Nemesis Reborn Development

Plans & Concepts

On 21st January 2022, the park submitted plans to the local council, regarding a plan to retrack Nemesis to extend the coaster's life long into the future. The plans submitted to Staffordshire Moorlands are not technically seeking planning permission, but rather a certificate of lawfulness for the work. The certification, which was passed on 23rd March 2021, is an agreement from the council that the work is classed maintenance of the existing structure, rather than a new development, and so will not need full planning permission.

The plans see the entire track replaced from the top of the lift hill right through to the break run, but there will be no significant changes to the coaster's design, beyond strengthening and extending some of the ride's foundations in the most intense parts of the course. The only significant variation from the existing structure will be that the supports will be now filled with sand, which was not a practice commonly used when the ride was originally built, but is now standard.

The original Nemesis closed at the end of the 2022 season, with a special event on Sunday 6th November, and is due to reopen in time for the ride's 30th birthday in 2024. In keeping with the ride's adopted story, the closure was announced as being by order of the Phalanx, the mysterious militia first introduced in the Nemesis Comic and later featured heavily in the plot of Nemesis:Sub-Terra. And whilst the ride will reopen with the same layout, we now know that it will receive some new theming elements when it reopens. The theme of the ride will remain that of an alien monster, pinned down within its pit, but the new version of the ride will have a striking new paint job with black track covered in red veins.

Construction

The original Nemesis closed on 6th November 2022 and work around the site began immediately, with the ride having been fenced off by the following, when the Run Alton Towers event took place. By the 23rd of November, the deconstruction of the ride was well underway, with the removal taking around two months. Other than the station, brakerun and lifthill, the rest of Nemesis had been removed by the 23rd January as the track made the short journey to a local scrapyard to be disposed of.

The new track was manufactured by Clermont Steel Fabricators in the USA, with the majority of the fabrication occurring before the end of the 2022 season. The track arrived on site on 26th April 2023 amidst much fanfare and a mini-marketing moment from the park, featuring the Phalanx escorting the track across the Staffordshire countryside.

26th April was a busy day around the Nemesis site with supports starting to go vertical ready for the track to begin installation the next day. A new Observation Platform also opened on a site neighbouring Nemesis: Sub-Terra, offering much clearer views across the site during the rest of the construction period. Sub-Terra itself reopened a month later on the 27th May, bolstering the ride line-up of Forbidden Valley and helping fill the gap left by Nemesis for the season.

In May work began in earnest to refurbish the station's theming. Much of the original monster has been retained and mainatined, but some significant sections of the the original theming has been removed, including many of the monster's tenticles and eye and it remains to be seen exactly how the beast will appear once work is complete. July saw scaffolding added to the lifthill and brakerun to begin the repaint of the remaining elements of the original ride.

Construction of the track continued at pace over summer and by the end of August the whole track had been erected except for the top of the first drop. The final track pieces arrived on the day after the 2023 season closed and the coaster is complete once again. 

Over the closed season, work got underway to refresh and prepare Forbidden Valley for the big reopening in 2024. A new shop is being built on the former site of Refresh@Ripsaw and most of the buildings in the area now sport a new black colour scheme. The coaster's new queueline has also been installed, which has now been rerouted to take guests around the top of the pit, using the old extended queueline.

The ride itself also began to receive new theming pieces, both in the queue line and around the station. Most notably, the old 'abandoned camp' which used to sit at the top of the pit overlooking the loop has now been replaced by a mini-helicopter, which is sure to add some fun new interactions as the coasters swings past.

For a more detailed timeline of progress as it happened, check out the dedicated thread in the TowersStreet forum.

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