When you sign up for a coaster enthusiast event, you’re often promised some sort of “behind-the-scenes” tour. Your results may vary, but these tours can be fairly mundane. You get the same photo angle as every other enthusiast with a camera, you don’t get to go *that* far off the beaten path that a typical guest would get. Not the case at Kings Island’s Coasterstock, and our behind the scenes tour of The Beast.
At Kings Island’s signature enthusiast event, not only did we get to go behind the scenes of multiple coasters (including the park’s newest, Orion), but we got to go way behind the scenes of arguably Kings Island’s signature roller coaster, The Beast. When riding the coaster, known for its legendary night rides and journey through the woods at Kings Island, you aren’t able to really take in the amount of space that the coaster’s sprawling 7,359′ of track covers. This was no ordinary “walk back.” It was more of a “hike back.”
During the tour, we had the opportunity to get up close and personal with The Beast, and here’s a little of what we saw.
The tour was designed as more of a “self-guided” tour, where the entirety of Coasterstock had the opportunity to explore the area at their own pace. There were Kings Island associates keeping people out of restricted areas or from going too far into the woods, but within reason, you were able to get right up to The Beast.
Seriously, you could touch the supports if you really wanted to.
A unique angle of The Beast’s lift hill. But you know what they say…what goes up…
Must come down. The Beast’s first drop is at a 45-degree angle, before dipping into a tunnel and heading out into the woods by way of a banked curve.
It’s ridiculous such a colossal coaster was designed without the use of calculators or computers.
Cost to build the Beast: $3.8 million dollars.
During construction, they tried to save every tree and it shows.
The coaster then takes another drop before venturing further into the woods! After winding through the trees, riders ascend a second lift-hill, and then descend into the coaster’s signature double helix finale. If you’ve ridden The Beast, you know what we’re talking about.
Oh yeah, we got to go inside that signature helix.
It was crazy the amount of wood and supports that were used to construct The Beast.
Forty years later and it’s still the world’s longest wooden roller coaster.
Listen to the roar of the Beast:
For more information on The Beast, be sure to visit Kings Island’s website!
I waited in line 4 in a half hrs once in 1998 to ride it.
I’m a retired engineer for WKRC-TV. I & another engineer were at the park a few weeks before it opened in the spring of 1979. We were installing some microwave equipment in the machinery room at the top of the Eiffel tower that was used for live TV broadcasts during the season. While we were working, we noticed they were testing the new coaster on the far side of the park.
Our work completed, we walked to the coaster to have a look and were quickly invited to have a ride. They took the sand bags out of the front row and latched us in. After we were seated and locked, one of them told us to pay attention to the ride quality in certain areas and report our impressions.
When we were hanging down over top the first lift hill waiting for the last car to clear the lift chain, quick mental calculations of the size and angle of the 1st hole in the ground at the bottom introduced some serious questions. We both instinctively ducked even though the hole did prove to be big enough.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience that we repeated several times before we got out. We had noticed an area where the the car was banging quite hard on the transitions and became quite harsh. That area, between the the lift hills, had a braking system installed before the park opened to slow the train down a few miles per hour at that point to improve the ride quality.
So, in addition to being among the first riders of The Beast we also rode it faster than the millions who have ridden it since.
I am so jealous. The Beast is my all time favorite roller coaster. I bet that first ride was closer to 70 mph!