Skyscraper
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
Yep that's too far-fetched, even for meRandom tweet from AT...some are linking the OOs to RMC...
I love speculation
-
ℹ️ Heads up...
This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.
[202X] Project Horizon (SW9?): Planning Approved
- Thread starter Danscott22
- Start date
Benzin
TS Member
There does seem to be a strange obsession with bringing back old attractions, saw that with the Alty Mans development.
Might be because such attractions have that hit of nostalgia these days? Black Hole still exists (for now, its up for sale I believe) in Sweden. Get some headphones on with the old music, close your eyes and relive the experience that way.
Random tweet from AT...
I love speculation
Mine Train retrack CONFIRMED!
jon81uk
TS Member
coasterverse
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Taron
From reddit thread:
From: https://www.reddit.com/r/rollercoasters/comments/15ss9za/is_alton_towers_getting_an_rmc_coaster/
Could be just some classic RMC trolling though
I think we can all agree that RMC and Thorpe Park are the theme park goats of handling their social media platforms
Dobba
TS Member
"You've selected the National Rollercoaster Day video from John Burton. So, RMC, what could that mean? Obviously there's Rocky Mountain Construction, could this be a similar model to Fire in the Hole 2.0? On the horizon... very interesting. We know of course that the latest Alton Towers addition has been branded 'Project Horizon', could it be a reference to that? Unfortunately you're not taking the clue literally enough, where was this RMC clue placed? John was drinking from a branded silver travel mug. Travel? Sounds exciting, but it won't be exciting for the import handlers at Dover and you'll be left feeling like a silver mug because you've won a second hand Zamperla Volare!"Some of the logic being used here would put this guy to shame
Steve74
TS Member
Was going to mention Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin and 3-2-1 yesterday but thought better of it thinking that many on here may have to ask their grandparents who they were!!!Some of the logic being used here would put this guy to shame
For those who don't understand the connection with 3-2-1 and all this wishful thinking and logic, watch this
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckf_6GiLO1E
IF it is RMC doing this coaster, could the Horizon project name be referring to the fact that RMC coasters are notorious for twists and turns making the horizon near impossible to see? And/or its just a reference that in a building you cannot see the horizon?
Last edited:
The more I think about it, the less I think Horizon is going to be an RMC.
RMCs are stunning pieces of design and are relentless in pace and speed, so why would the company want their U.K’s first coaster to be hidden away in the dark in a warehouse?
Perhaps Horizon isn’t the large new scale ride a lot of us thought it would be and is indeed going to be more of a family filler coaster. But then the argument against this is why build from scratch on a brownfield site when you could just use the mothballed buildings in TWODW.
If an RMC is coming to AT, perhaps it’s for SW9 a few years after Horizon opens.
But yeah, to summarise, who knows. But all this speculation and reading everyone’s thoughts and opinions is great!
RMCs are stunning pieces of design and are relentless in pace and speed, so why would the company want their U.K’s first coaster to be hidden away in the dark in a warehouse?
Perhaps Horizon isn’t the large new scale ride a lot of us thought it would be and is indeed going to be more of a family filler coaster. But then the argument against this is why build from scratch on a brownfield site when you could just use the mothballed buildings in TWODW.
If an RMC is coming to AT, perhaps it’s for SW9 a few years after Horizon opens.
But yeah, to summarise, who knows. But all this speculation and reading everyone’s thoughts and opinions is great!
Archie
TS Member
what does mothballed mean?
I was referring to the unused buildings in The world of David walliams, the old 4D theatre/Tweenies/Barney show building etc. Mothballed means closing off something and just leaving it there in situ.
Danny
TS Contributor
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
Money. If a client is willing to pay them for one, why wouldn't they?
It's not as if they're sat over in the States twiddling their thumbs waiting for a UK park to order one of their usual balls to the wall products. If a park comes to them with a genuine order, whether that be a single rail, ibox thrill or family, they'll build it for the right price and providing they can fit it into their manufacturing schedule.
Poisson
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Giant Squid
Manufacturers can and will announce models before an order has been placed as well as after an order has been placed. RMC can announce a single rail suspended coaster, doesn't mean anyone has ordered one. At this stage, I doubt anyone is going to announce anything this side of Nemesis reopening, RMC or not, for Horizon.
Archie
TS Member
Didn't they announce that T-rex as a large single rail design, that hasn't been built yet
Parabolic Curve
TS Member
First time poster and a few thoughts.
