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35-557: Infusion is an inverted steel roller coaster at Pleasure Beach Resort , Lancashire, England . It is a 689m standard "Mark 3" model Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster (SLC) and the first to be suspended entirely over water. Infusion was relocated from Pleasureland Southport , Pleasure Beach's sister park, where it was known as "Traumatizer" and sponsored by the soft drink "Tizer". The attraction first opened at its original location in Southport in 1999. When Pleasureland closed in 2006,

70-406: A box-section track, it creates a one-of-a-kind whooshing sound, which is sometimes nicknamed the “B&M roar” by roller coaster enthusiasts. However, on some Bolliger & Mabillard roller coasters, such as Talon at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom and GateKeeper at Cedar Point , the track is filled with a proprietary sound dampening material to reduce this noise. Also, depending on

105-456: A corkscrew. A tight helix follows, providing a near miss with the Big Dipper , before the train straightens itself and pulls into a double inline twist. From here the train rolls into a 90 degree turn before pulling downwards and ascending into the brakes. Two 90 degree turns return the train to the station. The ride was the subject of a large marketing campaign and featured on BBC Newsround ,

140-465: A less compact layout than its predecessors. It also featured the first cobra roll on an inverted coaster. 231 inverted roller coasters have been installed at various theme parks, some of which have been relocated. The following list is not exhaustive and only shows the most notable installations. Bolliger %26 Mabillard Bolliger & Mabillard , officially Bolliger & Mabillard Consulting Engineers, Inc. and often abbreviated B&M ,

175-607: A new car design that has two rows of two seats, however, they are not in a V formation. All B&M hyper coasters use a type of restraint called a "T-bar" or "Clamshell" restraint, which consists of bar with a cushioned lap bar with two handles for riders to hold on to. This type of restraint generally does not use a seat belt, however seat belts have been added to Behemoth and Leviathan at Canada's Wonderland , Diamondback and Orion at Kings Island , and Intimidator and Fury 325 at Carowinds . Bolliger & Mabillard also uses over-the-shoulder restraints, in that

210-438: A new car design that has two rows of two seats; the two seats in the rear of the car pushed out from the centerline so that the four seats resemble a V formation . This formation has only been used on Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland , Diamondback at Kings Island , Thunder Striker at Carowinds, and Shambhala: Expedición al Himalaya at PortAventura Park , in the resort PortAventura World . In 2013, B&M introduced

245-754: A single inverted coaster operating, which uses the box-track design, also used by Bolliger & Mabillard . The inverted coaster differs from the older suspended coaster , which runs under the track, but features cars that enclose the rider's legs and lower body and are attached to the track above by a pivoting bar, whereas the trains on inverted coasters are directly attached to the track. This direct attachment facilitates inversions , which aren't possible on suspended coasters. Inversions typically featured on inverted coasters include vertical loops , zero-g rolls , Immelmann loops , cobra rolls , and corkscrews , though Vekoma's suspended loopers typically feature sidewinder and in-line twist elements. The inverted coaster

280-666: Is a roller coaster design consultancy based in Monthey , Switzerland. The company was founded in 1988 by engineers Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard, both of whom had worked for Giovanola . B&M has pioneered several new ride technologies, most notably the inverted roller coaster and the box-section track. In 2016, the company completed its 100th roller coaster. B&M currently produces ten types of coaster models: Stand-Up Coaster , Inverted Coaster, Floorless Coaster , Flying Coaster , Hyper Coaster , Dive Coaster , Sitting Coaster, Wing Coaster , Family Coaster, and most recently,

315-665: The Daily Star and Daily Express newspapers and GMTV . The ride has been used in television shows and advertisements. The ride was featured in a Specsavers advertisement when two elderly people rode the ride after mistaking the ride's seats for a park bench. Inverted roller coaster Versions of inverted coasters have since been produced by other major coaster manufacturers such as Vekoma and Intamin . Intamin has few designs classified as inverted coasters, although they do install inverted coaster trains on some of their launched designs. Vekoma, however, predominantly mass-produced

350-458: The Surf Coaster . Bolliger & Mabillard has been involved in developing new technologies and concepts in roller coasters almost since its inception. It has often worked with engineer Werner Stengel and with designers and management of client theme parks. Early Bolliger & Mabillard coasters feature an element known as a "pre-drop", a short drop after the top of the lift hill and before

385-457: The linear magnetic eddy brake had yet to be developed, so it used friction brakes as its main braking system. On the train, pads are fitted on the vehicle chassis between the wheel assemblies. On the brakes, similar pads are connected to steel supports. When the pads on the train come into contact with the brakes, friction is created which slows the train. Beginning with Kumba in 1993, friction brakes have also been used as trim brakes that regulate

