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| wunderland.com The Beast is a wooden roller coaster located at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio. It is the longest wooden roller coaster in the world, sprawling over 35 acres (14 ha), and was one of the fastest and tallest roller coasters ever built when it opened in the spring of 1979. |
It has been incorrectly reported by some sources[who?] that the Philadelphia Toboggan Company was involved in the construction of this coaster. This is thought to be true because the trains are the same as the Racer which the Philadelphia Toboggan Company constructed, but for The Beast they were responsible only for the trains. Construction was handled internally by Kings Island's Maintenance & Construction department.
Charlie Dinn, who spearheaded the park's maintenance and construction team, oversaw the vertical construction of The Beast. Dinn later left Kings Island and formed his own construction firm, which later went bankrupt and re-organized as Custom Coasters International, which also went bankrupt in 2002.
While Kings Island was owned by Taft Broadcasting, the design and engineering was largely subcontracted to Curtis D. Summers Engineering, which was a structural engineering and architecture firm located in Cincinnati. Summers' team worked with Taft staff designers Al Collins and Jeffrey Gramke to design the Beast with John Allen providing profiling and dynamics specifications; Taft was unique in having constructed most of their wood coasters at Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Carowinds, and Canada's Wonderland during the 1970s and into the 1980s. Following KECO's sale of their theme parks to Paramount in 1992, Summers continued to partner with Charlie Dinn's firm on several coasters at parks around North America. The two firms continued to work together on coasters up until Summer's death in 1992.
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| soniceclectic.com |
Ride Layout
The ride begins with a 180-degree turn out of the station, leading though the switch track (used for storing trains on the storage track) and onto the first lift hill. The train slowly climbs the 110-foot (34 m) hill and once it crests, drops 135 feet (41 m) into an underground tunnel, passing the on-ride camera on the way.
The train comes out of the first drop still underground. Out of the tunnel, the train makes a hard left-hand turn, maneuvers the climb and drop of a second hill giving riders momentary weightlessness. The train then climbs upward, makes a right turn, and speeds into a covered brake shed. Once through the trim brakes, the track turns to the right, continuing through a heavily wooded area. Veering left, the coaster enters the second tunnel. A quarter of this tunnel is underground, while the exit is above. This is due to the topography of the land. As the train exits the tunnel, the coaster gains speed veering right then taking another hard turn to the right. It is at this point on the coaster that riders may feel remote from the rest of the park. At the end of this run, the train begins to climb the second lift hill. At the top of this lift, the train turns left and begins a gradual, 18-degree drop. The drop itself measures 141 feet (43 m) from the crest of the lift hill to the lowest point of the helix. As the train descends, the track starts to bank left in preparation for entrance into the final helix. The highly banked, high speed, counter clockwise helix is the signature trademark of the ride and is one of the most memorable and intense finales of any roller coaster in the world.[weasel words] Half of this massive double helix is enclosed, which adds to the intensity and excitement. Once through this element, the train crests another small hill, then rises into the final smooth magnetic brake run back to the station.
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| themeparkreview.com |
History
Originally, the park wanted to re-build a replica of the "Shooting Star" roller coaster previously located at Cincinnati's Coney Island. Cincinnati's Coney Island was the predecessor to Kings Island and the Shooting Star was immensely popular at the park until the ride was demolished in 1971. The original idea to rebuild the Shooting Star was back-burnered in favor of a terrain coaster utilizing the park's natural wooded hills. The Shooting Star was indeed rebuilt, but not at Kings Island. A replica was constructed at Canada's Wonderland called the Mighty Canadian Minebuster.
The Beast became and still is the world's longest wooden roller coaster when it opened on Friday, April 13, 1979 and is credited as the first modern-day wooden coaster to generate a marketing campaign. From elaborate animated commercials to countless television spots, the ride became famous worldwide. Because so many people have heard about The Beast, it is one of the most well-known roller coasters in the world.
When it opened, The Beast featured three underground tunnels. By its second season the second and third underground tunnels had been enclosed into one long one so that an access road could be built. Also after its first season, an enclosed tunnel structure was built over the final helix.
In 2000, the park opened the Son of Beast, a "sequel". Son of Beast is the tallest, fastest, and until 2006 was the only looping wooden coaster in the world. The loop was removed after the 2006 season for maintenance reasons following an accident. It is also the second longest wooden roller coaster, designed so that The Beast retains its longest wooden roller coaster record.
In popular culture, R. L. Stine wrote a novel which featured the roller coaster and was named after it, simply titled The Beast. The book also had a sequel called The Beast 2.
The 2009 season was the coaster's 30th year running since its opening. With Diamondback built, the entrance is back where it used to be in 1979. As an observation, most of the track and supports have been replaced in the double helix creating a smoother ride.
The Beast: Kings Island
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