Original subtitles

Man: Right on this side here!

Narrator: This elite team of engineers

Is embarking on an epic endeavor.

-Go down. -All good?

They're attempting to build the longest, tallest,

And fastest dive roller coaster in the world.

This is not going to be a straightforward build.

It's like a puzzle.

I liken it to building a ship inside a bottle.

Narrator: Constructed from more than 1,500 tons of steel,

They are pushing to complete this ambitious build

In just 16 months.

The park is going to open on opening day,

And we need to be ready.

Narrator: To construct this record-breaking giant,

The team must battle extreme cold...

Temperature is down to minus-40 with your windchill.

Very windy.

It's something that we got to fight with.

Narrator: ...And terrifying heights.

Baptiste: You got to be on your game when you're up there.

You got everybody's lives in your hands.

Narrator: This colossal coaster ranks in a league of ambitious

New engineering wonders

That are bigger, faster, taller,

And more advanced than anything ever constructed before.

This is the inside story of the extraordinary challenge

Of building these giants.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

Toronto, canada --

Home to the country's biggest and most popular theme park.

Every year, over 3.5 million thrill seekers flock here

To experience the fastest, biggest, and scariest rides.

You never know what's coming next.

The adrenaline is probably the best part --

The speed, the drops, the twists and turns.

I just want to be scared.

♪

Narrator: As roller coaster technology soars to new heights,

It's a huge challenge for director of construction

Peter switzer to keep this park ahead of the curve.

My kids say that I've got the best job in the world.

We get to build things where people get to come and have fun.

We want to stay on the cutting edge of new attractions.

We're ready to provide the next thrill.

Narrator: Peter has called in swiss roller coaster design

Specialists bolliger & mabillard

To engineer a brand-new ride for the park --

A dive coaster featuring a sheer 90-degree vertical drop.

Bolliger: It's like falling down a cliff,

But not only falling down the cliff --

You are falling face-down, looking, you know,

At 75 meters of emptiness.

It's really scary.

Narrator: Roller coasters used to need a forest of structural supports

To hold them steady.

Today, designers use computer models

To precision engineer elegant

But strong self-supporting structures.

When we design a coaster, we really want the guests

To have a great experience

And to want to ride the coaster again and again.

Narrator: After a year of detailed design work,

This swiss team has pulled out all the stops to devise

A world-record-smashing dive coaster.

It's called the yukon striker.

Bolliger: It will have the longest drop.

It will be the fastest, the longest,

And it'll have the most inversions on dive coaster.

Narrator: Towering above the city,

The yukon striker will be a coaster like no other.

Powerful winches lift its riders

Up a giant 223-foot-high lift hill

Before its unique 24-seater cars

Built without floors

Plunge over the 90-degree vertical drop,

Accelerating to 81 miles per hour.

More than 1,500 tons of precision steel

Make up over half a mile of winding track.

With more upside-down sections than any other dive coaster

And the first full loop-the-loop,

It will be the ultimate thrill.

♪

For peter's team at the park,

Constructing this giant will be a monumental challenge.

Switzer: This is not going to be a straightforward build.

It's got so many twists and turns and changes in direction.

It's like a puzzle.

Narrator: To add to the pressure,

The team must build most of this colossal coaster

While the park is closed during the depths of winter.

This winter, we're expecting bitterly cold temperatures

Down into the minus-30s.

We're gonna have to deal with what we get

Because the park is going to open on opening day,

And we need to be ready.

Narrator: This is how they'll do it.

Workers precision-build the steel track in sections offsite.

At the park, engineers bolt several pieces together

On the ground, lift them into position,

Then support them with super-strong steel columns.

Work moves methodically round the circuit

From start to finish until the track is complete.

Next, engineers install a 700-foot chain

And powerful motor to haul the cars 223 feet into the sky.

Finally, they fit and test the track-side braking systems

That allow them to safely run three sets of cars at once,

Taking 12,000 thrill seekers a day on the ride of a lifetime.

♪

It's early morning at the park.

Man: Hey. Coming up.

With the doors now closed to the public

For the winter season, workers race to unload

The first prefabricated pieces of the new coaster.

