King’s Island News – The Beast Coaster Re-Opens Sunday May 8

As a child, I remember when “The Beast” first open and spent HOURS in line to ride this amazing coaster. After more than six months of re-tracking work, The Beast roller coaster is scheduled to re-open to Kings Island guests on Sunday, May 8. The 43-year-old wooden roller coaster has received more than 2,000 ft. of replacement track and a steeper first drop.In March, the amusement park announced that the longest wooden roller coaster in the world was getting longer. Thanks to the offseason work, the coaster grew from 7,359 ft. to 7,361 ft, and Sunday’s guests will have the first chance to ride it. More information is available on the park’s website.

1. By the time workmen had completed the massive Beast construction in March of 1979, they had used 650,000 board feet of southern pine lumber; 37,500 pounds of nails; 82,480 bolts and washers and 2,432 square yards of concrete.
2. The Beast has given more than 56 million rides since its debut in 1979 – third most in park history behind the Racer and K.I. & Miami Valley Railroad.
3. Each of The Beast trains have traveled more than 1,000,000 miles.
4. Record-breaking features include a 7,361-foot-long track (1.4 miles) and ride time of four minutes, 10-seconds; vertical drops of 137 feet (now at a 53-degree angle) and 141 feet (at an 18-degree angle); a 125-foot-long underground tunnel at the bottom of the 137-foot drop; eight banked turns, some to 45 degrees; a massive, 540-degree helix tunnel near the end and speeds up to 64.77 miles per hour.

5. Members of the Kings Island maintenance department walk every inch of The Beast track every morning before the park opens. It’s a nearly four-hour trip they start at 5 a.m.
6. The Beast has three tunnels: The first is 125 feet; the second is 269 feet and the third is 628 feet, for a total of 1,022 feet of darkness.
7. It cost $3.5 million to build The Beast from 1977 to 1979. It would cost over $20 million to re-create it today.
8. At 7,361 feet – The Beast is the longest wooden roller coaster in the world
9. The Beast was constructed in less than a year, after two years of research and design – all by Kings Island personnel. Al Collins and Jeff Gramke were the chief designers of the ride.
10. The original design was modified multiple times, so many times in fact that the finished product looked nothing like the one envisioned when the project began in 1976.
11. Coaster enthusiasts consider The Beast a “terrain coaster.” That refers to the way it follows the contours of the land, using the hills and gulley’s to add height to the ride.

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