The Incredible Hulk 2016 Retracking

[Mikey]

Universal Studios Orlando announced this week that the Incredible Hulk Roller Coaster will close on Sept. 8th in order to under go many months of refurbishment. The unique Bolliger and Mabillard which sits in the Marvel Super Hero Island section of the park was built in 1998 and put in to service in May of 1999. It is thought to be the longest continuously operating Bolliger and Mabillard roller coaster in the world due to the daily operating schedule unique to Orlando.

In addition to routine mechanical and electrical refurbishments, the ride will receive enhancements to it's story line, ride vehicles and overall experience. The park has not released specific details as to what changes exactly will take place during the refurbishment process which is expected to take six months. The Incredible Hulk Roller Coaster has been subject to much publicly scrutiny lately as a result of a stringent loose article policy in place at the and it's marquee counter part Rip N Rocket. At both attractions guest are required to walk though metal detectors and turn out their pockets before riding resulting in extended queuing times and having the added hassle of hunting and in some cases paying for a locker.

I thought like they would close Hulk "down"...

[Paradox]

Apparently several track sections are going to be replaced.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Wasn't the zero G roll replaced with beefier track in the early 2000's? I hope they don't jump on the on-board audio bandwagon.

RMC Hulk confirmed

F*ck its gonna be closed when I'm there.

Oh my god I almost threw my work computer on the floor thinking it was permanent...
But still- wat.

[Paradox]

GerstlCrazy wrote:

Oh my god I almost threw my work computer on the floor thinking it was permanent...
But still- wat.

I'm guessing they want to replace the drive-tire launch with something similar to Thunderbird's system and possibly go floorless and work out some of the rough spots.

Predictions! New lighter trains with whatever the modifications they're making to the theme are. No new restraints. Lims in the tunnel. No Trackwork. Complete redo of all theming and maybe adding some more to other parts of the ride. Complete repaint.

That will be cool. The crest of the drop out of the MCBR rattles horribly, especially in the back. And that's actually kind of a cool airtime moment.

Dat clickbait title tho.

maybe re-theming it to nintendo?

[Paradox]

^Seeing that the ride is pretty much the centerpiece of the Marvel area that would be extremely hard to do.

Also the Nintendo thing is supposed to be in a new expansion I believe.

we know nintendo stuff is coming, we don't know in what quantity

it could be a new expanion, a whole new park or maybe re-theming the entire marvel area since universal can't even add stuff to that after disney got the rights

^ What we should not forget in the category of Nintendo, is Captain Falcon coming out of F-Zero series! He obviously looks as tough as most "Marvel Heroes" do!

[mkingy]

Interesting rumour going around that it'll be a complete piece by piece refurb ie. new track and support work throughout. I imagine we'll be seeing the track outside of a B&M production plant fairly soon if that's the case!

Seems a little excessive. But if it's really a six month rehab, maybe that's the case. The track wouldn't need to be re-engineered ($$$$$) by B&M, just re-manufactured, so, maybe that's what is actually happening, and it's affordable to Universal.

From the Twitter account @AmusementBuzz, several track pieces have been removed from the Incredible Hulk Coaster.

Hulk.png (294.73 KiB) Viewed 3515 times

Never thought they'd actually do that.

They could just be refurbishing those pieces of track and will put them back on later because I haven't heard about any green track at the B&M plant in Ohio lately.

Interesting. Though, anything could happen because this is kinda the first "re-tracking" of a steel coaster

[Mikey]

They may not be replacing the track in it's entirety, just the rails in the areas that are worm out of spec which would be in just about every change in direction. If one had the old bend files they could easily re-roll just those rails, throw them in a box (shipping container) and ship them to Florida and it wouldn't be a big deal. Once onsite all they would have to do is cut out the rails from the frames and re-weld in the new ones, perform the non destructive test on the welds, then paint and put it back up. Universal has the space and in house expertise to be able to do this.

If they start taking down support columns then for sure they might be re-profiling two areas of the ride which were slightly out of whack being built by mid century B & M.

^Which parts are you referencing as being "out of whack"??

[Coasterkidmwm]

They've never been perfect. Plenty of minor issues on many of their older rides.

rip inedible hunk trains