Switzer: Yeah, it's quite complicated.

There's hundreds and hundreds of pieces.

Straighten it out a bit.

Narrator: The team's first task is to transport the steel

Through the park to the build site.

Where trucks won't fit, they must use cranes

To leapfrog the pieces over existing rides.

Switzer: I liken it to building a ship inside a bottle.

You're limited within that bottle with what you can do

And where you can reach and where you can place things.

Narrator: Despite the difficult site, they make good progress.

It takes just nine weeks for workers

To install the framework

For the giant lift hill and vertical drop.

♪

Now the team faces its first real challenge --

A tricky track section masterminded

By the swiss designers called the immelmann turn.

The track at the top of the immelmann

Will rise 160 feet above the ground.

It will have very few supports.

For the team on-site, assembling it won't be easy.

'cause of the size and shape and how big it is,

It's gonna be a big challenge for the men putting it together.

♪

Narrator: First, workers will lift a small support column

Bolted to its base and haul in a track using a second crane.

Next, they lift a much larger support column in sections

And tie it of with guylines.

Cranes then lift in two pre-joined

Double lengths of track.

Each piece is 60 feet long and weighs over 20 tons.

They must get the rotation of each twisting piece just right

So ironworkers can line them up and bolt them together by hand.

The two cranes must hold the track steady

Until every piece is secure.

Only then can the loop support itself.

Switzer: We don't want the men to have to make changes up in the air.

The pieces need to fit together, and if they don't,

Then we'll have to lay them down and come up with another plan.

Narrator: In charge of assembling the immelmann is foreman bill woods.

We're setting up a lot of cranes this morning.

There's a lot going on -- a lot of congestion,

A lot of movement, a lot of people.

Narrator: The first crane takes the weight

Of the 75-foot-long column legs...

Woods: We ought to be able to put them down easier, too.

...And hoists them into the air.

Alright, you're there. Hold that.

Once the leg is vertical, the team must line up its feet

With the anchor bolts on the ground...

Keep going, nice and easy.

...But they've run into an alignment issue.

Let's give that a wiggle.

The holes at the base of the column don't line up

With the foundation bolts,

Leaving the leg hanging precariously from the crane.

♪

Narrator: At canada's most popular theme park,

A team of engineers and ironworkers

Is racing to construct the world's biggest dive coaster

Featuring a sheer 90-degree vertical drop.

But a 75-foot-tall supporting column won't fit on its base.

So we need to know what's wrong.

What's wrong, yeah, that's right.

Woods: Everything -- this is such a tight tolerance,

Right down to the millimeter,

And, yeah, we're talking, like, here, over 30, 40 mils out.

♪

Narrator: The solution calls for drastic measures.

They use a powerful oxy-acetylene torch

To cut through the 1.5-inch-thick steel base plate

To make the holes bigger.

♪

Switzer: The baseplate was off by 5.5 degrees.

We were able to accommodate that 5.5-degree discrepancy

By elongating the holes,

And there's no future issues

Regarding the integrity of that connection.

Coming up on your line.

Narrator: They quickly slot the modified column into place.

Glad it came together. Column's erected.

Next up -- the first piece of track.

Keep on coming up.

♪

Almost there, hold that.

Now for the top of the immelmann.

Yeah, just like that.

They must align two twisting double lengths of track

Perfectly so workers up high can insert their bolts.

The two cranes can't let go

Until every connection is secure.

Woods: We've got a lot to do.

Narrator: The team must complete this complex section in a single day.

If they don't, they'll have to set everything back down

And start from the beginning tomorrow.

It would be a costly delay.

Woods: We got to have all of these items installed today.

Yeah, hopefully we don't get into the nighttime here

So we can see each other.

Let's get the 200 up.

Yep, keep on coming up, buddy. Nice and easy.

Ironworker kyle baptiste is responsible for the track.

80% of the work is done on the ground here

Just to get the thing right.

Coming up on the 200.

Narrator: They use a complex rig of chains to rotate the track

To the right orientation at ground level.

Baptiste: This is a bit tricky,

'cause you can't just slam these pieces together.

You got to have them perfectly flush.

