Alton Towers 2018 - Wicker Man: GCI Wooden [mild spoilers]

I believe Alton Towers had an RMC project (maybe rumor) before the Smiler crash. And so, since they lost money because of this crash, they certainly asked GCI for a cheaper woodie.

Such a shame that the park has to post this. Of course the riders won't actually come into contact with the fire!

"Much of what will appear to be real fire is actually an illusion created by special effects"

My prediction is there will be smoke effects with orange/yellow strobe lighting within the structure, with the addition of a tiny bit of real fire on top, the aesthetics from the cable car are gonna be sexy af.

I think it's a good move, lots of GP pointing out the whole wood/fire fusion dangers (even though we all know 99% of the wicker man structure is made of steel). Bad press or good press its all press at the end of the day. They're quite literally fighting fire with fire.

Looking at the drone footage the coaster is gonna be half decent as well - and to be fair i'm happy with that. We're never gonna get a world class high intensity coaster at Alton Towers I don't think and I'm not to bothered about it; plus we can be in German or Sweden in less than 2 hours by plane so it's not the end of the world.

english coaster guy wrote:

We're never gonna get a world-class, high-intensity coaster at Alton Towers

Aren't you forgetting Nemesis?

skyscraper wrote:

english coaster guy wrote:

We're never gonna get a world-class, high-intensity coaster at Alton Towers

Aren't you forgetting Nemesis?

.....moving forwards.

[Paradox]

AceDFe19 wrote:

I believe Alton Towers had an RMC project (maybe rumor) before the Smiler crash. And so, since they lost money because of this crash, they certainly asked GCI for a cheaper woodie.

This is not true at all. Wicker Man is the 2nd shortest GCI, longer than Heidi by .4ft, and Heidi cost around 7 million USD because of theming. White Lightning is longer than Wicker Man by 4ft and cost 3.5 million USD as it was just the coaster.

Wicker Man cost 16 million Pounds which translates to about 22 million USD. That's the same price as Lightning Rod and 3 million less than both I305 and Fury 325.

[mkingy]

By your own logic it would make sense that if Alton wanted a cheaper woodie they would go to GCI as you listed a bunch of GCI coasters that were cheaper than an RMC ground up build.

Not that I believe an RMC was ever in the pipeline for Alton, I'm pretty certain that it was always between Gravity Group and GCI.

Train on track, she's poking out the station.

The tunnels should add to sense of speed as well. I'm getting excited, looks way better than I thought it would. Never really noticed but the drop is kinda like a triple down.

It's not on fire yet tho.

mkingy wrote:

Not that I believe an RMC was ever in the pipeline for Alton, I'm pretty certain that it was always between Gravity Group and GCI.

I'm trying to imagine what an Alton Towers RMC could possibly even look like. Probably a lot like the second half of Wildfire. Barrel roll through the Wicker Man!

[mkingy]

Connor_The_Colossus wrote:

mkingy wrote:

Not that I believe an RMC was ever in the pipeline for Alton, I'm pretty certain that it was always between Gravity Group and GCI.

I'm trying to imagine what an Alton Towers RMC could possibly even look like. Probably a lot like the second half of Wildfire. Barrel roll through the Wicker Man!

Quintuple Down into the valley

[Dirk_Ermen]

mkingy wrote:

Connor_The_Colossus wrote:

mkingy wrote:

Not that I believe an RMC was ever in the pipeline for Alton, I'm pretty certain that it was always between Gravity Group and GCI.

I'm trying to imagine what an Alton Towers RMC could possibly even look like. Probably a lot like the second half of Wildfire. Barrel roll through the Wicker Man!

Quintuple Down into the valley

We've been dreaming of that since Megafobia was built.

[gouldy]

mkingy wrote:

Quintuple Down into the valley

Stop.
The more people say this stuff, the more I just realise what will never be.

Let's just wait until it's officially tested - most of us believe that it will be a neat ride.

POV TIME.....lol



I've read that Alton Towers weren't supposed to release it yet and subsequently deleted it; but god bless the internet.

I'm more excited for how it's going to look than ride, the theme has grown on me a lot especially after seeing the train go through the wicker boi, and thats even before it's on fire.

[AyTrane]

Paradox wrote:

AceDFe19 wrote:

I believe Alton Towers had an RMC project (maybe rumor) before the Smiler crash. And so, since they lost money because of this crash, they certainly asked GCI for a cheaper woodie.

This is not true at all. Wicker Man is the 2nd shortest GCI, longer than Heidi by .4ft, and Heidi cost around 7 million USD because of theming. White Lightning is longer than Wicker Man by 4ft and cost 3.5 million USD as it was just the coaster.

Alton Towers did not have an RMC project before the Smiler accident.

Wicker Man is actually the shortest GCII; Heidi is longer than White Lightning by 24ft (added for the show building as well as profile and plan changes).

AyTrane wrote:

Paradox wrote:

AceDFe19 wrote:

I believe Alton Towers had an RMC project (maybe rumor) before the Smiler crash. And so, since they lost money because of this crash, they certainly asked GCI for a cheaper woodie.

This is not true at all. Wicker Man is the 2nd shortest GCI, longer than Heidi by .4ft, and Heidi cost around 7 million USD because of theming. White Lightning is longer than Wicker Man by 4ft and cost 3.5 million USD as it was just the coaster.

Alton Towers did not have an RMC project before the Smiler accident.

Wicker Man is actually the shortest GCII; Heidi is longer than White Lightning by 24ft (added for the show building as well as profile and plan changes).

So, ok, it is confirmed, it was a rumor.

We have testing footage!

L O L

That can't be the final speed

[mkingy]

That was horrible, I mean if it sped up then you'd accept that maybe it was testing speed, it seemed to crawl through the layout.

Apparently that was a much slower run than it has been running. The only hope I have is that the entire thing was running slow rather than just sections, meaning it might not be the final speed as designed.

If you're still excited for this ride after seeing that video, you're lying to yourself.

In all fairness in light of the Smiler incident, Maybe they were testing to see what speed it was likely to hit rollback at.

[gouldy]

Okay, so while the ride itself looks a bit rubbish - It LOOKS beautiful!

I hope it looks cool in the sunlight

[gouldy]

straightbanana wrote:

I hope it looks cool in the sunlight

In the what?