Galactica's Future

[GooseOnTheLoose]

With all of the enthusiast proposals to close various rides and coasters at Alton Towers, there won't be any need to plan for a monorail replacement or a new entrance plaza. There'll be nothing to visit.

Galactica, Congo River Rapids, Blade, TH13TEEN, Rita, Spinball Whizzer are all rides which, I've read this week, "desperately need to go".

Edit: Cheers @Squiggs and @rob666.

 

[Squiggs]

Galactica, Congo River Rapids, Blade, TH13TEEN are all rides which, I've read this week, "desperately need to go".

Don't forget Rita!

 

[jibbsie]

With all of the enthusiast proposals to close various rides and coasters at Alton Towers, there won't be any need to plan for a monorail replacement or a new entrance plaza. There'll be nothing to visit.

Galactica, Congo River Rapids, Blade, TH13TEEN are all rides which, I've read this week, "desperately need to go".

I would not expect them to add a main enterance at forbidden Valley, there are people flow issues as at Towers street crowds can be split up towards x sector DF, wickerman and FV but at gal gate they have to walk down essentially the same path or along the sky way.
You also will lose the closeness of the exit to the main gift shop, and the view of the towers as you enter.

 

[rob666]

Don't forget Rita!

...and spinball.

 

[Mykeprime]

...and spinball.

...and Neme.... wait

 

[QTXAdsy]

With all of the enthusiast proposals to close various rides and coasters at Alton Towers, there won't be any need to plan for a monorail replacement or a new entrance plaza. There'll be nothing to visit.

Galactica, Congo River Rapids, Blade, TH13TEEN are all rides which, I've read this week, "desperately need to go".

Don't forget Rita!

...and spinball.

Looking at that list, do we like anything at this park honestly? Funnily enough you could create a new park of those retired rides and at the point maybe even better reliability than what we have with Towers. Loudoun Castle back in the day was a retirement home for many ex Towers rides I remember...

 

[ChrisAChats]

Fair point about enthusiasts and removals, but you basically have two routes when you run a theme park:

- Maintain and refresh your attractions so they stay in good condition and never feel rundown or ‘old’. Like Europa, Disney, etc generally do. It’s very expensive. Nemesis has sort of had this treatment too.

- Do basic maintenance to keep running, but save investment for replacing with something completely new. Six Flags, Merlin etc generally do this. For example they could have re-tracked Black Hole to keep the brand/ride going like Space Mountain, but prefer to have something for marketing.

If you go down the second route, it’s only natural that people will speculate about when things will be replaced, as it’s a ‘when’ rather than an ‘if’ in almost all cases.

Alton Towers has already removed a load of coasters in its relatively short history. Plenty more will go over the next couple of decades.

 

[AT86]

Alton Towers has already removed a load of coasters in its relatively short history. Plenty more will go over the next couple of decades.

Happy to be corrected if I am having a ‘mind boggling moment’ but the only coasters Towers have ever removed are the off the shelf models?

All their bespoke designed coasters which started with RMT in 1992 are still operating?

Given they are custom designed to fit the landscapes they are in it makes sense, it’s very different to scrapping a coaster like Black Hole or Corkscrew that had no foundations etc.

 

[cookiee_munster]

Happy to be corrected if I am having a ‘mind boggling moment’ but the only coasters Towers have ever removed are the off the shelf models?

All their bespoke designed coasters which started with RMT in 1992 are still operating?

Given they are custom designed to fit the landscapes they are in it makes sense, it’s very different to scrapping a coaster like Black Hole or Corckscrew that had no foundations etc.

You pay a boat load of cash to blast out trenches and incredibly deep holes, you make sure you get your moneys worth!

 

[ChrisAChats]

True to an extent about off the shelf models. Interesting point. Maybe a bit of a false correlation though due to the age of those machines being oldest?

- We know there was an alternative design ready to replace Nemesis recently. Only saved as iconic.

- Bespoke aging rides such as Log Flume have been removed for new investments.

Air/Galactica likely won’t go anytime soon, but it’s closer to the end than the beginning.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Happy to be corrected if I am having a ‘mind boggling moment’ but the only coasters Towers have ever removed are the off the shelf models?

All their bespoke designed coasters which started with RMT in 1992 are still operating?

Given they are custom designed to fit the landscapes they are in it makes sense, it’s very different to scrapping a coaster like Black Hole or Corckscrew that had no foundations etc.

Ah but when something happens once, it becomes the new normality.

Merlin experiences their first ever retracking at a park, nothing out of the ordinary elsewhere, and suddenly the conversation is about "what's going to be retracked next?".

A shed appears on two planning applications, and all of a sudden it must be the same shed.

Galactica was given the VR treatment, which other rides are the going to whack VR on?