Does the picture look like an indoor family coaster that uses T-Rex track ? Yes
Does the size of the lift hill look like it would generate enough momentum to propel a train around the amount of track you could fit in that big tin shed ? No, a sub 20m lift hill with a 30 degree slope might cover 400-500m of track at a push. The shed can easily hold a lot more track than that. Using multiple lift hills can't be ruled out though.
Would an indoor coaster have light blue and blue track with bare steel supports ? No It will be all black, because it doesn't make sense to put a coaster indoors and not turn the lights off, rendering the colours immaterial. Then again, this is just a design picture and not a final product.
The suggestion that this was a somewhat unexpected rush job would seem to rule out a long term plan like the Horizon project, unless RMC are alluding to unexpected changes to an existing plan.
Would it be incredibly bad form for John Burton to reveal that the maker of the coaster is RMC in an interview when John Wardley appears to be the person actually working on this coaster ? Absolutely
Something being on the loose would appear to suggest that we are talking about a moose, note the two distinct pupils in the two OO's. Recent announcements have linked Six Flags to a surprising pivot that revolves around increasing yearly spending to $200m that will include new coasters. Spruce the Moose happens to be the leader of the Timbertown gang at the Six Flags Great Escape park in New York and the leaf is also the symbol for New York Parks. So that is my WILD Dusty Bin guess at what this coaster is and where it is going. A family coaster with T-Rex track for Great Escape or just a new model since nobody has bought their family I-BOX offerings, which looked interesting to me.
So if the interview is an ill conceived wind up then what could the coaster actually be ?
Personally, I can't see it being an Intamin Multi Dimension Coaster, which up until this point seemed to be the favourite horse in the race.
The rumoured budget for Project Horizon is £12.5m and I don't think that amount is anywhere near enough to cover the potential cost. Uncharted reputedly cost Portaventura £21.5m to build so it is hard to imagine Alton Towers constructing a similar coaster for almost half of that amount.
The Uncharted coaster was probably planned and priced quite a few years ago. The price of steel has gone up significantly in the past couple of years reducing what a park can get for their money. Alton Towers is also a UK park and Intamin are based in Liechtenstein. That is important. A European park like Portaventura can buy a coaster from a European supplier like Intamin and they don't have to pay any import tax. Alton Towers will have to pay 20% on any coaster bought outside of the UK thanks to Brexit, which once again reduces what they can get for their budget.
As a working ( and completely made up ) costing example we could consider the following figures.
Cost of Coaster is £8m
50 Shipping Containers to transport the coaster ( 4000 x 50 = 200,000 )
Total cost of delivered coaster ( included tax on coaster and transport costs ) is roughly 9.8m
Then the foundations for the building have to be paid for and a steel frame building constructed. The purchase of a coaster only includes the coaster itself, so the park then has to pay for all of the things needed to make it work, like the air gates, maintenance bay, electricity supply point, shop and so on.
A steel frame building with 12-13m high eaves usually runs £200 to £300 per square meter, including the frame, floors, walls, insulation, roof, fire protection points and so on. The taller a building is the more steel is used in its construction and the more substantial ( and expensive ) the foundations will need to be to support it. The proposed building appears to be roughly 71m in length, 46 meters in width and 19.4 meters in height, for a square meter footprint of 3266 square meters.
If we guesstimate £100 per square meter for the foundations and another £200 per square meter for the building that would generate a total cost of about £1m. That figure seems about right to me and it doesn't include the final fit detailing. We are talking about a very big and very tall tin shed here.
So we are now at £10.8m and we still have to pay for the air gates and all of the other stuff. On top of that we also have to pay for the thematic elements, which can be very expensive. Unfortunately the thematic companies like Universal Rocks don't work for gravel. Fortunately, the lights will be off so the themed elements won't be as substantial as an outdoor coaster. Still, add in all of the lights, computer control systems, fire safety equipment, shop fittings and I could see another £1m being spent quite easily.
That brings us up to £11.8m and I haven't included all of the expensive labour costs associated with building the totality of the required infrastructure and the construction of the coaster itself. £12.5m doesn't stretch very far when it comes to roller coasters. Now it could be that the rumoured figure is just for the coaster itself, but even that wouldn't put enough cash in the pot to cover the cost of an expensive coaster like a Multi Dimension Coaster of significant size with multiple trains to support a reasonable through put.
