I was also a part of said tour, the photos already above mostly cover it, but here are a couple of my own to add to it.
First, my official"on-ride photo"
At first we just sat in the car, and they were like "Now, is that how you would look if you were riding a oaster?"
Then, the only other thing we were allowed to take photos of, the front door:
Yeah I know only coaster geeks would get excited about that front door.
As I alluded to, there were photo restrictions in place except for those two items.
The Gravity Grojup crew was very hospitable and it seemed as if almost nothing was off limits for discussion.
The room that also had the Test Car, also had the train that ran on Raven, and you could notice subtle differences in some of the cars. Or at least I did.
Towards the end of our tour, they gave us a close look at the bogies of one of the cars so we can see how the wheel assemlies are spring loaded and have some kind of shock on them. The ideais the train will hug the track, while still being able to flex, as opposed to the hunting and shuffling experienced on most wood coaster trains. Another advanage will be how open the bogie will be when its on the transfer track, they will be able to do a lot of maintenance without needlessly taking stuff apart.
They also had a bunch of different seat molds, lap bar molds scattered about the room. They mentioned the finished product will probably be slightly different than the car we tested out. For one there will be some kind of front railing ahead of the front seat. The other is the lap bar will have a grab handle on it. The test seat had hard seats but they said the real cars will have a plusher softer material. They also mentions there will be some tweaks to the seat mold in terms of the "wings" onthe sides of the cars will be reduced to create an even more open feeling car, as well as changes on the seat dividers.
It was mentioned that these will be "standard" on all future Gravity Group coasters, and they will then seek to target existing coasters to retrofit with their new trains. The trains use the standard track guage so should be able to be adapted to any ride out there.
They said they could not speak for Holiday World but they said it will require just minor changes to the Voyage station floor. When asked about the queue gates, thats when he said thats up to the park. Look at Beast, its been using gates for 4 bench cars for a long time with the three benchers. They can solve the problem with painted arrows on the floor, or they could totally redo the station, its up to them.
Fun Fact: They said this will be the first time since 1942 that nobody is opening a new wood coaster in the United States.
The tour also included a cursory tour of the office suite, a look at the model for the Splinter. They mentioned it takes conventional coaster cars about 24' to turn, and their cars can turn in 6'. They said just imagine a 90 degree turn with a 6' turning radius.
Everybody got a Gravity Group folder, and they had a multitude of collector "postcards" think baseball cards for coasters and you get the idea. Also while supplies lasted they had the Golden Ticket awards issues from the last three years of Amusement Today, and one IAAPA convention issue.
It was fun way to spend the afternoon during the off season.
