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Drayton Manor Park

I made good friends with staff over the years and If u ask the right questions you get the right answers. The full time season staff all know what type of coaster is getting built for next year but none will tell you what type or manufacturer but many did confirm that footers would start to go in over the summer season with Track installation starting during the Christmas event.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Anyway think Footers will be arriving this week as fencing have gone up on the hotel overflow car park.
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Hope so. The suspense has been killing me! 🤣 Out of all of the coasters going up for 2024, this is the one I’m most interested in. It’s SO good seeing Drayton getting investment again after a horrible few years for the park. Can’t wait to see what this ride actually is!
 
Johnny_5 said:
Hope so. The suspense has been killing me! 🤣 Out of all of the coasters going up for 2024, this is the one I’m most interested in. It’s SO good seeing Drayton getting investment again after a horrible few years for the park. Can’t wait to see what this ride actually is!
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I'm always amazed how folks on here will know make and model of a coaster by the smallest most obscure picture. May the countdown begin.
 
One_234 said:
Just preying it’s not an anti climax or a carbon copy of another coaster!
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Depends though really, would anyone mind too much if we got a carbon copy of a Fønix or a Taiga in this country? I’m not saying that DM are going to get one of those but there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with a park getting a clone of a really good coaster if it’s the right fit for that park. Just look at Stormchaser over at Paulton’s, it’s one of the best family coasters in the UK and the average person that rides it wouldn’t care that it’s a clone of a ride halfway around the world.
 
Going over to Splash Canyon for a minute. Have you ever wondered what the other side of my profile picture looks like? Presumably looking similar on all rapids rides. The beautifully clean and famous Drayton Manor Park water can be seen here, in all it's glory in this photo. The fact the water is under concrete and has sat for a while probably doesn't help it in this case.
rap.JPG

Or the lift hill and how the trough lowers in front of it to fit the lift in. Again, the same for all rapids rides by Intamin that have conventional lift hills.
rap2.JPG

Which can be seen more clearly here..
rap4.JPG

All of these are taken from here. The released documents into the investigation of the operation of the the attraction and information into the death of the girl.

I had not seen these before. I had only seen the H&S advisories and findings following the incident. Never saw the actual investigation documents into the attraction itself. It also explains in detail where the girl fell out, where she walked to and ultimately where she met her awful fate. Very interesting read for anyone interested in how rapids rides works, or what actually happened that day.

Amazing how much of a different width the trough goes from place to place on these rapids rides, as can be seen in these three next photos of Splash Canyon. Intamins 6th River Rapids ride. Number 2, aka "Below queueing walkway" is the tall sided bit of trough that goes into the pumps, where the lift is. Exactly the same setup at Alton Towers.
water.JPG
water2.JPG

Then trough width and depth (without water) at the numbered places above.
water3.JPG

It just shows how much they change the width of the trough, to modulate the speed and pace of the water. Fascinating stuff!
 
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DistortAMG said:
Going over to Splash Canyon for a minute. Have you ever wondered what the other side of my profile picture looks like? Presumably looking similar on all rapids rides. The beautifully clean and famous Drayton Manor Park water can be seen here, in all it's glory in this photo. The fact the water is under concrete and has sat for a while probably doesn't help it in this case.
rap.JPG

Or the lift hill and how the trough lowers in front of it to fit the lift in. Again, the same for all rapids rides by Intamin that have conventional lift hills.
rap2.JPG

Which can be seen more clearly here..
rap4.JPG

All of these are taken from here. The released documents into the investigation of the operation of the the attraction and information into the death of the girl.

I had not seen these before. I had only seen the H&S advisories and findings following the incident. Never saw the actual investigation documents into the attraction itself. It also explains in detail where the girl fell out, where she walked to and ultimately where she met her awful fate. Very interesting read for anyone interested in how rapids rides works, or what actually happened that day.

Amazing how different width the trough goes from place to place on these rapids rides, as can be seen in these three next photos of Splash Canyon. Intamins 6th River Rapids ride. Number 2, aka "Below queueing walkway" is the tall sided bit of trough that goes into the pumps, where the lift is. Exactly the same setup at Alton Towers.
water.JPG
water2.JPG

Then trough width and depth (without water) at the numbered places above.
water3.JPG

It just shows how much they change the width of the trough, to modulate the speed and pace of the water. Fascinating stuff!
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Really interesting reading through those documents just to see how the ride actually works and bits I never knew even existed. Such as the metal bar which comes up to direct the boats in to the overflow area. I assume towers doesn’t have that as they don’t put boats in the overflow lake. But it’s not something I knew about on these rapids rides.

