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Drayton Manor Park

pete999films said:
Reading through the local plan, it mentions the three new rides for 2022, which we now know to be viking but no mention of the retheme for Buffalo. The replacement ride vehicle for 2023 makes me think this was brought forward and is in fact the buffalo. Could the new 2023 childrens ride be the much talked about teacups ride planned for Thomasland in 2020 but cancelled after the floods and Covid. The new roller coaster for 2024 naturally fits into the pandemonium and appolocolypse location with test track. I personally hope they keep the flying dutchman as it has a lot of memories and is still a good ride or relocate it. Perhaps the replacement cars in 2024 is shockwave. I would like a wild west theme for the new area, with drunken barrens and sheriff showdown fitting in well and the haunting may be rethemed also. The oddity would be accelerator, but that could be rethemed. It would mean good themed areas of Adventure cove, Thomasland, Viking, Wild west and potentially pirate themed area with bounty, jolly bucaneer and a new pirate adventure. I may be well off the mark but this is what I would hope based on the five year plan, although there are areas for future development such as the lakeside bistro, car park by Thomasland ,the zoo near the Thomas exhibition which is largely underused. The main thing is that we are seeing investment and improvements on theming which is a good thing.
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Buffalo did not get replacement ride vehicle though. It is the same vehicle with some minor adjustments, specifically the front and back fiberglass shells. The remainder of the vehicles are identical to how they were, just with a new colour, they did not even get new fiberglass shells. The chassis are also the originals.

Basically. The ride vehicle you sit on now for Buffalo is the same one you have ridden since the late 80's. You can still see the Indian bunting / flags in the fiberglass moldings on most of the cars, just painted over brown now so they do not stick out. To try make them blend into the wood theme.
 
Wow, they haven’t wasted any time with the disassembly, have they?

They’ll probably have it completely gone by the end of this week at this rate!
 
It’s like someone said the looping group have paid a company to remove the buildings and ride and they want to do it as quickly as possible. I wonder by the start of the Christmas event In 2 weeks time on Saturday Apocalypse, Pandemonium buildings and queue and test track will all be removed.

As for the replacement ride could it be new dodgems as they over 30 years old now or the Flying Dutchman having new cars to fit into the theme of the new coaster/ area.
 
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Took the following at a swift trip after school. 6 rides in 30 minutes, 3 times accelerator, 2 times thor, 1 times loki (Although bounty did appear to be open or at least testing). You can see the chaps in the blue crane on the last photo and you could here the dismantling process being undertaken.

I don't know if I saw it wrong, but when on Thor it looked like the lake had been drained a little? There were mud flats extending more than usual. This menat that the moorings for YoMomma were more visible. Again, it may have been me, it just looked different.
 
Ian said:
It would provide an increase to total capacity of the physical ride, yes. But unless you are mandating which train riders will be boarding at batching, you won’t necessarily improve the wait times.

You can assume that a portion of guests will only want to ride standup, and a portion only sit down. But fundamentally, if guests have that choice you will still only be servicing each queue with one train, the same as you are today. If one queue empty and the other has guests you’ll be cycling every other train empty.

As I say, the only real way I see around that would be the assign riders to a train and give no choice, essentially servicing one queue with two trains. But you only need to look at Hurakan Condor at PA to see how well that goes down with people…
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Isn't what you describe how Apocalypse ran for most of its existence and how a bunch of Japanese coasters have operated since the 80s ?
 
I'd assume they'd convert the front row queue of shockwave to sit down so people can choose which train if they added a sit down train. Can anyone on park tell with the dismantling of apocalypse does it look like it's being taken down carefully or just cut up for scrap?
 
pjanvil said:
I'd assume they'd convert the front row queue of shockwave to sit down so people can choose which train if they added a sit down train. Can anyone on park tell with the dismantling of apocalypse does it look like it's being taken down carefully or just cut up for scrap?
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It is being scrapped I believe.
 
I'm not sure if any of you are members of the RCCGB but they did a Woodthon event to Drayton Manor and Alton Towers in September. I didn't attend but I know it included a Q&A session with the park. Interestingly their October newsletter included the following which surprised me "Onto Drayton Manor Park on Sunday and following a cuppa and cookie in The Tower Suite, we entered the park for what was going to be our last ever ERS on the 200ft high drop tower, Apocalypse... or was it?" I'm wondering what the "...or was it" was about, perhaps they heard plans to relocate or refurbish Apocalypse into a new ride hence why I wondered if anyone at the event had more info?
 