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420-589: The Surf Coaster. Though B&M has not used the term, the company has also manufactured three giga coasters . Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard started working for Giovanola, a manufacturing company which supplied rides to Intamin , in the 1970s. During their time at Giovanola, they helped design the company's first stand-up roller coaster , Shockwave (at Six Flags Magic Mountain ). They also worked on other projects, such as Z-Force (at Six Flags Great America ). Bolliger & Mabillard left Giovanola, but

455-401: The car that hang riders over the sides of the track. As of 2019 there are fifteen in operation. In 2015, B&M constructed Thunderbird at Holiday World & Splashin' Safari , its first in-house launched coaster. By 2010, B&M employed twelve engineers, twelve draftsmen and two draftswomen. The company has made other contributions to the roller coaster industry. The company built

490-422: The chain. Pre-drops have not been used on the company's Dive or Flying coasters, or on hyper coasters built after 1999. OzIris at Parc Astérix was the first B&M inverted roller coaster that does not feature a pre-drop. Ever since, no coaster built by B&M has featured a pre-drop because the chain accelerates to acquire the same speed as the train when it is being taken over by gravity after it passes

525-401: The coaster community, due to the nature in which they tighten during the ride; stapling riders to their seats, resulting in less airtime (negative g-forces) being felt. A notable feature of Bolliger & Mabillard roller coasters is the box-section track. The running rails are connected to a box-section spine, instead of the circular spine used by other manufacturers. When a train travels around

560-432: The company continued to use that track design; the company's roller coasters Goliath (at Six Flags Magic Mountain ) and Titan (at Six Flags Over Texas ), use a track style very similar to B&M's. In 1987, Giovanola underwent a change of management, and the pair decided to leave and create their own company. At the time, B&M employed four people, including two draftsmen: Bolliger and Mabillard. When B&M

595-407: The construction of Banshee , the world's longest inverted roller coaster. B&M supplied new trains for Steel Dragon 2000 , built by D. H. Morgan Manufacturing in 2000. As of 2012, Bolliger & Mabillard had 85 operating roller coasters worldwide. Of these, twenty-two were listed among that year's Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards Top 50 Steel Coasters List for 2012 and five were in

630-687: The crest. Most of Bolliger & Mabillard's roller coaster trains use four-abreast seating. Each car has one row of four seats, while the train length can vary between coasters. All of the company's coaster models, except the Dive Coaster, Wing Coaster, Family Inverted Coaster and Surf Coaster use this configuration. The Dive Coaster uses six, seven, eight or ten-abreast seating, with two or three rows of seats. For example, Griffon at Busch Gardens Williamsburg , uses ten seats in three rows, while Krake at Heide Park uses six-across seating in three rows. On recent hyper coaster projects, B&M has used

665-421: The fins pass through the brakes, the magnetic field created by the brakes slows the train. Magnetic brakes have also been used as an alternate type of trim brake on B&M roller coasters such as Leviathan at Canada's Wonderland . Water brakes were first introduced on SheiKra at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in 2005. Water brakes can only be used when a splashdown element, in which a body of water surrounds

700-461: The first inverted coaster in the world on May 2, 1992, officially opening on May 9, 1992. With the coaster's success, Time Warner , Six Flags ' parent company at the time, moved to construct a series of duplicates of the ride at various Six Flags parks. In 1993, a second installation of Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Great Adventure opened as the second inverted coaster in the world. Six Flags has since gone on to construct five additional duplicates of

735-415: The lift is 109 feet high. Infusion's maximum capacity is 832 passengers per hour. The ride begins with the train climbing a 109-foot (33 m) lift hill before arching into a steep curved incline. The train rises up into a butterfly loop - two half loops connected by a corkscrew - before pulling upwards into a banked apex. From here the train drops sharply into a sidewinder - a loop that transitions into

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770-514: The model of the roller coaster, the track size can vary. Models such as the Flying, Wing and Dive Coaster have heavier trains which require a larger track size while models with lighter trains, such as the Stand-Up and Hyper Coaster, do not and use a smaller sized track. As of 2016, Bolliger & Mabillard uses three types of braking systems: friction, magnetic, and water. When B&M was first founded,

805-491: The new company to design and build a stand-up roller coaster for Six Flags Great America , similar to Shockwave at Six Flags Magic Mountain . B&M accepted the offer and hired two more draftsmen. But B&M had a problem regarding how and where to manufacture the track pieces for the roller coaster. With the favorable history of the work done by Clermont Steel Fabricators (on Vortex , Kings Island , and Shockwave , Six Flags Great America ), Walter Bolliger went to

