run, which kills excitement without increasing throughput. So it's better in this case to have only 2 trains.
But otherwise, this is a pretty close replica
.
NOTE: The blinky lights are only on the side of the ride facing AWAY from the station, as in real life. The side opposite the station is the "front". So, unless you want to add more blinky lights, I recommend putting the station side against the park boundary and running the queue around the end of the ride.
Workshop link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1618368336
Part of my life-size coaster collection: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1564463657
Here are the graphics:
And here's the video: https://youtu.be/obDrR1LVyck
The layout is very close to the real thing EXCEPT for various problems caused by the PC station platform and SLV hard-wiring. Here's the list of unavoidable inaccuracies:
* Queue Entrance is on the Outside of the Layout: In real life, the queue begins on the opposite side of the ride from the station at about the center of the long side. It crosses a bridge over the brake run, then runs inside the layout beside the brake run, between that and the 1st helix, on around to the station, which it enters on the END of the platform, and the platform is very narrow. But in PC, the entrance side of the platform is very wide due to the cattle chutes, which would be in the way of the 1st helix. So, there was nothing for it but to put the queue entrance on the outside of the layout. And even doing this, the platform still is about 2m wider than the real thing on the inside, even though the exit is also on the outside of the layout, so this impacted the turn radius of the 1st helix coming out of the loops, and to some extent the rest of the layout.
* Station is 20m Long: In real life, the station is 17m long but in PC, it's only possible to make stations in 4m increments, and it always has 3-4m of padding at each end. I had to make the station this long to get a 5-car train (see below).
* Trains Have Only 5 Cars: In real life, the trains have 7 cars, which are exactly as long as the station. This is impossible in PC because, for reasons passing understanding, Frontier inexplicably hardwired the SLV to have a max of 6 cars no matter how long you make the station. WHY?!?!?!? There are Schwarzkopfs with up to 8 cars, after all. But be that as it may, the equally inexplicable 3-4m padding on both ends of the station mean that I had a choice: a 16m station with only 3-car trains or a 20m station with 5 car-trains. I chose the latter so the trains would be the closest to the real length, even though this impacted the overall layout.
* Only 2 Trains instead of 3: Because I was forced to put the ride's entrance and exit on the same side of the station, whereas they're on opposite sides in real life, the loading cycle is longer than in real life. The time required for the previous riders to exit the platform so increases the loading cycle that it's impossible to run 3 trains without them sitting forever on the brake run, which kills excitement without increasing throughput. So it's better in this case to have only 2 trains.
But otherwise, this is a pretty close replica
.NOTE: The blinky lights are only on the side of the ride facing AWAY from the station, as in real life. The side opposite the station is the "front". So, unless you want to add more blinky lights, I recommend putting the station side against the park boundary and running the queue around the end of the ride.
Workshop link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1618368336
Part of my life-size coaster collection: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1564463657
Here are the graphics:
And here's the video: https://youtu.be/obDrR1LVyck