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[202X] Project Horizon (SW9?): Planning Approved

Alastair said:
Unfortunately if there isn't a gargantuan number of trains and blocks, the capacity for a single-rail is going to be surely far too low for a park like Towers. Only 8 people per train and most of the current models only have 3 max trains!
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George W said:
Absolutely could be anything, thought might be a possibility but I'm not sure if there would be enough space and if it would be sufficient capacity wise.
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The capacity could go higher than that. Jersey Devil and Wonder Woman Flight of Courage have 12-rider trains rather than 8, and I know that SFGAdv cited 960pph as Jersey Devil’s theoretical throughput and 864pph as its minimum target throughput. If this was built, it would be far from Towers’ lowest coaster throughput; even the lower 864pph figure would comfortably beat both Rita and Smiler! And of course, Towers could do some magical capacity enhancing measures like dual stations, loads of blocks, and other things!

I don’t think this will be an RMC myself, though. I personally suspect that it will be something a bit more family-orientated, or at very least something with greater universal appeal, as the universal family market is a market that the park are often described as lacking in rides for in comparison to the young children’s market and the older thrillseeker market.
 
Before we get too carried away with what SW9 might be, it's worth remembering that making a coaster small enough to fit inside a building whilst still offering a good ride experience is a difficult task and rules out a lot of rides. All RMC single rail coasters built to date are over 100ft tall which isn't going to be on the cards here.

If SW9 is indeed an indoor coaster I think something like a Gerst Bob would be a reasonable benchmark in terms of scale.
 
I personally think it could be something more family-orientated that lends itself to being a dark ride.

For instance, something like a Mack Inverted Powered Coaster (e.g. Arthur) might fit the bill.

If the park didn’t already have one, I would also suggest an Intamin Multi Dimensional Coaster; since Thirteen was built, the model has advanced quite considerably, and it can now be quite dark ride focused, with a considerable number of trick tracks offered as well as controlled spinning in a similar style to GOTG at Epcot.

Or perhaps a Vekoma Sausalito? I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney have some sort of exclusivity rights to the model for a period, but if they don’t, then I reckon one could quite easily be made into an indoor coaster for Towers.

That is if it’s a roller coaster at all; it could well be a dark ride, in which case I’d suspect either a trackless or an Oceaneering EVO-6, similar to Jumanji at Gardaland and the Justice League rides. Or maybe a flying theatre could work?

There are a considerable number of options out there, whether the ride is a coaster or not!
 
Danscott22 said:
Remember we don't yet know how big the building is either. I think everyone has their ideas, it may be bigger than some people were expecting, or smaller than some people were expecting!
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That’s a good point, but it is a pretty sizeable area for an indoor attraction, so I’m inclined to dream big!

The fact that they’re doing a full-blown consultation for it also leads me to believe that it could be fairly major, although admittedly that could just as likely be due to its location in Coaster Corner.
 
I’m still hoping for an indoor water coaster, but water coaster track is quite wide and cumbersome, so may not be the best option for an indoor ride. Plus from watching POVs, the coaster sections are somewhat uninspired so if this is SW9, it would have to knock the current water coasters out the park.
 
George W said:
Imo it would be nice to have a new indoor attraction that appeals to nearly all ages and it being indoor meaning you can ride it no issues in almost any weather, water ride is kinda defeating the point no?

Having said that I've never ridden Valhalla so I don't know what I'm missing out on really
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That was my thought as well. I could be missing something here, but to me, building an indoor water ride would negate many of the positives of building an indoor attraction.

With that being said, though, Valhalla is popular, so one could definitely work. The fact I, perhaps controversially, didn’t overly rate Valhalla could be colouring my opinion, admittedly.
 
If Alton Towers like to bait the nostalgia market if the possible return of HH is anything to go by, who suspects that if we get an indoor coaster...the return of Black Hole anyone? ;)
 
There's plenty of room for a decent family oriented indoor coaster but we have to get real here when talking about anything more than that.

Although it's true that the Smiler can technically fit there, the Smiler is also built in a not unsubstantial pit, is renowned for being a lot of coaster in such a tight space and it also doesn't have the roof clearance of a building holding it back.

Even if we are to presume that they'd build an indoor coaster the size of the Smiler there by bedding the building down another couple of meters, there's no indication that they'll use the such a large footprint in that area. What if the building is set back from Walliams world and doesn't go right up to the neighbouring buildings? Where will the entrance plaza and facade be? Where will the queue go? What about the ride shop, photo kiosk, a potential food outlet, even toilets maybe? If it is a new "area", it wouldn't be much of one if almost all of the entire space was used up by the ride itself.

There's definitely enough space to build a small area, maybe accompanied by a flat and some facilities with a decent indoor attraction. But I think we can scrub away any ideas of anything substantially large like an RMC single rail.
 