So, what else could it possibly be. I also doubt that it will be an Intamin Family Spinning coaster like Objectif Mars at Futuroscope. The rumoured cost of that coaster was about £19m which is still way in excess of £12.5m. More importantly that coaster suffered an alarming accident in April of this year when one of the lithium batteries powering the spinning function burst into flames. Luckily the train was in the station and the fire was quickly put out, with the riders only suffering minor burns. Had the train been out on the track then things would have been far worse. I really can't imagine Health and Safety Inspectors approving this type of coaster for use in a dark and totally enclosed space until Intamin have ironed out all the kinks.
John Wardley mentioned impressive new technology being part of the project, so what else could it be ?
Given the price constraints a single rail coaster would seem to be the most likely answer. Naturally, this brings RMC into consideration along with a couple of other companies.
First up is Skyline attractions. Alton Towers have worked with them before on the Wicker Man. GCI built the coaster but the Skyline team helped to design the track layout. Interestingly, they also offer a coaster model called Horizon which uses a single rail. The first model, Tidal Twister at Sea World, is known to be very problematic. It sounds like someone shaking bolts in a tin can, is always down with maintenance problems, wheel changes take an eternity because the entire assembly has to be taken off to complete the replacement and the throughput with the wonky loading is awful.
The only other coaster they have sold to date was the Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster which was so bad that Six flags quietly shipped it off the scrap yard after one year of operation. RMC fabricated all the track for the Harley Quinn Coaster, but not the train. The Skywarp monorail track used by the Harley Quinn Coaster was a smaller version of the T-Rex track; larger than the Raptor track and welded not bolted.
Learning from their expensive mistakes ( paid for by the parks that bought their first two coasters ) their new Orbit, Horizon and Skywarp coaster offerings now have bolted track ( the Titan Track that Skyline developed in conjunction with GCI ) and trains that sit a lot lower down on this track.
Dealing with a company that has already shipped two expensive failures would appear to be a risky and daunting proposal. However, Skyline can certainly design good track layouts and some of their new coasters look interesting. I'm thinking of their P' Sghetti Bowl family and Trail Runner Coasters here. Both of these coasters run with dual seat trains instead of the single seat trains like the RMC Raptors which gives them a big advantage in terms of through put. The graphic and lighting packs that can be added to their Aurora track are also intriguing, especially for an indoor coaster with an emphasis on lighting elements.
Using a duelling format would also boost the potential through put to a figure that would no doubt satisfy John Wardley. Sadly the through put issue doesn't seem to a factor worthy of consideration by John Burton, which resulted in the Mandril Monorail Coaster and its extensive list of questionable design decisions.
The awful through put associated with that coaster is something that any reasonable person would condemn from a design perspective. Chessington needed a coaster with substantial through put to carry the load now and when Vampire is removed or down for a re-track. Alternatively, when called to comment, a person would exercise some diplomacy and simply draw attention to it as a possible design flaw that needs to be considered, opening the door for others to freely discuss it.
Oh Chessington, after waiting so long you deserved so much more than what you got.
Hopefully it will be a long time before John Burton is allowed to design another coaster, but sadly I don't think it will be. It seems like the new Lego overlords are eager to fund creative mediocrity and ill conceived designs. However, he does seem to be extremely good with the media and a dab hand at charming influencers and enthusiasts. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.
For me the big strike against an RMC Raptor is though put. The single rider cars on the trains simply can't accommodate enough people for a ride in a park like Alton Towers. Even if a duelling format is used for the track layout that might only support 800 riders per hour.
However, the big advantage of single rail coasters is that they can make extremely sharp turns and you can fit a lot of track in a small area. Perfect for an indoor coaster. That might just be enough to create a regular layout that could work with three trains, giving a throughput of 1200.
The other big advantage is that single rail coasters require fewer supports meaning they cost less and they weigh less which means less money spent on the coaster and the foundations.
RMC are certainly a possibility, given a creative layout, but I'm inclined to think not.
So, job done, I'm betting on a single rail coaster by Skyline Attractions. That will tick the impressive new technology box and fit into the rumoured price bracket. One of their P' Sghetti coasters with a sizeable duelling track layout will also generate the required through put. It will also be able to tick any number of world first boxes. The first completely enclosed indoor duelling coaster in the world, the coaster with the most duelling elements in the world and so on.
Except, I'm not making that bet, because doing that would ignore Intamin and their Hot racer line of coasters. Looking back towards Intamin we can't ignore the Big Dipper at Luna Park in Australia and how good it looks, By all accounts it can be a little rickety in spots ( the drive tyres operating for both propulsion and breaking is a bit of a concern ), but the way that it delivers so much ride in so small a space is very impressive. It has a ride height limit of 1.32m which could probably be lower if the loop was removed.
