Re: The Illustrated Park
I decided that after some fairly general concepts, I would focus on producing a proper concept for a ride.
The ride is called Mille Miglia. It's a family ride themed around the Italian road race of the same name which ran up until the late 1950s. The race was eventually stopped because it was so dangerous but it is still remembered as a highly prestigious event that produced some legendary cars and drivers. The idea behind this ride is to view the event through rose tinted spectacles and give guests a taste of what it would be like to drive a classic sports car through the Italian countryside. The ride is an integral part of the new Italy area.
The concept takes much of its inspiration from Autopia at Disneyland Paris. There are aspects of the ride which I loved such as the fact that each car has a real working engine! I also loved the overall retro style of the attraction despite it being a bit at odds with the rest of Discoveryland.
What I didn't like was that although you had control of the throttle and the steering, there was a blatant steel strip in the centre of the road to prevent you from wandering too far. I'd much prefer it if the ride allowed the rider full control of the vehicle. In fact, the original Autopia did allow much more freedom. It had a road channel too narrow for the cars to be side by side and much narrower than the length of the car so that even if a crash occurred with the barrier, the car would continue in the correct direction. Other than that, you were free to drive the car normally. However, this was replaced with the steel guide strip that's now present on all Autopia rides.
http://thinkdisney.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/autopia.html
To me this seems like a bit of an overreaction, particularly as you get some fairly violent crashes on rides such as dodgems which never seem to be a problem. Although I think that many of the problems with Autopia were to do with the number of cars on the course at one time which would lead to congestion, increasing the chance of pile-ups.
The idea with Mille Miglia is to use a narrow road with barriers similar to the original Autopia which allows the guest freedom to drive the car. The cars would be steadily released at 10 second intervals to provide a safe gap. The course is much shorter than any Autopia variant and would always aim to have many more cars in the station area than on the ride course. All of this should reduce the chances of cars running into each other. If necessary, some sort of block system could be used if it really were to become an issue.
Anyway, onto the sketches.
Please excuse the quality of the images, I was attempting to scan in very faint pencil drawings using a very low budget scanner. This made it a bit tricky to pick out the drawings from the noise.
This is a sort of mood board of imagery and initial ideas. The car in the middle is loosely based on the LeMans winning Jaguar D-Type which I don't think ever raced the Mille Miglia but I'm allowing myself some artisitc license!
This shows an initial layout idea for a single track version of the ride. The road leaves the streamline moderne station, winds its way through the foothills of a mountain before passing through a tunnel and emerging on the mountain pass. After winding through the streets of a quaint Italian village, the riders return to the station.
The ride surrounds a small valley which the queueline heads down the middle of, then heads up to the village and follows the road back to the station. The idea is that the guests in the queue act as a line of spectators along parts of the race course.
I realised that for a single track ride, if a car were to be released every 10 seconds, that would mean an absolute maximum throughput of 720pph which isn't enough for the size of park I have in mind (It has a B&M floorless remember). A two track variant would be needed which should have a maximum throughput of 1440 pph which is far more acceptable.
This image also shows a sketch of Cafe Ascari, a food outlet on the path to the village as well as some dented road signs to be placed around the course.
This image includes a layout sketch of how the station design could be adapted to serve two parallel tracks. Each track has an onload and offload platform meaning that the cars will have to be moved automatically between the two platforms.
There is also a potential layout sketch for a dual course ride. The two courses start together but then split with one course heading to the mountain pass and the other taking to the countryside route, heading through a tunnel and emerging at the riviera with the two courses rejoining at the village and heading down the autostrada to the finish.
The attraction has a mobius style layout which means on quiet days, the two courses could be run as one long course.
Some more vehicle ideas, now with bumpers.
Here, I experimented with some ideas for barriers and general road side scenery. The barrier obviously has to stop the car but it can't be so intrusive as to block views and must fit the theme.
There is also a further development sketch of Cafe Ascari which now has tables and old fuel pumps. The cafe will be located between the two road courses just before they rejoin.
There's another sketch which is quite hard to make out but it shows a car on the Riviera course emerging from the mountain tunnel next to the sea. It is likely that with the mountain being such a large structure and taking up so much space in the area that it will also serve as the show building for a dark ride.
This is an unfinished sketch of the village area. It shows how the queuline follows parts of the course. This area needs more work as some of the buildings don't look particularly Italian.
This concept is far from finished and there should be more sketches soon, all being well.