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The Swarm: Brave it Backwards

I've just Googled the invertigo trains, and they seem a bit strange as - unless you are on the front or back - you will be directly facing another person, due to the seats being back-to-back ?

I don't think I've ever been on a ride where somebody is literally in your face this closely!

(I think Pandemonium at Drayton Manor may have been similar, but I never rode it as I only ever rode Sky Flyer)
 
Secret Weapon said:
I've just Googled the invertigo trains, and they seem a bit strange as - unless you are on the front or back - you will be directly facing another person, due to the seats being back-to-back ?

I don't think I've ever been on a ride where somebody is literally in your face this closely!

(I think Pandemonium at Drayton Manor may have been similar, but I never rode it as I only ever rode Sky Flyer)
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Not ridden a Gerstlauer spinner?
 
Secret Weapon said:
P.S. I wonder what a backwards-facing seat on Rita would feel like (and Oblivion / Saw).
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The only thing preventing a plethora of herniated discs on SAW is being able to see the horrors ahead, a backwards seat would require a permanent medical station at the end of the ride and woe betide those requiring a lifthill evacuation!
 
Bowser said:
woe betide those requiring a lifthill evacuation!
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I thought the vertical lift on Gerstlauer rides were designed with bi-directional lift hill magnets (rather than a traditional forwards-only chain) so that the train could be reversed down into a horizontal position in case of an emergency evacuation? There is footage on YouTube of The Smiler being reversed on the vertical lift hill.

Interestingly, before the causes of the Smiler crash became clear, some people (incorrectly) speculated that this may have been the cause of the accident, and that the operator had accidentally pressed forwards instead of reverse whilst attempting to evacuate the ride (I don't think the train can be reversed on the first lift hill, though - only on the second - but I may be wrong).
 
Secret Weapon said:
I thought the vertical lift on Gerstlauer rides were designed with bi-directional lift hill magnets (rather than a traditional forwards-only chain) so that the train could be reversed down into a horizontal position in case of an emergency evacuation? There is footage on YouTube of The Smiler being reversed on the vertical lift hill.

Interestingly, before the causes of the Smiler crash became clear, some people (incorrectly) speculated that this may have been the cause of the accident, and that the operator had accidentally pressed forwards instead of reverse whilst attempting to evacuate the ride (I don't think the train can be reversed on the first lift hill, though - only on the second - but I may be wrong).
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Maybe on newer models it is, it definitely wasn't the case on the original ones as this evacuation of Rage at Southend demonstrates:

news.sky.com

Rage rollercoaster rescue at Southend's Adventure Island after passengers left hanging at 72ft

Riders of the "biggest and best" attraction at the Adventure Island theme park, Southend, needed to be evacuated after becoming stuck at a 90-degree angle facing skywards.
news.sky.com news.sky.com
 
Thanks for pointing this out. I had (incorrectly) assumed that all Gerstlauer vertical lifts used reversible magnets, but a quick Google search shows that many don't have this feature (including Saw), and that The Smiler is apparently one of the few that does!
 
L
Bowser said:
Maybe on newer models it is, it definitely wasn't the case on the original ones as this evacuation of Rage at Southend demonstrates:

news.sky.com

Rage rollercoaster rescue at Southend's Adventure Island after passengers left hanging at 72ft

Riders of the "biggest and best" attraction at the Adventure Island theme park, Southend, needed to be evacuated after becoming stuck at a 90-degree angle facing skywards.
news.sky.com news.sky.com
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Oooh that explains what the bars at the front and rear of the first row are for! Makes sense.
 
djtruefitt said:
I think the Smiler was the first one that had it installed.
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That's really interesting...

I wonder if Gerstlauer were able to experiment with a new technology (such as a magnetic lift) due to the scale of investment from Merlin?

To my knowledge, Gerstlauer had previously mainly worked with smaller parks, who may have lacked the budget to finance such innovations?

Not to keep bringing up the crash, but it makes me wonder what other technologies Gerstlauer may have developed if not for the accident in 2015 ?

But perhaps Merlin would have stopped working with Gerstlauer anyway, due to other problems that the ride had encountered in 2013 (e.g. rollbacks and falling guide wheels, et cetera).

My opinion is that Gerstlauer would have improved their reliability issues if they had received continuing financial support from the parks - as Vekoma have successfully done since their humble beginnings in the 1980s (SLCs are notoriously rough, but their new rides are anything but!).
 
Secret Weapon said:
That's really interesting...

I wonder if Gerstlauer were able to experiment with a new technology (such as a magnetic lift) due to the scale of investment from Merlin?

To my knowledge, Gerstlauer had previously mainly worked with smaller parks, who may have lacked the budget to finance such innovations?

Not to keep bringing up the crash, but it makes me wonder what other technologies Gerstlauer may have developed if not for the accident in 2015 ?