Matt.GC said:
There's plenty of room for a decent family oriented indoor coaster but we have to get real here when talking about anything more than that.

Although it's true that the Smiler can technically fit there, the Smiler is also built in a not unsubstantial pit, is renowned for being a lot of coaster in such a tight space and it also doesn't have the roof clearance of a building holding it back.

Even if we are to presume that they'd build an indoor coaster the size of the Smiler there by bedding the building down another couple of meters, there's no indication that they'll use the such a large footprint in that area. What if the building is set back from Walliams world and doesn't go right up to the neighbouring buildings? Where will the entrance plaza and facade be? Where will the queue go? What about the ride shop, photo kiosk, a potential food outlet, even toilets maybe? If it is a new "area", it wouldn't be much of one if almost all of the entire space was used up by the ride itself.

There's definitely enough space to build a small area, maybe accompanied by a flat and some facilities with a decent indoor attraction. But I think we can scrub away any ideas of anything substantially large like an RMC single rail.
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I dunno there is an awful lot of space there, and with launch technology height isn't an issue
 
Space-wise, my thought was that they’d use the Adventureland 4-11 GDO space for the area entrance, queue line, shop, and maybe a supporting flat or two (this area could be accessed from by the Dungeons), and then they’d use the combined Alton Mouse & Alton Beast sites (Coaster Corner) for the actual ride building itself.

It’s a surprisingly large area; the combined Mouse & Beast sites alone would fit the park’s largest dark ride building by quite some distance (that area is 4,000-5,000 square metres, while the current largest is Duel at just over 3,000 square metres), and the whole area including Adventureland 4-11 isn’t a million miles off the 10,000 square metre mark, from memory. I did do some exact measurements a bit back; I’ll see if I can find those.
 
I'm not denying there's space there, but it must be considered that the building is itself unlikely to breach the tree line and there's other things that will go there other than just the ride itself. Definitely room for a decent enough launched dark coaster and a decent dark ride would definitely fit there. But we don't even know how much of it they're going to use. For all we know they could quite literally just be using the Mouse site for the ride itself.

A lot is made of the fact it housed 3 coasters, but the Mouse and Beast were both small and the Mini Apple (or was it Beastie? I've forgotten already) was tiny. These weren't 3 full sized Thirteens, Smilers or Nemesis's.

Anyway, sounds like a challenge in this winters TS Coaster Speed build!
 
While the indoor attraction could be anything if it is a coaster the new Vekoma model used on Guardians of the Galaxy cosmic rewind would be a good choice. Having been able to ride it over Summer it is a great family thrill coaster. While Guardians is in a massive building (partly due to some of the huge projection screens) the ride would work just as well with much lower height. The ride system could work much like the Mummy rides with a dark ride section to start, followed by a backwards launch and then into the coaster with projections and other effects. Would offer great capacity, on board music, can have a backwards launch and obviously the controlled spin. Which would give Alton some USP's for the UK market, which we know they like.
 
Matt.GC said:
A lot is made of the fact it housed 3 coasters, but the Mouse and Beast were both small and the Mini Apple (or was it Beastie? I've forgotten already) was tiny. These weren't 3 full sized Thirteens, Smilers or Nemesis's.
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When people are talking about 3 coasters, Coaster Corner was actually the site of the Mouse, Beast and 4 Man Bob. Though, the 4 Man Bob site is now part of Studio North.

The Mini Apple was next door in the Adventureland 4-11, which in itself had quite a sizeable area, containing the Astroglide and the narrow-gauge Adventure Railway, neither of which had particularly small footprints, as well as the Apple and a few other kids rides. So the 'entrance area' to this new ride will potentially be quite spacious in itself.

It's probably also worth saying that whilst the Beast was reasonably compact, I believe it was actually the second-longest coaster the park has ever had, coming in slightly longer than Air.
 
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Maelstrom said:
While the indoor attraction could be anything if it is a coaster the new Vekoma model used on Guardians of the Galaxy cosmic rewind would be a good choice. Having been able to ride it over Summer it is a great family thrill coaster. While Guardians is in a massive building (partly due to some of the huge projection screens) the ride would work just as well with much lower height. The ride system could work much like the Mummy rides with a dark ride section to start, followed by a backwards launch and then into the coaster with projections and other effects. Would offer great capacity, on board music, can have a backwards launch and obviously the controlled spin. Which would give Alton some USP's for the UK market, which we know they like.
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Unfortunately Disney apparently hold the rights for that coaster style, and Vekoma aren't allowed to sell any of those to other parks/companies.
 
When is the consultation taking place? It was meant to be on Monday wasn't it but with the funeral taking place I assume that's no longer the case.
 
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