That one's gonna be tricky to rig up

'cause, like I say, it's just a corkscrew that thing.

Narrator: They lift the first piece 130 feet high into the air.

Keep on going.

You got another 10 or more feet to go.

With the weather deteriorating,

Kyle follows it up in the bucket lift.

Do you want to start getting us close to that connection?

The angle is just right.

You got that guy.

But bolting one end...

Yeah, we'll get it. We'll get it.

...Isn't enough to hold it up.

The crane must keep hold of it

While they lift the next piece of track into place.

Switzer: Everything's done slow and methodically.

The columns won't support themselves without the track,

And the track won't support itself without the column,

So those two pieces need to come together

Much like a house of cards holds itself together.

Narrator: 7:00 p.M.

I.R. To 200.

Baptiste: Once you start something, you got to finish it.

You can't just shut everything down for the night.

Narrator: They're losing light, making this task even tougher.

Coming up on your line.

You know you got everybody's lives

When they're riding this thing in your hands.

This thing has to be perfect. It has to be tight.

You have to get it right.

You have to.

We have a bit more.

More, sling to the left.

Okay, hold that.

Narrator: It takes six hours of painstaking work

For kyle's team to tie the two sections together

So the cranes can finally let go.

♪

The following morning, with the immelmann complete,

The coaster build ramps up.

The team needs a constant supply of track.

Alright, buddy, boom 'er up.

...And building a structure like this requires

Every single piece to be millimeter accurate.

♪

Every inch of coaster starts life here

At vast steel fabricators over the border in batavia, ohio.

Bob mampe is in charge.

There's never a normal day in this factory.

We have 95 folks building roller coasters.

Narrator: This is how they turn raw steel

Into precision-engineered track.

♪

At the heart of each section,

They weld a series of rigid boxes together

Out of high-tensile steel, giving it incredible strength.

Steel plates called ribs

Support the two six-inch-thick rails

On which the coaster will run.

The distance between the rails must be perfect

Or the train will wobble from side to side,

Giving passengers a harsh, bumpy ride.

At the end of each track section,

They place special plates with pre-drilled holes.

These must line up exactly with the next piece of track

To create a perfectly smooth ride.

♪

Mampe: It's as if you're flying in an airplane,

If you have a nice smooth track that does all these incredible

Aerobatic maneuvers, without turbulence.

Narrator: Bob's team must ensure that every aspect of the track

Is engineered exactly to the swiss designers' specifications.

Plasma cutters precision carve steel plates

At over 36,000 degrees fahrenheit.

Man: It's a real precise machine, it cuts really good,

And it has to for what we do.

Sand blasters lift microscopic impurities

Off every inch of rail.

The most critical part is making sure

That the distance between the two rails remains

Constant across all sections of track

To keep the ride silky smooth.

Get it wrong, and it could cause major time delays

And overages for the build team at the park.

♪

Narrator: In ohio, a team of specialized steel fabricators

Is precision engineering track sections

For the world's biggest dive roller coaster.

It's vital that they keep the rails exactly 70.8 inches apart.

You don't want to get beat up.

You want to have a nice smooth ride,

And that's what our goal is.

Narrator: They use a set of rigid hydraulic handcuffs

To position the rails to within a tenth of a millimeter,

Then the welder fuses the steel together.

Mampe: It's so important, too.

You have these tolerances within tenths of millimeters.

Narrator: They test-bolt every single piece of track to its neighbor

To ensure they line up perfectly.

Then they prime, paint, and custom-ship

Each piece 400 miles to toronto.

♪

On-site, it takes the construction team

12 weeks to assemble the first 80 pieces

Of this gigantic jigsaw together.

Around 3,000 feet of twisting steel is now firmly in place.

♪

But now the team faces a new challenge.

As the yukon striker grows bigger,

The completed sections of track make it difficult

To squeeze their cranes into position.

Switzer: Today we're in quite a congested portion

Of our construction site.

We're having to get quite creative

With the positioning of the equipment.

Narrator: With no other option,

Peter and his team have taken a radical decision

To finish building the coaster in a highly unorthodox way.

Because we've got a congested site

And we're limited with the amount of space that we have,

We've decided to build out of sequence.

