First look at Universal's Fast and Furious coaster train
Universal Studios Hollywood this morning offered invited reporters a first look at the four classic American muscle cars that will make up the coaster trains on its new Fast & Furious roller coaster.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift opens this summer at Universal's California theme park. I was one of the reporters who was invited to go on the load platform this morning - the first time that Universal has opened the load platform to anyone outside the company.
The four muscle cars that will be in the Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift train will be the previously announced 1970 Dodge Charger, followed by a Mazda RX-7, a Nissan Skyline GT-R, and a Toyota Supra. All four cars featured in the Fast series movies and on the coaster will be equipped with technology that allows them to rotate 360 degrees on track, simulating the effect of drifting on turns in a high-speed street race.
The 16-person trains, featuring the same overhead lap bar restraint system as Universal Orlando's Jurassic World VelociCoaster - another Intamin creation - will dispatch from twin stations. On one wall above the station stands a freehand, spray-painted mural by artist Tristan Eaton.
Tristan Eaton's load station mural for Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift
Fast and Furious Hollywood Drift will be Universal's fastest roller coaster ever, reaching a top speed of 72 miles an hour. A second installation of the coaster is planned for Universal Studios Florida in Orlando next year.
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Replies (4)
I ran the numbers - 16-passenger trains with an assumed dispatch rate of 50 seconds a train, that's an hourly capacity of 1,150 people. For reference, I've heard Velocicoaster (currently universal's largest comparable thrill coaster) can reach 1,600 riders per hour.
Is four cars to a train enough? I feel like the lines are gonna be crazy. And what would the situation be like in Orlando, where crowds are larger? Are the trains gonna be longer, is there gonna be a dual-load station, or are they just gonna leave it at 1,150 people per hour and hope for the best?
I doubt they will get anywhere close to 50 seconds between dispatches even with a dual loading platform. That's not physically achievable since there is a swing launch that will take at least 30-45 seconds to negotiate, so with ample headways between trains to allow for resetting of this segment, you'd need to gap trains 60-75 seconds apart. I'm skeptical that they'll get this coaster over 1,000 pph, which isn't a big issue in Hollywood, but if the Florida version has similar capacity, it's going to be a massive issue.
I do like the look of these trains, but am more interested to see if the cars spin slightly differently depending on which car you're in, making this coaster more re-ridable. While they're still testing the spinning functions, it does appear that cars do have the ability to spin differently depending on their location on the train/track. Fingers crossed that this is open by mid-June when we're in California.
Those look pretty great. It would've been cool if the "wheels" spun a little bit as they rolled into and out of the station to sell the illusion a bit.
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Hey can you talk about the capacity of this ride.
Can't tell from the picture but it looks like 4 seats per car. That seems like a low
capacity ride... I hope I am wrong.