I have no desire to pointlessly be on the last train out on old Nemesis. But if I wasn't working on Sunday, I'd definitely be there for the final day. I said goodbye to it last Tuesday with a couple of rides with my son. It's his favourite coaster in the world. He rode it the first time 2 years ago and got off of Black Mamba in June this year and said "it's no Nemesis" on the brake run and didn't bother to go on it again for the rest of our trip.
This is how much this coaster means to people. I first rode it when I was his age a few months after it had opened in 1994, only weeks before our second flight out to Florida in the pre Montu days when Kumba was brand spanking new (I loved Kumba and rode it 5 times back to back on 94). I didn't ride anything in Florida in 1993 or in 1994 that was any better than Nemesis. Although the world has moved on from both Nemesis and Alton (which is basically only a glorified regional park these days), I hope I never forget how it felt to have a park up the road in Staffordshire that had a genuinely world class ride experience right there.
Now, a son I never even thought I would have back in 94, with a wonderful woman I never even knew existed at the time, enjoys this coaster as much as I do. There's no rivers of blood anymore, the pit looks the pits, there's holes in the station monster façade and the track has fake rust painted on it for some bizarre reason (but importantly, not in the bits you can see from the queue line). But that awesome roar, getting smashed over those inversions and feeling the positive g's of that downwards helix are all still there.
It won't feel much like Alton Towers next year without it. I'll never hear that roar in real life again (sometimes heard all the way from the Enchanted Village), the rivers of blood will most likely never be seen again, the pit will probably still be covered in slime and weeds. I know it's a like for like track replacement and it'll still be great but I just feel that this really does finally close the book of an important era in the parks history. An era when Alton Towers genuinely was a fledgling world class park with aspirations to build world class attractions. Now the top end of what they seem to aim for is a tiny (albeit mostly fantastically themed) woodie, a Gerstlauer in a rectangular concrete pit, garish fun fair flats (again) accompanied with cheesy American rock ballads, standardised 10-4 opening days and lashings of brightly coloured paint being classed as rethemes.