But perhaps Merlin would have stopped working with Gerstlauer anyway, due to other problems that the ride had encountered in 2013 (e.g. rollbacks and falling guide wheels, et cetera).

My opinion is that Gerstlauer would have improved their reliability issues if they had received continuing financial support from the parks - as Vekoma have successfully done since their humble beginnings in the 1980s (SLCs are notoriously rough, but their new rides are anything but!).
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What the actual hell have I just read?

The relationship between theme park operators and ride manufacturers isn't a cinematic universe with interwoven character arcs. It's a basic supply chain. I'm not sure why you keep trying to force one.

Merlin Entertainments is a leisure operator, not a venture capital firm or an angel investor. They didn't provide "financial support" to Gerstlauer, nor did they "invest" in their R&D department. They just bought two rollercoasters.

You're not "financially supporting" Tesco's culinary innovation division when you purchase a sandwich. You're just buying a sodding sandwich. The cost of R&D for the vertical lift or the magnetic systems was baked into the purchase price of the hardware. It was a standard vendor client transaction. Absolutely nothing more.

The idea that Gerstlauer’s technological advancement was somehow stunted by the 2015 incident at Alton Towers ignores the fact that the theme park world extends far beyond the borders of the UK. Gerstlauer haven't ceased to exist. They didn't stop innovating. Since 2015, they have continued to build massive, highly complex, coasters for parks all over the globe (around 53, or roughly 5 per year). They didn't need Merlin's "continuing financial support" to improve their reliability. They just sold their products to other clients.

Vekoma improved their track profiling and train designs because they realised their older models were head banging liabilities and they were bleeding market share to B&M and Intamin. They innovated to survive in a competitive capitalist market, not because theme parks acted as charitable benefactors keeping them afloat.

It's really quite simple. Merlin bought a couple of rides from a manufacturer. One of those rides had significant operational, mechanical, and PR issues. Merlin's procurement team have chosen to spend their CapEx budget elsewhere since, but it also doesn't mean there's been some sort of dramatic falling out. Merlin hadn't purchased a B&M coaster for 11 years, by the time Mandrill Mayhem opened. They haven't purchased an Intamin coaster in 16 years.

There's no grand, tragic "what if" narrative of lost technological utopias here. Just standard corporate procurement.
 
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@GooseOnTheLoose I agree with most of what you wrote above, but it isn't necessarily always the case that the relationship between theme parks and manufacturers is purely transactional.

Yes, it is true in some cases that parks simply order rides off-the-shelf from a catalogue (e.g. Corkscrew and Boomerang rides, which are essentially mass-produced), or a bespoke version of an existing ride (e.g. Nemesis essentially being a customised version of Batman).

But, often times, the park will actually approach the manufacturer with an idea that they want to develop (not the other way around) - such as Merlin's undeveloped B&M water ride (ditched because B&M were apparently not interested in water rides), and Intamin's drop track for Thirteen (which did in fact proceed).

I get the sense that there is more cooperation and collaboration between parks and manufacturers than there is between supermarkets and their customers.

Sidenote - bringing the topic back to The Swarm: I remember reading in "Making Thorpe Park" that John Wardley helped B&M to develop the wing coaster concept for Raptor, although I'm not sure exactly what his precise input was, and whether it was B&M or John Wardley who first thought of it.
 
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Secret Weapon said:
Sidenote - bringing the topic back to The Swarm: I remember reading in "Making Thorpe Park" that John Wardley helped B&M to develop the wing coaster concept for Raptor, although I'm not sure exactly what his precise input was, and whether it was B&M or John Wardley who first thought of it.
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Arrow did it first, Intamin had completed 2 different styles and S&S had developed the Arrow idea before B&M built one.
 
There's some interesting discussion in here, but I am not sure what relevance it has to The Swarm and that backwards row experiment they did...!

To try and steer things back on topic - I'm never really a fan of parks running coasters that were designed to go forwards backwards, or going backwards full stop. Especially when on a ride like The Swarm the two best rows to ride on are the front row and the back row. Plus the near misses were far less effective when going backwards!
 
Rob said:
There's some interesting discussion in here, but I am not sure what relevance it has to The Swarm and that backwards row experiment they did...!

To try and steer things back on topic - I'm never really a fan of parks running coasters that were designed to go forwards backwards, or going backwards full stop. Especially when on a ride like The Swarm the two best rows to ride on are the front row and the back row. Plus the near misses were far less effective when going backwards!
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I was thinking it seemed like X No Way Out, Indiana Jones and The Jester (Six Flags New Orleans) were all clearly designed to go forwards but went backwards instead.

Here's hoping Hyperia doesn't try a backwards seat as the back row is one of the best rows to ride on. Especially the right seat.
 
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