Several people have proposed amusement parks and then we get an opportunity like this, it should be a no brainer for people to jump on.
Anyway, not being familiar with the Thunderbolt, I found some rather valuable images. It seems like people have made a hobby of recreating roller coasters virtually:
So when Jack talks about terrain, I think the main challenge is that there is a dip in the middle. For this to be recreated in a display, either the middle has to be lowered below the rest of the table or the ends have to be elevated.
If this were a stand-alone display then raising the ends would be simpler. For the purposes of creating a coaster that could be incorporated into a LEGO display, it almost seems like a special table would be needed so that the ends are at a level with everything else and the middle is depressed.
If I were building it, I think I would take measurements of Jack’s coaster model and try to create a virtual version with the ends elevated first. Then I would use what I learned from making that to determine how to create a special table for the coaster.
So Jack, to start, can you tell us what the overall length, width and height of the coaster would be in inches? Also do you have a sense of how far down the dip would go from say the start/end of the loop?