Busch Gardens Williamsburg
American Coaster Enthusiasts Coaster Con 41
Williamsburg, Virginia
June 21 & 22, 2018
Page Six
Click on any photo to see a larger version of it.
Having one train of looping riders wrapping around you as your
train inverted must have been quite the experience. With modern
computer aided design and manufacturing working the entire ride so two
trains meet in the interlocking loops is easy to do. Back to the 1970's the
Loch Ness Monster was designed on drafting tables and everything
calculated by calculators...not the modern calculators but expensive
chunky ones that clicked as you pressed the keys with a dimly let red
readout. I hold the engineers at Arrow Dynamics
who sketched rides like Nessie out by hand and did the hard work
manually with
high regard.
Here is one more photo of the Loch Ness Monster before we go.
There is so much that goes into making this ride the iconic coaster that
it is. The terrain, interlocking loops (the only one left in the
world after Worlds of Fun removed the Orient Express), the rides
visibility and layout makes this the best of Arrow's looping coasters
from the roller coaster boom of the 1970's. Throw in the fact that
Busch Gardens cares so much for this ride including adding new trains
for the 40th anniversary and keeping it in amazing shape.
Despite being
overshadowed by newer and bigger rides Nessie is the heart and soul of
Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
Lets move from a ride that has a rough stretch of track into the station
because of being designed on paper with a margin of error of six feet to a modern
coaster that was created with computer aided design and a margin or error less than the
thickness of the piece of paper.
Griffon is an amazingly fun dive coaster that was added to Busch Gardens
Williamsburg in 2007.
Griffon like other dive coasters designed by Bolliger and Mabillard
start out by dangling riders over the edge of a massive drop.