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[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

let’s do an audit.

It’s the 27th of Feb we do have a leap year but we have 63 days until the end of April, in that time….

1) They have to finish the actual track.

2) They have to wire up the various ride systems to the control unit (I am going to assume they have brought the power cable to the ride).

3) Load the trains onto the system.

4) Programme the ride

5) Build the queue

6) Finish building the shed sorry station.

7) install the airgates

8) Run the ride with enough cycles to pass ADIPS

9) Train staff

Genuinely if this ride opens in April then it has been rushed and we had that with the Smiler and I don’t think Merlin nor the UK theme park community want to see that again.
 
The huge crane is now onsite!

hyperia27thfeb2024-03.jpg


Work on building the top of structure for the first drop has begun!

hyperia27thfeb2024-04.jpg


Quite a lot was installed in one day.

hyperia27thfeb2024-14.jpg


Lots of supports are sat in front of the shop waiting to be installed

hyperia27thfeb2024-28.jpg


Slightly different angle to normal but it's good progress for one day!

hyperia27thfeb2024-31.jpg


Will it be finished this week? Not sure...

 
I think May seems like a slightly more feasible opening date, personally. I could maybe see the end of April as not being inconceivable with a good headwind (if everything goes right from here), but I admit that May is probably looking more likely. If they finish the track this week or next, then it would give them a solid 2 months to do everything else they need to do, which I don’t think is at all unattainable, personally.

For what it’s worth, I do remember seeing that they’d already installed the ride computer prior to the station finishing construction, so they may be further along electrically than some expect, but it is worth noting that the trains are not even on-site yet, so we need to wait for those to be on-site before we can even contemplate testing beginning.
 
let’s do an audit.

It’s the 27th of Feb we do have a leap year but we have 63 days until the end of April, in that time….

1) They have to finish the actual track.

2) They have to wire up the various ride systems to the control unit (I am going to assume they have brought the power cable to the ride).

3) Load the trains onto the system.

4) Programme the ride

5) Build the queue

6) Finish building the shed sorry station.

7) install the airgates

8) Run the ride with enough cycles to pass ADIPS

9) Train staff

Genuinely if this ride opens in April then it has been rushed and we had that with the Smiler and I don’t think Merlin nor the UK theme park community want to see that again.

I agree, I can’t see the commissioning process being done that quickly. I’ve seen parks really rush the commissioning process before, but I don’t think Merlin will want to go down that route.

Just the staff training is a big job. You’ve got the engineers to train and the ride operators to train. That includes the regular operations, but also fault finding and evacuations, with drills with different combinations of staff simulating how you would evacuate guests if it stops in different places.

In terms of the testing, it’s partly about the number of cycles, but also testing the ride in different ways, for example with water dummies loaded in different combinations, testing of the clearance envelope, testing of the stopping distances on brakes etc.

As you say, once the track's complete, there's still a lot of work to do.
 
Merlin did close the spa after all! I really hope they’re aspiring for Hyperia’s queue to be at least a little bit more appealing than the dreadful Smiler cattlepen arrangement
Hopefully more appealing than Nemesis new queue aswell. It looks so messy
 
Hey! Guess who got bored again :)

Sensors installed on first turn out of the station

hyperia28thfeb2024-20.jpg


More structure for the first drop being installed

hyperia28thfeb2024-30.jpg


hyperia28thfeb2024-39.jpg


Track delivered to the site ready to be installed

hyperia28thfeb2024-40.jpg


Looking good though :)

hyperia28thfeb2024-24.jpg


 
Just confirmed on the new map
 
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