Alton Towers - Thirteen

^it could do with being ripped down, and building something decent instead...

[gouldy]

There is a lot of talk on other sites about the "world first" element of this ride being "drop track". In the section where we've previously spoken about possibly there being switch track of some form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4cxyiAKEKE

What would everyone think of that?

I'm thinking that is a definite and quite probable possibility, and they could technically call that a "world first".

Edit: removed one of the videos, having a lot of problems with the link

That would be soooo f**king awesome if they put that in...

Gazag, Jordz's article cannot be years old, it talks about Saw: TR being his most intense ride...

[gouldy]

Anyone who's most intense ride is Saw:TR, must not have been on that many rides. Even Oblivion was more thrilling than Saw.

Anyway, looking back at Jordz's article, I am now in myself 100% certain that the unkown element will be drop track. It must be.

Being as the ride is Intamin, the section of track is probably going to just be a mini Intamin drop tower, with the section of track as the "vehicle", with magnetic brakes at the bottom of the drop just like on the towers.

Sounds quite cool, even though I'm presuming the drop is only going to be sort of 10 or 15ft, if that.

>> Even Oblivion was more thrilling than Saw.

I have not been on Saw yet, but to me it seems it would more thrilling than Oblivion.

The drop track does look cool. Cannot wait to see another first at Alton Towers again.

First flying coaster,
First dive machine,
First drop track element?

[gouldy]

Originally posted by Matt


I have not been on Saw yet, but to me it seems it would more thrilling than Oblivion.

You'll have to formulate your own opinion when you get to ride it, but from my point of view, Oblivion genuinely is more thrilling than Saw. The drop on the indoors bit of Saw, which is like a 20ft drop, is easily the most thrilling part of the ride. The rest of it is just fairly rough Gerstlauer crappiness.

I always love the secrecy and build up to the Alton coasters. Hopefully this one will turn out to be something unique and special.

I was there on Wednesday, and whilst queueing for Rita, i got to have a look at the construction of the new ride. One very noticable thing i saw was a huge hole/trench in the ground. So if this drop section is going to happen, even if its only 15ft above ground, is there a possibility it will drop into that trench, and become a much bigger drop?

Also, there was a huge sign and other small signs dotted around the park. It said :

"Ride into
THE UNKNOWN"

With "THE UNKNOWN" in huge letters. Maybe a name possibility? Not sure, just something i picked up.

If that is the name, Alton Towers needs to fire their concept designers and marketing team. The thing is, i used to have so much faith that Alton Towers would come up with a great concept, and a great theme. This time im really not so sure. I dont have faith in Merlin with this yet.

And if the World First is Drop Track, IMO thats a pretty bad World First. Its a good idea, but if thats the special feature inside, then surely the best part about it is the fact the public wont know its there. But if you start saying its a World First because of that, theres going to be no element of suprise.

Also if that is the World First, why say its a World First now, so people speculate what it could be, and make up these crazy concepts and ideas which it could be, only for it to be a piece of drop track.

Other than this, i do really like the layout for the ride. Theres a kind of double down element right after the first helix which i think could be a seriously good moment on the ride. [:D]

[gouldy]

yeah, I wondered about the signs saying "ride nto THE UNKNOWN" when I was there and thought "no Alton Towers, just no." If that is the name, it wouldn't be as bad as The Intimidator, but it's not exactly good either.

I've also wondered about how this is going to sit next to Rita and look right, what with the two themes on the two rides. The theme on Rita was already compromised by the theme of "Ug Land" in general. What exactly is the theme of the area going to be now? Racing dinosaur old bones caveman speed ruined castle dark forrest theme? That oh so well known of themes.

^ I'd take Drag-Racing-Cavemen-by-a-Spooky-Forest theming over no theming any day. lol

Maybe they'd re-theme Rita, but I doubt it considering the public are too used to the name and theme now.

I'd like them to retheme Rita, ive never thought it fit in

BTW, is anyone going to go on the opening day, i might make a trip down there.

I actually love the theme of Rita. Despite it being a bit weird, the name and theme really got people talking. The fact that it had such a out of place name really engaged the public, and got people interested in this ride that was just given a simple womans name. And the whole point in giving the ride a name and a theme, is not just to make it look pretty, but its to make people more interested and curious, which Rita really did.

I do know what you mean about this theme though Gouldy, the two being right next to each other are going to look weird. I have heard a few rumours that Rita will be re themed, but i dont know, theres nothing solid been said about that yet.