Casting a wider look at the Hot Racer line reveals the Infinity and Overdrive layouts, both of which are single track duelling coasters. The Overdrive layout it is 1057m in length with a maximum track height of 15m and through put of 810 riders per hour. Add in a narrative element mid ride to stretch things out ( like the drop element does on Thirteen ) or a bit of extra track and 1200 capacity doesn't seem entirely out of the question. I can't see Alton Towers going with a stock layout so anything is possible.
The only sticking point is price. Intamin coasters aren't cheap. Luna Park paid £15m for all the work they did in their extensive update, but that was the cost of everything and it included eight other thrill rides ( including two other coasters ). That could make £8m a squeeze, but I think it is a real possibility.
So I'm going with a single rail duelling coaster by Intamin. The previous two failed coasters by Skyline attractions are a worry and their wider Titan track would be far less accommodating for a tight space like an indoor coaster, even an indoor family/thrill coaster that is housed in a huge tin shed. RMC are in the mix as a wild card.
In terms of theme the obvious candidate would be something intergalactic. An indoor duelling track layout would fit well with spaceships, possibly a hero train vs a villainous train.
Personally, I would have preferred paying tribute to John Wardley with a Circus theme, something more along the lines of Madagascar Mad Pursuit at Motiongate. Alternatively, drawing inspiration from rides like CanCan Coaster at Europa Park or Laff Trakk at Hersheypark.
Whatever the theme turns out to be, I think the chance of it involving a crudely stitched together tapestry of creative ideas that have been directly copied from rides in other parks will be very high.
Does the picture look like an indoor family coaster that uses T-Rex track ? Yes
Does the size of the lift hill look like it would generate enough momentum to propel a train around the amount of track you could fit in that big tin shed ? No, a sub 20m lift hill with a 30 degree slope might cover 400-500m of track at a push. The shed can easily hold a lot more track than that. Using multiple lift hills can't be ruled out though.
Would an indoor coaster have light blue and blue track with bare steel supports ? No It will be all black, because it doesn't make sense to put a coaster indoors and not turn the lights off, rendering the colours immaterial. Then again, this is just a design picture and not a final product.
The suggestion that this was a somewhat unexpected rush job would seem to rule out a long term plan like the Horizon project, unless RMC are alluding to unexpected changes to an existing plan.
Would it be incredibly bad form for John Burton to reveal that the maker of the coaster is RMC in an interview when John Wardley appears to be the person actually working on this coaster ? Absolutely
Something being on the loose would appear to suggest that we are talking about a moose, note the two distinct pupils in the two OO's. Recent announcements have linked Six Flags to a surprising pivot that revolves around increasing yearly spending to $200m that will include new coasters. Spruce the Moose happens to be the leader of the Timbertown gang at the Six Flags Great Escape park in New York and the leaf is also the symbol for New York Parks. So that is my WILD Dusty Bin guess at what this coaster is and where it is going. A family coaster with T-Rex track for Great Escape or just a new model since nobody has bought their family I-BOX offerings, which looked interesting to me.
So if the interview is an ill conceived wind up then what could the coaster actually be ?
Personally, I can't see it being an Intamin Multi Dimension Coaster, which up until this point seemed to be the favourite horse in the race.
The rumoured budget for Project Horizon is £12.5m and I don't think that amount is anywhere near enough to cover the potential cost. Uncharted reputedly cost Portaventura £21.5m to build so it is hard to imagine Alton Towers constructing a similar coaster for almost half of that amount.
The Uncharted coaster was probably planned and priced quite a few years ago. The price of steel has gone up significantly in the past couple of years reducing what a park can get for their money. Alton Towers is also a UK park and Intamin are based in Liechtenstein. That is important. A European park like Portaventura can buy a coaster from a European supplier like Intamin and they don't have to pay any import tax. Alton Towers will have to pay 20% on any coaster bought outside of the UK thanks to Brexit, which once again reduces what they can get for their budget.
As a working ( and completely made up ) costing example we could consider the following figures.
Cost of Coaster is £8m
50 Shipping Containers to transport the coaster ( 4000 x 50 = 200,000 )
Total cost of delivered coaster ( included tax on coaster and transport costs ) is roughly 9.8m
Then the foundations for the building have to be paid for and a steel frame building constructed. The purchase of a coaster only includes the coaster itself, so the park then has to pay for all of the things needed to make it work, like the air gates, maintenance bay, electricity supply point, shop and so on.