Narrator: Ideally, the team would build the roller coaster

In sequence from start to finish.

This way they can check that each piece

Fits perfectly before moving onto the next.

But if they did that, the twisting track itself

Would block key access points,

Preventing their biggest crane

From reaching several crucial sections.

Their only option is to leave gaps in the track

And fill them in later.

But it's a high-risk strategy.

If the missing pieces don't fit perfectly,

They might have to remove several sections,

Undoing weeks of hard work.

Coming down.

Ironworker grace ryba is one of the team members tasked

With bridging the gaps in the track.

There's barely any room to maneuver the cranes.

That's it.

You don't have much space to begin with,

Then you don't have much boom either,

So you got to work with what you got.

Narrator: It's vital that the last few sections fit perfectly in place.

Man: All good!

The first piece bridges half of the empty gap.

Now for the moment of truth.

Everything all nice, it's level?

Slide down this side here.

♪

Okay. Yo, got a six-inch gap up here.

Grace heads up to check the connection

And finds a problem...

Ryba: We're not aligned quite right.

Narrator: ...A six-inch gap in the track.

Ryba: Obviously, the track is the most vital,

Important part of this whole experience.

It's got to be bang on.

It's got to line up just right.

Narrator: They try to wrench the pieces together...

♪

But it doesn't work.

Ryba: It's getting pretty difficult.

Narrator: Grace decides to loosen the base of the column on one side,

Allowing it to lean over and close the gap at the top.

A very small little adjustment here

Will push that column up top

And push that track section over.

Hopefully this is just enough.

Narrator: But, despite their best efforts,

The column bolts won't budge.

[ grunting ]

-Nothing. -[bleep]

Oh [bleep]

This is tight. [ grunts ]

♪

Narrator: In canada...

Man: We're all good.

This team of engineers and ironworkers is battling

To construct the biggest dive roller coaster in the world.

Limited space means they've had to build

This giant structure out of sequence.

But it's left a gap in the track.

We got a six-inch gap up here.

It's critical that the pieces fit together properly

So that we have smooth transition.

If they're not perfect,

Then they've got to go back and make it perfect.

Try that.

Narrator: With a bit of quick thinking,

Ironworker grace ryba uses a pole to get maximum leverage,

Loosening the bolts at the base of one of the support columns.

A little difference in the bottom where you're moving it

Makes a huge difference up top where the track is.

Okay, so that's loose.

It takes several hours of work

Before they wrestle their bolts in...

And force the pieces of track together.

♪

It's a small victory...

Yeah, it's good.

...And there's still a huge amount of track

For the team to install.

♪

It's January.

The team fights through the brutal canadian winter,

With temperatures dropping as low as minus-20.

♪

We carry on. Hot, cold, rain, shine, snow,

Rain, sleet -- it doesn't matter.

We're carrying on.

Narrator: Despite the ice and snow, they make good progress.

Just one last critical piece of the puzzle remains --

A full loop-the-loop.

The goal for today is to complete this loop

And thus complete the roller coaster.

Narrator: The yukon striker will be the first dive coaster

In the world to feature a full vertical loop.

This daring invention dates back almost as far

As the roller coaster itself.

On the very first roller coasters in the 1800s,

Thrill seekers would coast down winding tracks in wooden carts.

Engineers in paris pioneered

The first permanent vertical loop in 1846.

With the advent of modern steel engineering,

Designers needed fewer supports to hold up the track

And build higher and more daring loops than ever before.

♪

Everything's frozen.

The temperature is down to minus-40 with your wind chill.

Narrator: The team on-site start

By hoisting each 15-ton loop section into place.

Workers battle the big freeze to bolt them together.

♪

Swung over a bit.

♪

Last piece.

♪

It's like an adrenaline rush. [ laughs ]

♪

Just a couple feet, couple inches.

Finally, after 11 months of hard labor...

Yeah, that's awesome.

...The 3,600-foot-long track is complete.

I feel like a million bucks. Yeah, we did it.

It's, uh -- it's a great feeling,

And it's lining up great.

Time to celebrate.

♪

Narrator: It's mission accomplished for the ironworkers.