It also makes me think the amount of work in designing a rapids ride, it’s not just a case of putting a random layout in and some concrete walls. There’s clearly a lot of science into the design.
 
I totally agree @djtruefitt. Also, interesting how it states they use all four pumps to get the water level up quickly on startup. Then switch one off for operation. While duty cycling the pumps so they all get even wear and tear.

I know the duty cycling is standard across rapid rides, I would assume as is using all 4 in the morning to bring water levels up quickly.
 
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Another thing I never really thought about, is how deep the water actually is at the end of the ride where the lift is, I never really thought there would be a 1.5m drop in the floor to fit all the lift mechanisms in place. Then add on all the water which is there for the ride anyway, it’s a deep bit of water!
 
djtruefitt said:
Another thing I never really thought about, is how deep the water actually is at the end of the ride where the lift is, I never really thought there would be a 1.5m drop in the floor to fit all the lift mechanisms in place. Then add on all the water which is there for the ride anyway, it’s a deep bit of water!
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By my calculations from the data given, that 1.5 meter drop under the lift and near the pumps brings the water depth in that location to 2.2 meters when the ride is in operation. Before the 1.5 meter drop, it states the water is 0.7 meters in depth. The water level would be exactly the same once the trough drops 1.5 meters, making it a pretty easy and accurate calculation of 2.2 meters.

That 2.2 meter depth is easily enough for me to be fully submerged as a 6ft person. It would be even deeper when the pumps are off, closer to 3 a meter depth I would say. That 1.5 meter drop is so significant, there is a ladder at the drop (visible in a photo I posted above). Said ladder would spent most of it's life totally submerged. Just there for when the ride is full drained and for maintenance access to the bottom side of the lift I think.

Storm Force 10 has similarly deep drop offs before some of it's lifts. As can be seen in the rides excellent construction photos here. In fact, photo number 3, shows you how deep one of the drop offs is based on the length of the frame legs that will soon be sat into position. As the frame in photo 3 is for the bottom of one of the lifts. Photo 6 is the first of a few that really shows the how deep the channel drops. Completely hidden if you was walking in the water!!

It makes sense anything with a lift in similar style would need a significant drop in the channel to contain the sprocket and turnaround equipment needed. The channel and drop is much smaller on rides like Storm Force 10, but the same principle and you wouldn't want to go walking in that area either way. Rides like The Flume used a belt, which can turn around / bend much more aggressively, mitigating the need for drops in the channel like rapids and Storm Force and (I assume) Valhalla use.

There is a genuine phobia and fear of this sort of thing, it is called thalassophobia.
 
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DistortAMG said:
By my calculations from the data given, that 1.5 meter drop under the lift and near the pumps brings the water depth in that location to 2.2 meters when the ride is in operation. Before the 1.5 meter drop, it states the water is 0.7 meters in depth. The water level would be exactly the same once the trough drops 1.5 meters, making it a pretty easy and accurate calculation of 2.2 meters.

That 2.2 meter depth is easily enough for me to be fully submerged as a 6ft person. It would be even deeper when the pumps are off, closer to 3 a meter depth I would say. That 1.5 meter drop is so significant, there is a ladder at the drop (visible in a photo I posted above). Said ladder would spent most of it's life totally submerged. Just there for when the ride is full drained and for maintenance access to the bottom side of the lift I think.

Storm Force 10 has similarly deep drop offs before some of it's lifts. As can be seen in the rides excellent construction photos here. In fact, photo number 3, shows you how deep one of the drop offs is based on the length of the frame legs that will soon be sat into position. As the frame in photo 3 is for the bottom of one of the lifts. Photo 6 is the first of a few that really shows the how deep the channel drops. Completely hidden if you was walking in the water!!

It makes sense anything with a lift in similar style would need a significant drop in the channel to contain the sprocket and turnaround equipment needed. The channel and drop is much smaller on rides like Storm Force 10, but the same principle and you wouldn't want to go walking in that area either way. Rides like The Flume used a belt, which can turn around / bend much more aggressively, mitigating the need for drops in the channel like rapids and Storm Force and (I assume) Valhalla use.

There is a genuine phobia and fear of this sort of thing, it is called thalassophobia.
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Completely off piste here but I bloomin' love your posts @DistortAMG - always bringing top tier content 👌
 
A sensible addition to the park that will cater for a wide audience. I feel with a coaster like this, the theming is what could make or break it, as clearly it's not going to be a mind blowing experience track and train.

And it's an Intamin. So apart from breaking all the time and everything going wrong, what could go wrong..?
 
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