A steel frame building with 12-13m high eaves usually runs £200 to £300 per square meter, including the frame, floors, walls, insulation, roof, fire protection points and so on. The taller a building is the more steel is used in its construction and the more substantial ( and expensive ) the foundations will need to be to support it. The proposed building appears to be roughly 71m in length, 46 meters in width and 19.4 meters in height, for a square meter footprint of 3266 square meters.
If we guesstimate £100 per square meter for the foundations and another £200 per square meter for the building that would generate a total cost of about £1m. That figure seems about right to me and it doesn't include the final fit detailing. We are talking about a very big and very tall tin shed here.
So we are now at £10.8m and we still have to pay for the air gates and all of the other stuff. On top of that we also have to pay for the thematic elements, which can be very expensive. Unfortunately the thematic companies like Universal Rocks don't work for gravel. Fortunately, the lights will be off so the themed elements won't be as substantial as an outdoor coaster. Still, add in all of the lights, computer control systems, fire safety equipment, shop fittings and I could see another £1m being spent quite easily.
That brings us up to £11.8m and I haven't included all of the expensive labour costs associated with building the totality of the required infrastructure and the construction of the coaster itself. £12.5m doesn't stretch very far when it comes to roller coasters. Now it could be that the rumoured figure is just for the coaster itself, but even that wouldn't put enough cash in the pot to cover the cost of an expensive coaster like a Multi Dimension Coaster of significant size with multiple trains to support a reasonable through put.
So, what else could it possibly be. I also doubt that it will be an Intamin Family Spinning coaster like Objectif Mars at Futuroscope. The rumoured cost of that coaster was about £19m which is still way in excess of £12.5m. More importantly that coaster suffered an alarming accident in April of this year when one of the lithium batteries powering the spinning function burst into flames. Luckily the train was in the station and the fire was quickly put out, with the riders only suffering minor burns. Had the train been out on the track then things would have been far worse. I really can't imagine Health and Safety Inspectors approving this type of coaster for use in a dark and totally enclosed space until Intamin have ironed out all the kinks.
John Wardley mentioned impressive new technology being part of the project, so what else could it be ?
Given the price constraints a single rail coaster would seem to be the most likely answer. Naturally, this brings RMC into consideration along with a couple of other companies.
First up is Skyline attractions. Alton Towers have worked with them before on the Wicker Man. GCI built the coaster but the Skyline team helped to design the track layout. Interestingly, they also offer a coaster model called Horizon which uses a single rail. The first model, Tidal Twister at Sea World, is known to be very problematic. It sounds like someone shaking bolts in a tin can, is always down with maintenance problems, wheel changes take an eternity because the entire assembly has to be taken off to complete the replacement and the throughput with the wonky loading is awful.
The only other coaster they have sold to date was the Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster which was so bad that Six flags quietly shipped it off the scrap yard after one year of operation. RMC fabricated all the track for the Harley Quinn Coaster, but not the train. The Skywarp monorail track used by the Harley Quinn Coaster was a smaller version of the T-Rex track; larger than the Raptor track and welded not bolted.
Learning from their expensive mistakes ( paid for by the parks that bought their first two coasters ) their new Orbit, Horizon and Skywarp coaster offerings now have bolted track ( the Titan Track that Skyline developed in conjunction with GCI ) and trains that sit a lot lower down on this track.
Dealing with a company that has already shipped two expensive failures would appear to be a risky and daunting proposal. However, Skyline can certainly design good track layouts and some of their new coasters look interesting. I'm thinking of their P' Sghetti Bowl family and Trail Runner Coasters here. Both of these coasters run with dual seat trains instead of the single seat trains like the RMC Raptors which gives them a big advantage in terms of through put. The graphic and lighting packs that can be added to their Aurora track are also intriguing, especially for an indoor coaster with an emphasis on lighting elements.
Using a duelling format would also boost the potential through put to a figure that would no doubt satisfy John Wardley. Sadly the through put issue doesn't seem to a factor worthy of consideration by John Burton, which resulted in the Mandril Monorail Coaster and its extensive list of questionable design decisions.
The awful through put associated with that coaster is something that any reasonable person would condemn from a design perspective. Chessington needed a coaster with substantial through put to carry the load now and when Vampire is removed or down for a re-track. Alternatively, when called to comment, a person would exercise some diplomacy and simply draw attention to it as a possible design flaw that needs to be considered, opening the door for others to freely discuss it.
Oh Chessington, after waiting so long you deserved so much more than what you got.