Now, with 13 weeks to go until opening day,

The build enters a new phase.

The yukon striker's three passenger trains

Have arrived from switzerland.

They're approximately $1 million each, each train.

Narrator: They're the pinnacle of coaster-car technology.

But there's one thing that these innovative trains don't have --

Engines.

Some people might think that the trains have motors,

But that's not the case.

The trains run on gravity.

Narrator: Once the vehicle plunges over the big drop,

The train's own momentum is the only thing propelling it

Through all of the loops and turns.

To pull the motorless trains up to the top of the lift hill,

The team must install a giant lift chain.

This hooks onto the bottom of the trains

And drags them up to the highest point of the ride.

The aim of the game that we're playing now

Is to get the chain up to the top of the lift

And connect it back up to itself.

Narrator: But with the cold winter temperatures

Still bearing down on them,

The slightest mistake could be costly.

♪

Narrator: At canada's most popular theme park,

This team of engineers is preparing to install

A 700-foot-long lift chain

Into the world's tallest dive coaster.

With this being the biggest dive coaster in the world,

It does need the longest lift chain.

It weighs about eight tons when it's complete.

Narrator: This is how they plan to do it.

First, they'll run a thick cable up over the lift hill

And back down the under side

Then attach it via pulleys to a powerful crane.

Next, they'll secure the cable to 23-foot lengths

Of steel lift chain, each weighing 490 pounds.

As the crane's winch retracts,

It pulls the chain up the lift hill.

They'll splice on new lengths of chain as they go.

When the crane's hook maxes out, they secure the load,

Reset the winch, and start again.

But the longer the chain grows, the heavier it gets.

We're trying to get as much pulled at one time

As we can get.

Narrator: Veteran coaster builder kevin jones

Is in charge of installing the lift chain.

It's a tight squeeze on this radius of this cable.

After attaching the first section of chain to the cable,

They bring in the crane.

But it struggles to grip the hard, icy ground.

♪

-We're getting there. -Are you scared?

Finally, everything is rigged and ready to go.

Okay, let's, uh, tell them we're gonna start up.

♪

Narrator: The first 23-foot chain length

Slides smoothly up the channel.

They connect the next length with a hydraulic press.

Okay, so go ahead, press.

The powerful crane pulls the chain

Up to the top of the lift hill with ease.

♪

432, travis.

Man: Travis, coming over the crest.

We're just going over the crest now,

So we'll be approaching the sprocket shortly.

Alright, to the top.

Good to go.

Narrator: Once they get the chain over the top sprocket,

They're home free.

Jones: We should have enough chain and enough pull in the crane

To make a complete rotation around the top sprocket.

Narrator: The crane gently pulls the chain towards the sprocket teeth.

Man #2: Wait, slow down there, gates.

The chain must line up with the sprocket teeth perfectly.

Uh, you guys got anybody on the ground?

Okay, good, keep going.

Narrator: Success.

The sprocket takes the weight of the chain,

Feeding it back down the underside of the lift hill.

Jones: Now that the chain's in the sprocket,

It's all downhill from here.

♪

Narrator: It's late March.

The worst of the canadian winter has passed.

But before they can open the world's biggest dive coaster,

The team faces one last challenge --

Safety testing.

♪

It rests on the shoulders of systems engineer colin mcmichael

To put the coaster through its paces.

Luckily, he has some willing volunteers.

Mcmichael: We like to fill them up to about the armpits.

We consider that about 70 kilograms,

Which is our optimal testing weight.

The dummies can't get hurt.

Nothing can happen to them, so we like to put

A lot of cycles on with the dummies

So that when we put that first guest on,

We're 100% confident that nothing's gonna happen.

The team has spent three weeks proving that a single

Unmanned train runs smoothly around the track.

Now, they face a much tougher challenge --

Running all three trains at the same time.

Mcmichael: We're ready to put all three trains on.

This will be the first day we've done that.

We need to test the ride as a whole.

Under normal operating conditions,

We're gonna be running three trains.

Narrator: Continuously-running coasters are essential

To modern amusement parks

As a way of keeping long lines to a minimum,

And with safety a number-one priority,

Engineers have to make sure the trains can't collide.

