The Smiler - General Discussion

Bert2theSpark said:

Just as an aside, they mentioned they had a film IP under consideration for SW8, my first thought was Jumanji as they used the same designer for the movie/ride posters. Then about 5 years later World of Jumanji came to fruition at Chessington.

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Speaking if SW8 had been a Jumanji IP if it is true that had been planned then, who's to say it might have replaced Congo River Rapids instead of the Flume? Ironically the jungle theme of Jumanji would have fitted in well into Katanga Canyon in contrast to the Wicker Man theme in a pirate theme area.

Honestly many rides over the years at Towers have had themes that clash with the rest of the area with Rita being the poster girl for this though Smiler can be this too for X-Sector and even if it's original concept art had been realised it would have stuck like a sore thumb even more in that area.

QTXAdsy said:

Speaking if SW8 had been a Jumanji IP if it is true that had been planned then, who's to say it might have replaced Congo River Rapids instead of the Flume? Ironically the jungle theme of Jumanji would have fitted in well into Katanga Canyon in contrast to the Wicker Man theme in a pirate theme area.

Honestly many rides over the years at Towers have had themes that clash with the rest of the area with Rita being the poster girl for this though Smiler can be this too for X-Sector and even if it's original concept art had been realised it would have stuck like a sore thumb even more in that area.

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Because the flume had been earmarked for removal for quite a while before it was demolished. Given the close proximity however, there is no reason a ride in the current SW8 site could not be incorporated into Katanga Canyon, with entrances and whatnot on the other side than where they are today.

Bert2theSpark said:

I’ve seen concept images before that also had an Arkham Asylum theme for SW7 as well, I can’t trace the source or confirm the validity of the images from the top of my head. But if they were real, you could see how The Smiler theme was derived from that concept art.

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I did not know that!

It’s funny, because I often wondered whether The Joker character had been an inspiration for The Smiler, due to the maniacal laughter, and the fact that Batman characters had inspired other rollercoasters overseas (including Nemesis’ predecessor at Six Flags Chicago), and so it wouldn’t surprise me if Arkham Asylum had led them down this path.

The_bup said:

I remember a family member bringing up a gripe they had with theme park rides, being “I get why were here, and the story is very interesting and all, but why are we on a rollercoaster?”, which I originally just responded to with suspension on disbelief. Now when I think about it, the concept of the coaster itself being a machine designed to do something is a novel idea we often ignore.

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I agree with your family member about that, as I have often wondered that myself; I specifically remember asking somebody as a child why we - as riders - would voluntarily choose to be tossed around by an octopus trying to eat us at Drayton Manor, and I suppose that you could ask this about any ride with 'sinister' theming.

The Smiler kind of solved that problem by breaking the fourth wall and making the riders themselves part of the theme itself - under the storyline pretence that the ride will be to our benefit.

The_bup said:

Mind, this is going to be a bit controversial, but does the general construction of Wicker Man remind anyone else of The Smiler? Big concrete pit with a kind of boring looking station building off to the side, with some grass, one big theming structure and a few posts with things written on them could apply to both. Obviously Wicker Man is just better thought out, allowing you to queue mostly around trees and grass, but does anyone else agree with the parallels here? Now I think about it, Merlin are the kings of station building and one big theming price setups, aren’t they?

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I remember hearing that part of the old log flume station was supposed to be kept as a smoke hut, but this idea was apparently abandoned, for some reason.

I'm not sure how much of a different it would have made to the overall queue-line, though!

I found it interesting that the WM queueline is in the shape of 'W' and 'M' initials, because surely nobody would ever be able to see this from above, anyway? (unless this was perhaps the intention, at one stage)

If you have random zig zag queues...and I hate Alton queues as there are no quiet day short cuts anymore...you tend to end up with a lot of w and m patterns.

Bert2theSpark said:

I’ve seen concept images before that also had an Arkham Asylum theme for SW7 as well, I can’t trace the source or confirm the validity of the images from the top of my head. But if they were real, you could see how The Smiler theme was derived from that concept art.

Just as an aside, they mentioned they had a film IP under consideration for SW8, my first thought was Jumanji as they used the same designer for the movie/ride posters. Then about 5 years later World of Jumanji came to fruition at Chessington.

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I'm not sure if it was around SW8’s time, but there were rumours of a stand-up coaster in KC years ago. Jumanji wouldn't have been so bad as an IP for that area.