Hopefully it will be a long time before John Burton is allowed to design another coaster, but sadly I don't think it will be. It seems like the new Lego overlords are eager to fund creative mediocrity and ill conceived designs. However, he does seem to be extremely good with the media and a dab hand at charming influencers and enthusiasts. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.
For me the big strike against an RMC Raptor is though put. The single rider cars on the trains simply can't accommodate enough people for a ride in a park like Alton Towers. Even if a duelling format is used for the track layout that might only support 800 riders per hour.
However, the big advantage of single rail coasters is that they can make extremely sharp turns and you can fit a lot of track in a small area. Perfect for an indoor coaster. That might just be enough to create a regular layout that could work with three trains, giving a throughput of 1200.
The other big advantage is that single rail coasters require fewer supports meaning they cost less and they weigh less which means less money spent on the coaster and the foundations.
RMC are certainly a possibility, given a creative layout, but I'm inclined to think not.
So, job done, I'm betting on a single rail coaster by Skyline Attractions. That will tick the impressive new technology box and fit into the rumoured price bracket. One of their P' Sghetti coasters with a sizeable duelling track layout will also generate the required through put. It will also be able to tick any number of world first boxes. The first completely enclosed indoor duelling coaster in the world, the coaster with the most duelling elements in the world and so on.
Except, I'm not making that bet, because doing that would ignore Intamin and their Hot racer line of coasters. Looking back towards Intamin we can't ignore the Big Dipper at Luna Park in Australia and how good it looks, By all accounts it can be a little rickety in spots ( the drive tyres operating for both propulsion and breaking is a bit of a concern ), but the way that it delivers so much ride in so small a space is very impressive. It has a ride height limit of 1.32m which could probably be lower if the loop was removed.
Casting a wider look at the Hot Racer line reveals the Infinity and Overdrive layouts, both of which are single track duelling coasters. The Overdrive layout it is 1057m in length with a maximum track height of 15m and through put of 810 riders per hour. Add in a narrative element mid ride to stretch things out ( like the drop element does on Thirteen ) or a bit of extra track and 1200 capacity doesn't seem entirely out of the question. I can't see Alton Towers going with a stock layout so anything is possible.
The only sticking point is price. Intamin coasters aren't cheap. Luna Park paid £15m for all the work they did in their extensive update, but that was the cost of everything and it included eight other thrill rides ( including two other coasters ). That could make £8m a squeeze, but I think it is a real possibility.
So I'm going with a single rail duelling coaster by Intamin. The previous two failed coasters by Skyline attractions are a worry and their wider Titan track would be far less accommodating for a tight space like an indoor coaster, even an indoor family/thrill coaster that is housed in a huge tin shed. RMC are in the mix as a wild card.
In terms of theme the obvious candidate would be something intergalactic. An indoor duelling track layout would fit well with spaceships, possibly a hero train vs a villainous train.
Personally, I would have preferred paying tribute to John Wardley with a Circus theme, something more along the lines of Madagascar Mad Pursuit at Motiongate. Alternatively, drawing inspiration from rides like CanCan Coaster at Europa Park or Laff Trakk at Hersheypark.
Whatever the theme turns out to be, I think the chance of it involving a crudely stitched together tapestry of creative ideas that have been directly copied from rides in other parks will be very high.
Archie
TS Member
at that point it would just be easier to put it outside if you wanted a ''light ride'' if you will, one of the reasons placing a ride in a show building in the dark is to remove the sense of scale and orientation to make a coaster feel faster, larger and more intense than it would have otherwise been outdoors
taking the old black hole for example, a standard old Schwarzkopf jet-star, but putting it in complete darkness improved the ride experience by giving it the edge of you not knowing where the track was going or giving you any reference points to judge your speed or height, making it more intense
Last edited:
deanW
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Oblivion
I always think of Ready Mix Concrete when I see RMCI think we all secretly know that Ready Mix Concrete have re-entered the theme park industry through providing specialist indoor coaster cement and themed sponsorships.
Alsty
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Fury 325
That might not be the brief. It might be targeted as a family thrill ride.
Arthur is an example of an indoor attraction that is not in the dark. It has many scenes that you traverse through.
Steve74
TS Member
Ironically, RMC owned the quarry that Thorpe Park is built on and for a time in the 90s, they actually owned Thorpe Park. I remember this because while I was at college I used to work for a DIY Chain called Great Mills who were also owned by RMC and we were always offered discounted tickets to the park. Never went though, preferred Towers. Naturally.I always think of Ready Mix Concrete when I see RMC