840-430: The restraint is placed over the riders' shoulders and sits and extends to the riders' laps. This type of restraint is used on Dive, Inverted, Sitting, Flying, Floorless, Stand-up and Wing Coasters. Bolliger & Mabillard has recently begun using a vest like over the shoulder restraint, which reduces headbanging found on the older, more common padded over the shoulder restraints. These have been met with some criticism from

875-431: The ride was moved to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, where it has operated since 2007. The original ride featured a red track with teal supports; however, the track has since been repainted blue. The ride cost a total of £8 million to construct. Infusion operates two seating trains. Each train has eight cars that seat two passengers, allowing a maximum capacity of 16 people per train. The track is approximately 2,260 feet long and

910-531: The ride. The second unique inverted coaster was Flight Deck which opened in 1993 at California's Great America as Top Gun. Nemesis Reborn was the first inverted coaster constructed outside the United States when it opened at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, England in 1994. That same year, Raptor opened at Cedar Point . With a 3,790-foot (1,160 m) track layout, Raptor was far larger and featured

945-538: The same design ( Suspended Looping Coaster ) with 41 identical coasters installed around the world, though Vekoma now markets a newer style of inverted coaster, the Suspended Thrill Coaster, which utilises lap-bar restraints instead of the traditional over-the-shoulder restraints. Vekoma was also the first manufacturer to install a family-friendly inverted roller coaster with the opening of Flying Ace Aerial Chase at Kings Island in 2001. Giovanola also has

980-405: The speed of the train while it is still navigating the course. Magnetic brakes provide smoother deceleration than friction brakes; most B&M roller coasters built after 2001 (starting with Nitro) have at least one set of magnetic brakes. Magnetic brakes do not make contact with the train. Metal fins that run parallel to the train are fitted on the vehicle chassis between the wheel assemblies. As

1015-404: The start of the first drop, designed to reduce stress on the lift chain. The flat section between the pre-drop and the first drop serves as a shelf to support the weight of the train, reducing related stresses on the chain. On most coasters without a pre-drop, the weight of the train tends to pull on the lift chain as it begins its descent because the latter half of the train is still being lifted by

1050-515: The steel plant and asked if they would be interested in manufacturing the track. Clermont Steel Fabricators accepted, and to this day, manufactures all of B&M's roller coaster track pieces for all of North America. Now with a company to manufacture the track, B&M built its first roller coaster, a stand-up roller coaster, Iron Wolf , which opened in 1990 at Six Flags Great America . Two years later, Bolliger & Mabillard built another project for Six Flags Great America, Batman: The Ride ,

1085-537: The top 10. By 2016, Bolliger & Mabillard had completed its 100th coaster, and had built more roller coasters than any other manufacturer on the Golden Ticket Awards Steel Coasters list. Bolliger & Mabillard currently manufactures ten different roller coaster styles: Stand-Up Coaster , Inverted Coaster , Floorless Coaster , Flying Coaster , Hyper Coaster , Dive Coaster , Sitting Coaster, Wing Coaster , Family Coaster and most recently,

Infusion (roller coaster) - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-520: The trains for the Psyclone , a now-demolished wooden roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain . The trains were later used on the park's Colossus wooden roller coaster (until it was refurbished by Rocky Mountain Construction), but were only used during October each year. The trains faced backward and usually raced against trains on the second track, which ran forward. In 2013, the company launched

1155-637: The world's first inverted roller coaster , which brought them to prominence in the industry. Bolliger & Mabillard also invented the Floorless Coaster and the Dive Coaster . The company also built its first launched roller coaster , the Incredible Hulk , which is at Islands of Adventure . In 2010, B&M unveiled its new Wing Coaster and premiered the prototype model, named Raptor , at Gardaland in 2011. It has two seats on each side on

1190-428: Was created, the pair had agreed not to make any more amusement attractions. However, Robert Mampe, Six Flags Great America 's staff engineer, had worked with both men during the construction of Z-Force ; he contacted the newly-formed company and asked them to reconfigure the cars for its Giovanola-built, Intamin bobsled coaster , to be relocated from Six Flags Great Adventure . Following that project, Mampe asked

1225-485: Was developed in the early 1990s by engineers Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard of the Swiss roller coaster manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard in cooperation with engineer Robert Mampe and Jim Wintrode, at the time the general manager of Six Flags Great America , who first envisioned a suspended coaster capable of inversions. The result of this partnership, Batman: The Ride , soft opened at Six Flags Great America as

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