Personally, though, I am happy that Merlin/Towers has always ended up with custom themes for Alton Towers SW projects. It’s what makes Alton Towers feel more special.

It’s a shame we don't know more about these shelved projects years later. It would make a cracking documentary, “The Lost Rides of Alton Towers”.

I remember watching an interview/documentary with John Wardley where he discussed the stand-up coaster idea for Katanga - it was discussed during the planning for SW7. One of the ideas they had was to install a couple of duelling indoor flat rides in the Black Hole tent, and then have a large scale stand-up coaster in KC which would go fairly deep underground.

The idea was shelved due to the huge forecasted expense of the project, and plans proceeded with building The Smiler.

John Wardley mentioned in his first book that there were a number of ideas considered for SW7, including a stand-up coaster, and a ride in which riders would somehow be inside a hamster ball rolling along a track! (This reminded me a bit of the shelved pipeline coaster concept)

I got the feeling that The Smiler was kind of a last-resort because they had run out of ideas (and time), and so they decided to simply break the inversion record instead (I was surprised that they did this, as it meant taking the record from Thorpe Park; perhaps they decided to do so because China had already tied the record by then anyway?).

[EDIT/UPDATE: John Wardley mentioned in his first book that Merlin decided against building a wing coaster at Alton Towers in 2013 as they didn't want to upstage The Swarm at Thorpe Park, but I found this strange given that The Smiler arguably did just that to Colossus!]

I think the Black Hole site was selected for the simple reason that it already had planning permission.

It makes you wonder whether SW7 would have been a wooden rollercoaster if the Merlin board had agreed to it - in which case, one wonders what (if anything) would have ended up replacing the log flume in 2018 ?

Secret Weapon said:

The thread / concept art also suggests that it was originally supposed to be a regular Eurofighter rather than an Infinity Coaster (with 8 seats per train instead of 16), but that this concept was scrapped - possibly because the beyond-vertical drop would have made Oblivion somewhat redundant!


From: https://www.reddit.com/r/altontowers/comments/1ijevh1/original_scrapped_concept_for_the_smiler/

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Just to hop back in on this discussion, it also just dawned on me why this image includes Eurofighter cars. I think the discussion on Reddit is somewhat misunderstanding what happened during The Smiler construction*.

The Smiler was the first Infinity Coaster, so when the plans were submitted, and it was clearly the same track type as the Eurofighter, everyone (I believe including the park and Gerstlauer) just discussed the ride as a new model of Eurofighter for quite a while.

This included enthusiasts raising concerns that the 2x4 cars of a Eurofighter would not provide enough capacity for a ride of this scale at Alton Towers. It wasn't until October 2012 that it became clear that the ride would feature trains to address capacity, and it wasn't until something like September 2013 before Gerstlauer coined the name for their new coaster model, several months after The Smiler had been operating.

So it wouldn't be accurate to say that The Smiler changed coaster model mid-construction - clearly the plans, as submitted to the council in 2011, were always designed to be an 'Infinity Coaster', but anyone outside the project wouldn't have known this, so an enthusiast could read it as a change having occurred.

So, basically, the image shared on Reddit would fit with a fan-made concept drawing based on what was known between Feb 2012 (when the clinical theme was released) and September 2012 - after that point it became clear that the trains and theme would be different to what the community had been expecting up to that point.

*someone getting the wrong end of the stick on a discussion forum? I know... shocking!

So just had a very unique experience (for me anyway!) Got stuck at the bottom of The Smiler vertical lift behind another train! Didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for the folk that thought it was about to crash into the train stuck on the lift…

This is going to be a fairly morbid question; How did they fix the smilers trains after the crash?

I think I can be quite confident that we’ve all seen the images of the trains after the incident, smashed in and all. But, of course we still have those trains running around today. So - did they have to order a whole new front and back car and fix up the damage for the other rows? Or did they just need to order new parts and kind of.. bend it back into shape a bit?

Alls just part of my curiosity, I suppose.

I assumed that at least the front railings were replaced, possibly the whole front car?

The_bup said:

This is going to be a fairly morbid question; How did they fix the smilers trains after the crash?

I think I can be quite confident that we’ve all seen the images of the trains after the incident, smashed in and all. But, of course we still have those trains running around today. So - did they have to order a whole new front and back car and fix up the damage for the other rows? Or did they just need to order new parts and kind of.. bend it back into shape a bit?