Probably because the park had refused to say it was actually being removed until a few weeks before it was. So whilst it seemed like everyone knew it was being removed the parks reluctance to say it was was making people have second thoughts that it was going.
 
pjanvil said:
I'd assume they'd convert the front row queue of shockwave to sit down so people can choose which train if they added a sit down train. Can anyone on park tell with the dismantling of apocalypse does it look like it's being taken down carefully or just cut up for scrap?
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I don't know about what the plan is, but to my untrained ear it sounded like there was unscrewing rather than cutting going on. But I'm guessing that would be the easiest and the safest way to do it no matter what the intention.

I suppose if there was an attempt to sell before, is there any reason why it can't be sold in a dismantled state? The driver for DMP is to clear the site for future development.
 
RustyShackleford said:
I don't know about what the plan is, but to my untrained ear it sounded like there was unscrewing rather than cutting going on. But I'm guessing that would be the easiest and the safest way to do it no matter what the intention.

I suppose if there was an attempt to sell before, is there any reason why it can't be sold in a dismantled state? The driver for DMP is to clear the site for future development.
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I'm pretty sure it's being sold for scrap as they couldn't find a buyer.
 
I've heard it mentioned on other forums that the ride as a whole is being scrapped but large parts of certain towers have been brought and are going to be retrofitted onto at least one other Intamin 1st-gen drop tower in Europe, so they can advertise a new standup/standup floorless offering on that ride.

So not being scrapped entirely, but there is a reason why it's being taken down so carefully.
 
All the stuff that they think they could sell they took off the ride and the rest with go to the scrap yard with the building smashed up and taken away to be ground up and reused.
I wonder if we see a smaller drop tower at the park in the future.
 
So, I've gone through the 5 year plan with a fine-toothed comb, and yielded some interesting results:
  1. This year was due to see the knapford station buffet reopen, but it has not. Could this have been pushed back to coincide with larger works in thomas land? (Elevated walkway, long rumored Lady Hatt's tea party.)
  2. Maelstrom is set for a refurb and repaint. Earlier this year its substation's roof was replaced, but not much else. Was this part of it? I expect that Maelstrom will look a lot fresher next year.
  3. Not much that isn't obvious in 2023, but some phrasing is interesting. It describes a "New replacement vehicle on an existing ride" suggesting a single train or collected vehchile, whereas in 2024, it specifies "Replacement cars on an existing ride" suggesting multiple discrete vehchiles or cars. This makes me think that the singular "vehchile" may be shockwave, with a new train, and the cars being replacements for a track or water ride, I.E wil west shootout, or Stormforce, and Stormforce certainly need some new and improved boats to bring the ride back to full capacity.
  4. Replacement Ride is interesting phrasing. This suggests something is/was on the chopping block or moving home. Obviously, Apoc and Pandy have just gone, and could be canditates, but it seems more reasonable that they may come under the coaster site, but I guess another flat would do no harm. Or the relocation of the carousel as mentioned? This seems less likely with the 2025 plan mentioning the moving of a ride. Unfortunately, it looks like unless they are referring to replacing Pandy or Apoc, something else is on the chopping block.
  5. Finally, they mention building lodges "as proposed in 2016" and this is what got me really excited. Earlier this year I posted a theory about a plan created in 2008/2009 for a long term developement that was planned to include the hotel, followed by a water park developement on the extension parking currently opposite vikings. This was planned to open around 2016, but was shelved due to budget cuts, and then the rapid accident. However, this plan included many other miscellanious upgrades, both to the hotel and the main park. Rejuvinting triangles and building a larger park entrance there was one part. This is now vikings. Closing the entrance by apocalypse was another. Some of the parking resurfacing that was undertaken recently in Longwood was another. The proposed walkway between Thomas and the zoo was another postulaltion as part of the plan, as well as a couple of other things listed on the plan. Finally, the waterpark was to have "Lodge Style Woodland accomodation to the South-West of the hotel." It's definetly still a theory, but could this be a long term aim of looping? Could they have found the shelved plan and liked it enough to follow it, with some changes to fit the current market? Could a 10-20 year projection see a waterpark as a major addition to the park, and really start to justify the resort branding? I certainly hope so, but then again that is just a theory.
 
With regards to Apocalypse not being mentioned on that planning application, it was perhaps anticipated that the ride would have already been dismantled by 2022 when the timeline begins.

It had been earmarked for disposal for a very long time, as we all know. I'm surprised it made it as long as it did.
 
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