It's very important for us to make sure that the ride

Responds the way it should respond

When we have things happen, like a fuse blow

Or a wire break or a sensor fail,

So that the ride stops in a safe way.

All clear?

Narrator: If a train get stuck on the yukon striker's track,

It's vital that they're able to stop the oncoming train behind.

These are moving machines, and machines can be dangerous.

We never know who's gonna be coming on the ride.

You know, it could be my boss.

It could be my kids.

Narrator: If this critical safety system

Isn't successfully tested over 2,000 times,

The ride can't open to the public.

♪

Clear.

Narrator: At canada's biggest theme park, a team of engineers

Is testing the world's fastest dive coaster.

Mcmichael: When you come here for the day,

We hope you leave in the exact same condition you showed up,

Except with a smile on your face.

Narrator: To make sure three trains can run around

The track simultaneously without colliding,

Colin's team must test

The coaster's automatic braking system.

So, just how do you stop a train

On the world's fastest dive coaster?

The trains themselves don't have any brakes.

Instead, they rely on a series of special brake sections

Distributed around the track.

As the train approaches a brake section,

First, a metal fin on the underside of the train

Passes through a row of magnets.

The magnetic field drags at the fin,

Slowing the train down.

But this contact-free system can't completely stop the train,

So next, mechanical brakes clamp

Onto the underside of the train to slow it down further

Or bring it to a stand-still.

♪

The track has three brake sections in total --

One for each train.

Once it's running, it's running,

But once we get into these points,

We can stop the trains if we need to stop them.

Narrator: As the three trains move around the track,

Hundreds of sensors act as eyes

For the coaster's central control system.

What these proximity switches do is see where the trains

Are throughout the entire course of the track.

The processors will make decisions

On where to allow trains to go

And where not to allow them.

Narrator: If the system detects a stopped train ahead,

It's programmed to automatically engage

The necessary brake section, preventing a collision.

♪

It works, in theory, but now it's time for colin

To put this crucial safety system to the test.

He commands a brake section to stop a train

As it reaches the end of the course.

♪

There's indications on the panel of where they are,

And I can visually confirm that that's where the train is.

♪

Narrator: The previous brake section

Should now stop the oncoming train in its tracks.

Let the next train come around.

Right on cue, the control system kicks in.

♪

The train stops before it can go any further,

Preventing a collision.

Everything's stopping where it's supposed to stop.

Everything's going where it's supposed to go.

Narrator: It's a good start.

Now they must do it hundreds more times to prove

That the entire system is reliable and safe.

♪

After 14 days of testing, the yukon striker will finally

Take its first human passengers for a ride.

The public aren't allowed on until testing is complete,

So the engineers themselves will take the plunge.

-You guys ready? -Yeah.

We good? We ready?

-Ready. -Ready.

Mcmichael: We're about to go on our first ride.

The maiden voyage.

First run.

Lot of hard work's gone in the last couple years

To get to this point.

Narrator: The human body is far more fragile

Than a water-filled dummy.

Their lives are in the hands of everyone who built this coaster.

♪

♪

Wow.

♪

Narrator: Finally, the yukon striker delivers its first thrills.

[ man laughs ]

[ laughs ]

♪

Whoo.

♪

Wow.

♪

Whoo.

That's amazing.

It's really working those brakes.

[ laughs ]

I think we're gonna have to go on it again,

Just to double check.

You know, maybe we missed something.

It's a phenomenal ride. I think it's gonna be a big hit.

Narrator: Four weeks later, and it's opening day

At canada's wonderland.

Thousands of visitors flood to the park...

[ cheers and applause ]

...All eager to ride the record-breaking new coaster.

The ride was fantastic. It was so much fun.

It was so fast.

Everything we had hoped for.

Can't wait to ride it again. It was really good.

We've been waiting a long time to see this coaster and ride it,

So it was a blast to finally get on.

Switzer: To hear them talk about it afterwards --

How amazing that was, what a great experience --

Is very rewarding.

In the end, we got it all done.

[ applause ]

Narrator: After five years of planning, designing,

Building, and testing,

The world's fastest dive coaster is open for business.