Alls just part of my curiosity, I suppose.

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Both trains from the accident were scrapped I believe?

They had one new one to replace the 2 that went, which is why they have 4 trains now as opposed to the original 5.

The_bup said:

This is going to be a fairly morbid question; How did they fix the smilers trains after the crash?

I think I can be quite confident that we’ve all seen the images of the trains after the incident, smashed in and all. But, of course we still have those trains running around today. So - did they have to order a whole new front and back car and fix up the damage for the other rows? Or did they just need to order new parts and kind of.. bend it back into shape a bit?

Alls just part of my curiosity, I suppose.

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I thought they had scrapped both of those trains that were involved, and bought 1 new train?

So The Smiler originally had 5 trains, but now only has 4, 3 original, and 1 replacement.

Is this correct?

Joel3 said:

I thought they had scrapped both of those trains that were involved, and bought 1 new train?

So The Smiler originally had 5 trains, but now only has 4, 3 original, and 1 replacement.

Is this correct?

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Yeah, I beleive that’s correct.

I assume the train that was carrying the passengers is kept somewhere, for some amount of time in case they need to re open any investigation.

AltonLover123 said:

Yeah, I beleive that’s correct.

I assume the train that was carrying the passengers is kept somewhere, for some amount of time in case they need to re open any investigation.

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Possible? There's a hanger somewhere that still has the remains of the Lockerbie 747.
Equally likely it's been melted down for scrap to stop some sick "thoosie" from nicking a keepsake.

It was in Buxton for lots of the work done for the investigation I believe.

I might have made this up in my head, but I always thought they used cars 1&2 from the front train and cars 3&4 from the back train to make the "4th" train . . .

But the more I think about it from a safety standpoint would they have actually done this?. . .would probably need alot of testing/jigging to make sure the chassis weren't warped after the impact the trains sustained.

Secret Weapon said:

1) Does anybody know whether the rumoured "washing machine" pre-ride spinning track was ever actually considered for The Smiler (see video below), or whether this was just pure speculation from fans online?

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I think/heard, and I've never seen it proven or admitted, that someone who was working on or had development access to the graphics for the marmaliser had seen the section that shows a vehicle being inverted in that way and thought that was what the ride would do, and leaked it to TT with the graphic as evidence, who ran with it as fact and then looked silly.

It turns out the graphic is just a representation of inversions rather than showing how the inversions occur

Burks said:

I might have made this up in my head, but I always thought they used cars 1&2 from the front train and cars 3&4 from the back train to make the "4th" train . . .

But the more I think about it from a safety standpoint would they have actually done this?. . .would probably need alot of testing/jigging to make sure the chassis weren't warped after the impact the trains sustained.

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I believe it was a brand new train. You can see which train it is as each seat has a number next to it and the old trains don’t.

Apologies again to bring something small up like I did over in the Galactica thread, but I forgot to mention something from my recent visit; has anyone else noticed the changes to both the Interior Queue and the Exit Corridor for The Smiler?
Since I last visited in 2024, they've:

• 'Removed' the strobe lights from the indoor queue section and replaced them with standard floodlights that are always on (don't have a picture of this sadly as by this point of the queue I've already put my phone away in my bag )
  • NOTE: I couldn't actually tell if the strobe lights had completely gone or were just not working (didn't see any obvious strobe fixtures is what I mean). I've also cross checked with photos from previous years, and these floodlights have always been here but usually switched off.

Image below is mine from 2024. The floodlight in the centre was *on* this visit and another one on the other side of the pillar, making the room brighter with no flashing.

• 'Added' new lights to the exit corridor that massively lighten it up; this unfortunately makes the projectors in the corridor pointless in my opinion (although they weren't always working anyway beforehand!)

Image below is of this weekend/Monday - I have a video as well but I haven't uploaded it!


In comparison, here is 2024....


You couldn't see anything before but it's bright as day in there now!

• I tried to see if these lights have always been here but my photos are way too dark! I did wonder if they could be emergency lights that someone forgot to switch off, however they were on for both days I visited so it seems unlikely the ride crew 'forgot' to turn the lights off for two days but rather a new operating procedure they now have to follow.

I feel a bit silly now for making such a long post for such a small thing that might not even be a new change (I looked back in the thread but didn't see any mention of this), so apologies in advance if this isn't worth mentioning