Duel gets a new layover to Curse, all other dark rides must be getting a new layover.

Spinball Whizzer regains a single rider queues, when are all of the other coasters getting single rider?

Mandrill Mayhem operates a virtual queue for a year, we need virtual queues everywhere!

You get the idea. Perhaps I ought to move this to the Meemable Thoosie Traits thread?

 

[Josh555]

Ah but when something happens once, it becomes the new normality.

Merlin experiences their first ever retracking at a park, nothing out of the ordinary elsewhere, and suddenly the conversation is about "what's going to be retracked next?".

A shed appears on two planning applications, and all of a sudden it must be the same shed.

Galactica was given the VR treatment, which other rides are the going to whack VR on?

Duel gets a new layover to Curse, all other dark rides must be getting a new layover.

Spinball Whizzer regains a single rider queues, when are all of the other coasters getting single rider?

Mandrill Mayhem operates a virtual queue for a year, we need virtual queues everywhere!

You get the idea. Perhaps I ought to move this to the Meemable Thoosie Traits thread?

To be fair I reckon a retracking of Vampire is nailed on for a number of reasons.

 

[Matt.GC]

I don't think any retheme of Galactica has been cut.

Firstly, it was only ever Thoosie hearsay. I don't remember anything concrete.

Secondly, what's to say it's not happening but consists of little more than some Leek Signs, a new shipping container, and some Phalanx stencils?

 

[jon81uk]

they could have re-tracked Black Hole to keep the brand/ride going like Space Mountain, but prefer to have something for marketing.

Wasn’t the track that was the issue, it was th fire exit process from the top of the lift hill.

 

[sillyrooster]

Although it does appear that some B&Ms are now coming towards the end of their lives (although I still think in many cases, this is the parks just making decisions to remove and replace them), Galactica is not one of them. It's only 22 year old, and will have at least another 10 years I would imagine.

Agreed. It is 8 years younger than old Nemesis. Considering ride desgin technology probably improved in that span and the fact its nowhere near as forceful as old Nem (less stress on the supports), it probably still has a good amount of time left from a shelf life perspective.

 

[WillPS]

Agreed. It is 8 years younger than old Nemesis. Considering ride desgin technology probably improved in that span and the fact its nowhere near as forceful as old Nem (less stress on the supports), it probably still has a good amount of time left from a shelf life perspective.

I think B&M's understanding of things probably improved considerably as a result of Nemesis. Some of those lessons learned account for the differences between the OG and Reborn.

Air is built upon far less problematic terrain and I can well imagine the supports do not suffer anywhere near the level of fatigue either iteration of Nemesis did/does. That's in its favour.

Against it is that it was a prototype for an incredibly complicated (for its time) type of loading mechanism. Lessons were learned for subsequent models, some of which were retrofitted. It's expensive to run and an overhaul of any sort to assure its future (whenever that may be neccessary) will also be expensive. Perhaps most pressingly of all, it's on one of the most developable plots, arguably the most important one for the resort overall.

 

[AltonLover123]

Agreed. It is 8 years younger than old Nemesis. Considering ride desgin technology probably improved in that span and the fact its nowhere near as forceful as old Nem (less stress on the supports), it probably still has a good amount of time left from a shelf life perspective.

Exactly, Galactica does not need retracking, neither does Oblivion.

What Galactica does need would be new trains and upgrade of ride controls and such.

 

[Matt N]

I think Nemesis was a unique case in terms of retracking. Its location in the pit meant that it had some dodgy supports and suffered from subsidence issues, which shouldn’t really plague either of the other two to the same extent. Towards the end of its life, that support near the loop seemingly played up all the time, and they had a crane in situ near there pretty much permanently.

The only other ride on park I can think of that would potentially be equivalent in terms of support issues is Smiler, due to the known dodgy concrete it’s built on.

I wouldn’t think Oblivion or Galactica will need retracking quite as quickly as Nemesis did. Over in the USA, you have B&Ms of equivalent or older age to Nemesis that are still going strong. Kumba, for example, is a year older than Nemesis and has operated year round for that entire time period, and that’s still going strong with no rumours of closure or retrack any time soon.

 

[havaska]

Happy to be corrected if I am having a ‘mind boggling moment’ but the only coasters Towers have ever removed are the off the shelf models?

All their bespoke designed coasters which started with RMT in 1992 are still operating?

Given they are custom designed to fit the landscapes they are in it makes sense, it’s very different to scrapping a coaster like Black Hole or Corkscrew that had no foundations etc.

Is Rita a custom design? I thought it was off the shelf seeing as there’s a clone at Heide Park….

 

[danlouislucy]

Is Rita a custom design? I thought it was off the shelf seeing as there’s a clone at Heide Park….

Off the shelf that iirc was going to another UK park but they pulled out so Towers got it cheap(er)