Anyway the main reason for this post is i went to Alton Towers yesterday. Got on so many rides (I got 10 rides on Nemesis at the end of the day because there was literally a queue of about 20 people). YAY. lol. But anyway, we went on Rita first a couple of times, and while i was in the area i was obviously looking over towards the construction site to see how much has been done so far. All i can say is you cant see much yet from the Rita queueline, theres just a few footers, some holes and thats about it. But when i was actually on Rita i got a quick few glances from high above the construction site. There is one hole that seems to be quite deep which is if im not mistaken exactly where the blank section on the plans is. Now from photos i had seen of the hole before, it didnt look that deep, but now even from on Rita i could not see the bottom. I could see it has a sort of stepped edge and theres wire where concrete is going to be poured, but after that sort of step it drops down again far from vision. What was so interesting about this is that in my opinion the hole is not very long, but deep. So if the element is drop track, then i dont know how a whole horizontal section of track is going to fit into the hole. Unless the trains arent very long. It seems to me, if the hole isnt very long that its going to drop into its going to need to drop in at an angle to even fit inside. Kind of like a Vekoma Tilt coaster, but backwards, and on a much smaller scale. Thats how i envisage it at the moment anyway, but i could be very wrong. Otherwise i dont see how it would work.

One more interesting thing i noticed is looking towards where the final helix is going to be. There is quite a deep trench curving round, exactly mapping out the helix. The end where the track appears from the building is covered in loads of plastic sheeting so you cant quite see what is going on there, but from the looks of it, it looks again quite deep that side. It appears as though the ride is going to drop into the first hole, travel underground, and then burst back above ground into the helix. But then if this was the case, would they not need to dig a trench anyway where it was going to be underground?

Anyway, so basically there is alot of ground work going on at the moment with some quite significant changes, that make it possible to see how the ride is going to fit. The fact that the skyride is closed and the station is being moved backwards suprised me a bit. It is obviously in the way of the coaster, which made the me realise the ride is going to be quite a bit larger than i first thought. You can see people working digging up land in the trees all behind where corkscrew used to be and even further round. While the ride looks relatively small on plans, once you are actually there and see the site, and see how big the helix is going to be in real life, and then use that to compare how big the whole ride will be, its actually a bit suprising how much land this ride is going to cover.

I will stop just writing randomly now anyway, but i just thought id mention a few of these things, try and get some discussion going. [:D]

Track has been delivered!!!

The track for Secret Weapon 6, the new roller coaster at Alton Towers for next year, has been delivered.

Construction of the coaster is expected to proceed at a very fast pace, with some estimates saying that the entire circuit will be in place in time for the Scarefest Halloween event starting, mid-way through next month.

The track arrived yesterday in several large containers, along with a crane and other equipment. They are temporarily being stored in a seldom-used car park near the Alton Towers Hotel.

A temporary fence has gone up around the containers, preventing the general public from getting too close (in contrast to Air and Rita, where there was no such restriction).



Source: Almanac
http://www.towersalmanac.com/index.php?show_story=379

[gouldy]

I'm going tomorrow, so I'll keep my eyes open for that!

Edit: Went today, did have a look around, couldn't see any track anywhere, I think they've hidden it now. The construction on site, however, seems to be at a fairly advanced stage in terms of the ground work. I didn't go on Rita today and the sky ride is closed this season for obvious reasons, so I didn't get a decent view of the site, but I could make out footers in the trees and leading up to them and there was a fair bit going on with 4 cherry-picker, crane style vehicles moving around the site all day.

Edit 2: saw this on RCDB and it made me chuckle



Call me sad, but it made me chuckle to think that the name might not have to be changed ever, haha.

ALSO, does anyone know of anywhere that is actually following the construction, because all the towers enthusiast websites don't seem to have particularly regular uodates, and the construction is now about to get interesting!

yeah nobody seems to be following closely, its all speculation and bit and pieces of info. at least the tunnel and tranch is getting finnished now and the pit seems to be growing deeper, ill go up sunday again to see whats going on and get some piccys of the construction site. hopefully it will get a creepy name and a creepy theme as saw the ride did.

[gouldy]

Construction comences:












If you look closely in these poor quality phone photos, you sould be able to make out:

The station track,
the transfer track and storage track,
the pre-lift section,
the first 5th or so of the first lift hill (which is tires),
almost the entirety of the second lift hill (also tires),
the turn into the drop track section and surrounding building structure,
the track leading from the bottom of the drop track element
AND the entirety of the backwards helix (although these photo's don't show that as it's mainly under ground level and can only be seen from Rita's station).

Im not too fond of those tires, I guess it will be quicker than lift hills though, still, looking great.

[gouldy]

^ and, more importantly, quieter [;)]

don't forget this is Alton Towers we're talking about, tyhe park in the village with the most whiny residents

little bit of photoshop I did with the plans. I used the no-limits editor colours for hte lift and the station. The red bits are the bits I've seen from photos to be constructed. I doubt we'll see much of the voyage into the forest getting constructed though. Oh and the blue arrows are for forward travel, purple for backwards (although I realise now it should be backwards blue and forwards fuschia, but tough)

Since I'm too lazy to read through the whole 4 pages, what type of coaster did we come to the conclusion that it was? The last I heard were rumours about it being a mega-lite, but the track doesn't exactly reinforce that idea, huh?

an intamin 'family coaster' according to the packaging on the track

[gouldy]

blythy, I've edited your picture slightly, to show the track that has currently been built. Although you might not be able to see some of it in my photos.



The track with the red next to it is what has already been built.

Man im getting excited about this now. I like the fact that it has a tires, much less noise which is needed in this area of the park. I cant wait to see the building develop.