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Drayton Manor Park

Jb85 said:
@Poisson lots of rides have boring parts.

For me, just a retheme and new trains to extend its life are fine.

Each to their own I guess.
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Imagine a nice tunnel, with (hopefully) a new name for the ride splashed on the side. Makes the ride look better and is nice to look at from off ride as an entry to the rides queue.
 
Interesting news! I'll admit that I'm not massively surprised by this, and I did wonder if that sort of thing might happen what with the park's change of target demographic.

I hold an unpopular opinion in that I think that adding a sit-down train might actually improve Shockwave. The standing position is certainly strange and not the most comfortable, and despite the fact that I'd always said that standing didn't massively bother me, my greatly underwhelmed reaction to my recent ride on Pipeline at SeaWorld Orlando would suggest that the discomfort of the standing position is more of a deal breaker for me than I'd previously thought.

It will lose some degree of novelty factor without the standing position, but I do think that lowering the height restriction to 1.2m and making it less "scary" by removing the standup train is a good move by the park given their new target market. Making it a sit-down coaster could carve out a new niche for it in that it could make it a nice "first looping coaster" for the slightly older children in the park's target demographic. I actually think a sit-down Shockwave would be quite well suited to such a role; it's not overly intense compared to many other looping coasters in the UK, it only has a few inversions, and it's quite a short ride if kids don't like it, but it's also a large enough ride that it gives off an impression of grandeur and scale to make kids feel like they're riding their first "big" coaster, if you like.

I'm personally interested to see what sort of train Drayton Manor goes for here. I could see a B&M floorless train; B&M do build trains for coasters that aren't theirs, and seeing as Shockwave is a coaster with a nigh-on identical track design to B&M's, I can't see it being too much of a challenge for B&M to build a suitable floorless train. The question is, though; would Drayton have the budget for a B&M train?
 
Funnily enough I visited Drayton for the first time in a few years on Saturday, and the single train operation of Shockwave was one of the things that made throughput throughout the day painfully slow. I'm assuming that one train is the only one they still have functional?

While I thought quite fondly of the park when I first visited in 2019, this weekend's visit didn't give a good impression to me and my friends at all. Rapids and The Haunting were closed off the whole day, Storm Force 10 operated for about 5 minutes before being evacuated and shut for the rest of the day, Accelerator, Drunken Barrels and Loki seemed to have spotty reliability throughout, and as mentioned above Shockwave was on only one train. Couple this with huge crowds on one of the last weekends of the school holidays, and you had a packed park with slow queues and most of the interesting stuff out of action.

The park at least seemed to be in reasonable condition, but they really need to invest in rides that are going to improve the dire throughput. Vikings seemed to be a step in the right direction theming-wise, but again half of the rides there suffer from very sluggish queues.
 
I suspect the train will be coming from Intamin seeing as they built it and the park are working with them on the new coaster. Also the rapids recently too.

The surf train Intamin have announced looks like a great shout; would definitely fit in with a re theme and the whole aesthetic of the area.
 
Sounds like the new coaster will feature something along the lines of what Verbolten does, in regards to the different scenarios leading to the drop track. The launch section will probably have different variation of story elements and sound and lighting effects each time.
 
Will be interesting when there is something else not totally dissimilar added to Staffordshire the following year.
 
Drayton clearly have two options with Shockwave. Remove it or extend its life with new trains. Drayton clearly don't have the budget to be building two new coasters at the same time so I think this is the best compromise.

As I've said early get another 10-15 years out of it then go for a big replacement. I actually think Jormungander will need to be replaced sooner or later as despite its retheme is its still a very old coaster and there are loads of options on the market to replace it.

Drayton will probably turn Thier attention to the pirate adventure building as Thier next big project. It will be sad to see the standup go but nothing lasts forever.
 
A new train for Shockwave is good news. Stand-up coasters are uncomfortable and with a new train allowed them to reduce the height limit by 0.2m it makes the coaster more accessible to the park's guests. I do admire them for being completely unapologetic in their transition to a family park with rides that everyone can enjoy.

A shame that it is likely to only be one train they're getting. The downside of making it more accessible is that queues will be longer.
 
New train(s) are good but if they're just regular sit-down ones then it'll make the painfully dull RCT layout more obvious.

Wait and see I suppose.
 
Shockwave annoys me more than it should. I read the Colin Bryan interview someone posted earlier and he consistently mentions lack of height and speed as reasons for its layout (plus money, of course), but Shockwave hits those brakes at immense speed. It carries a lot of speed considering it’s relatively meagre height. It’s just a really dull layout and design and there’s no escaping it. It’s dull as a standup and it’ll be dull as a sit down. However, it’s a solid ride offering at 1.2m, so Drayton are absolutely doing the right thing. And if it gets a re-theme, some nice theming elements (like a tunnel or two) then all the better. It’s a great looking coaster, one of the best looking coasters in the country I think, especially the first drop. Total missed opportunity of a ride from day one, and despite the Bryan’s admirable intentions, Nemesis just made it look poor from the start (showing what could be done with a tight space and massive height restrictions - albeit with a bigger budget).
 
Johnny_5 said:
. However, it’s a solid ride offering at 1.2m, so Drayton are absolutely doing the right thing. And if it gets a re-theme, some nice theming elements (like a tunnel or two) then all the better.
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I agree with this. It will offer a good amount of thrill for people who are over 1.2m, but are not 1.4m yet.
 
I think that changing Shockwave to sit-down trains is a great idea, but it won’t be enough on its own to transform the coaster. It needs a full re-theme and the inclusion of theming elements, perhaps a unique selling point such as on-board speakers, and dark ride sections. Rather like Walibi’s re-theme of their Boomerang to Speed of Sound.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I think that changing Shockwave to sit-down trains is a great idea, but it won’t be enough on its own to transform the coaster. It needs a full re-theme and the inclusion of theming elements, perhaps a unique selling point such as on-board speakers, and dark ride sections. Rather like Walibi’s re-theme of their Boomerang to Speed of Sound.
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They have said it is getting a re-theme and new story so that it fits in better with Adventure Cove.
 
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