Hey! Long-time leecher here who surprisingly has never posted a single built in my early years of building. The Netherlands is still in lockdown which is likely being extended, so when I stumbled upon my K'nex in the attic I wanted to give it another try.
This coaster is going to be a bit of twist; its designed after Vertigo in Walibi Belgium (https://rcdb.com/3457.htm), an experimental rollercoaster manufactured by ropeway manufacturer Doppelmayr that did not manage to live a long life in the park.
Whether I'll be able to make this work is to be seen, but it's keeping me busy so I can't complain too much about the technical challenge.
Starting out, after a bunch of revisions this is the cart I've settled on. There's two wheels connected with hinges to allow turning, and free swinging seats from the "Starburst Spinner" set that I figured would fit well for this purpose. The figures are also identical to the K'nex figures included in the Musical Ferris Wheel and Pirate Ship Park sets, so I have a whole bunch of full size figures to place around the station later which will fit in nicely
Major flex in the rails; at the time of building this test section I did not have a sufficient number of Classic>Micro connectors needed to build a spline. I do have them now. The bulk next to the tires is mainly there to allow a tire drive to push the cars along flat sections of track such as the station and brake runs.
So far I've built two tower bases (one of which is an upgraded version of the first) and started out the vertical elevator shaft.
And some detail shots of the elevator system I had in mind, the plan is to have 2 chain runs running on each side of the elevator with rods hanging in-between the runs to push the elevator carts up and down. Multiple of these rods will be used so that the cart will "hang" at the top for a second without having to stop the chain from running. Chain speed might be an issue with that plan though, we'll have to wait and see once its build!
That's it for now! Time to stow the boxes of K'nex away for the day and continue building in a couple of days