Breaking news out of Dollywood — the theme park today announced that Lightning Rod’s launched lift hill will be converted to a “high-speed chain lift” for the 2024 season. The wood-steel hybrid Rocky Mountain Construction (RMC) coaster will also receive a new set of trains as part of the conversion.
Lightning Rod will close at the end of the park’s Harvest Festival on October 30 and will remain closed for the remainder of the 2023 season for the conversion to be made. The coaster is slated to reopen in the spring of 2024.
The Lightning Rod page on the Dollywood website reads:
“To provide guests with a more consistent and efficient ride experience, Lightning Rod will close for the season on Oct. 30 for crews to install a variable frequency chain lift in place of its linear synchronous motor (LSM) launch system. Despite the removal of the launch system, once the coaster trains reach the first drop, the ride experience will remain the same as it is currently. The ride is scheduled to reopen spring 2024.”
In a video accompanying the announcement, Dollywood’s vice president of marketing and public relations Pete Owens joined The Dollywood Company president Eugene Naughton to discuss specifics of Lightning Rod’s conversion to a chain lift.
“I know a lot of you have been frustrated through the years that you haven’t had an opportunity to be able to ride the ride because of varying reasons,” Owens said.
“We were very aggressive when we built the ride, putting a launch system on a wood coaster — which nobody had ever done before. And I think we kind of found out why.”
“We’ve been studying these engineering changes for a few years now since my arrival to Dollywood Parks and Resorts, and we’re really looking forward to a change this fall.,” Naughton revealed.
“The great part about it… (1) it will drive uptime… (2) when you pop over that hill at 13 mph, it will be almost the same speed chain versus launch, and the ride home is going to be exactly the same.”
Owens continued:
“This is going to be an opportunity for us to have a new look at what Lightning Rod is and it will be a little bit of a new feel. But the great thing is it’s still going to be out of control and the most wild ride you’ve ever been on at Dollywood.”
Dollywood announced Lightning Rod in August 2015. The coaster would open as the world’s fastest and only launched wooden coaster. But Lightning Rod was plagued with downtime in its first few seasons of operation — and that downtime has continued (to some degree) to the present day.
However, this is not the first major change Lightning Rod has undergone since it opened in 2016 as the world’s first launched wooden coaster.
In 2021, the park replaced high-stress sections of the coaster’s RMC wooden-style Topper Track with the company’s all-steel IBOX track. This made Lightning Rod a true hybrid coaster, combining wooden and steel track.
The diagram below illustrates traditional wooden track compared to RMC’s Topper Track and IBOX (Iron Horse) Track:
Read a review of the Lightning Rod with steel IBOX track here.
What are your thoughts on Lightning Rod’s launch being converted to a traditional chain lift? Let us know in the comments section below.
The launch is the best part of the ride. They reduced the speed from the original and now the chain. This may change our view of this being one of the best coasters in the world.
That’s cool but I’d rather have a functioning coaster than one that’s constantly down for maintenance.
I can’t believe it the launch was the best part of the ride. Won’t be the same, for me.
They should’ve opted to modify the launch section to be a complete steel structure and preserve the launch. I hope it is still fun with a chain lift.
Problem is with that is cost they are doing a traditional chain because it will be less maintenance and will cost the park way less. Verses if they modify the hill to all IBox steel will cost them more
This is the best coaster I have ever ridden! I hope the change doesn’t make a big difference. I do understand the down time. I don’t think I have ever been to the park, when it wasn’t down for part of the day.
Sad to see, but I think re-engineering the ride with the launch would have been cost prohibited. It would have leghened the launch by a couple hundred feet to make it more reliable, or cut the trains in half to reduce weight. Never seen water cooled magnets on a LSM coaster before this. The park is doing what is easiest for them in a “what is cheaper for the park.”
I feel like they could have figured out an efficient way to make the old launch better instead of taking down the whole lift. I would cost way less to figure out an efficient way for the launch.