andyuk200523

One of the workers there died after falling from one of the rollercoasters, after that I think the numbers were declining so it was no longer profitable forcing them to close. It's unfortunate because most people have happy memories of the place. The worker dieing after falling from one of the coasters (which happened in 2007, well before the park closed) was cleared of being any fault of the Theme Park, it was a genuine accident, the reason that Loudoun Castle closed was due to the financial climate being poor and low visit numbers, which the park owner puts down to a lot of goverment funded attractions which are free to visit opening in the area. Source

Lift has been topped off.........I am now getting seriously excited for this!!! Photo from the Swarm Dev. Diary. Sexy!

You have to see it! I was blown away by the West End version last October, if you get a show with Rachel Tucker performing as Elphaba, she has an incredible voice, sent shivers down my spine.

Photo Credit to CoasterForce Lift Hill is going up

It certainly looks impressive, its nice to see some drop track in the daylight, as Altons was hidden and never seen outside, the only thing I would say is that it looks over engineered to the max!!! I hope it is well covered over, as the beauty of Th13teens drop track is from a ride perspective, you cannot see any supports or structure at all, whereas on this, you will see everything apart from the mechanics underneath! Verbolten looks incredible so far, very excited for this one!

Does anyone know what the small "disk" pieces of metal are on the backbone? I cannot see them in any photos of Raptor on RCDB, does this mean we are getting another "Sand-Filled" B&M and not getting the glorious B&M Roar?

I am gonna stick my neck out and say it will be a Maurer X Car Launcher rather than an Intamin.... ....I can't believe that the fact Paramount used to own Terra Mitica hasn't been a more talked about topic, they bailed out after a few years due to lack of Profit in one of the most popular tourist areas in Spain, Murcia is about an hour or so away in a part of spain that isn't fully developed into a destination yet (I have a friend with a villa in Murcia, they go once or twice a year) I am gobsmacked that Paramount believe this will be any better than Terra Mitica! (I would love to know who in the Paramount company sold this to the investors, cause I have a load of ice I would like to sell to some eskimos, I reckon I could make a profit )

One of the drawings states "1998 Rollercoaster" So it certainly would have shaken up the coaster industry at that point!

Great TR, this place looks like heaven for a Schwarzkopf fan!!!! BTW - The Traumboot, there are a few left operating, in fact a reconditioned one opened at Lightwater Valley this year under the name Black Pearl.

£60 return flights to Gothenburg, go and have an amazing experience at Liseberg at Christmas, the atmosphere is supposed to be amazing, although you risk the rides not being open

If I remember correctly, All B&M Coasters have restraints locked indicators, I am pretty sure they cannot dispatch a train in operating mode if all the restraints are not down, however, if they are running in manual mode (i.e. the mode they use to reverse trains out of the station to transfer) they can do this without the restraints being down. I am pretty certain this is the same with Intamin coasters, I believe on the rocket coasters with Load/Offload stations, the only movement the trains can do with restraints up in normal operating mode is offload to onload. Can anyone who is currently operating an Intamin rocket confirm?

Hi Larry, I was recently at Flamingoland and snapped these for you Introducing Zooom! (yes, that is how it is spelt, exclamation mark and all) I was going to put these into a TR, however I haven't even had time to finish my last TR yet, so they can all sit in a backlog till my life becomes less busy! Hope that about covers it for you, unfortunately did not snap any photos of the Dodgems, I didn't notice them in the list until just now! Full Ride Sign Top Half Logo Entry Area Ride Station, it is poorly located to get a clear shot of it. Ride Vehicles Middle Section of Ride

Arms behind head to prevent hitting head?? Always ride with legs and arms crossed, it feels like a more streamlined shape

Image courtesy www.telegraph.co.uk I hope that all involved recover swiftly. EDIT - Found some videos on youtube of the ride being collapsed and taken away, it looks doubtful this ride will ever operate at Bottons again, hopefully they can determine the cause asap.

It looks awesome! That near miss "Keyhole" effect will be incredible, however.......I personally cannot count the dive off the lift an inversion, it is the opposite way to the inversion dive on Swarm yet ends up pointing the same way, thus Swarms actually goes completely upside down, this looks more like an old school inverter dive on crack, not really an inversion, unless B&M are gonna start renaming all there overbanks inversions (Parc Asterix for example) Great move by Six Flags announcing all these 2012 additions in one day though!!

Montana Infinitum in Mexico City has something similar to what you're describing. I barely was able to fit into it, because of my height. Montana Infinitum used to be Magnum Force, it moved from Flamingo Land to Mexico in 2007 Yes, they are a pain those restraints!

Without a doubt, the most ridiculous ever for slowing down loading times has to be Magnum Force back when it was at Flamingo Land, some bright spark thought it would be wise to retrofit the trains with 5-point racing harnesses.....no joke Was a nightmare!!!

This looks incredible so far, that In-Line is going to feel very different!

Nice TR, These are portable generator lighting Must be for doing night works on rides, or they keep them for halloween events.

So your telling me no-one from your group did anything wrong.....no-one in the world would ever start an arguement for the "hell of it" particularily someone in an official role, there may be instances when security services are slightly hamfisted, but you have to remember that some of the stuff these people deal with is extreme at Thorpe Park (I was waiting in the Car Park for a friend of mine to finish working when I witness an Armed Robbery attempt on the cash trolley that was being moved down to the security offices). What I seem to find common in situations like these (I work in a customer facing role, so see a lot of this) is that in a busy period, if you ask someone to do something and the other members of the group seem to think it is either because of Race/Age/Sex etc, voices will start to be raised, thus resulting in arguements happening, I can almost guarantee you that at least 1 person in your group raised their voices at one point or another. I personally think Thorpe's Zero Tollerance approach is excellent, it is fairly uncommon to see major incidents inside the park, and after all, Thorpe is supposed to be a nice day out. On the other hand though, if something was done wrong by the Thorpe Security staff, they will be dealt with, and I am sure you will be compensated for your trouble if you lodged a complaint, however if all you did was leave after argueing, then decided to post on a Theme Park Enthusiast forum which you have never posted on before just to complain, I have a funny feeling you never lodged a complaint with Thorpe or Merlin and probably are aware you or another member of your group may have done something wrong. Just my .02p worth.

Looks like... If there is copious amounts of Airtime on that hill, the drop turn tunnel section following it is going to be awesomely intense.....another GCI winner, I think So I need to head to Europa!!!!

Does that flag on the 2nd Hill say "Airtime Hill"?!?!?!?!

This looks like another impressive coaster in B&M's already impressive lineup. However......I will agree with a lot of people in that watching the POV I was thinking nice place for a Mid-Course brake run, then saw it was the final brakes! It feels eerily short for the speed it must surely be carrying at the brakes.

uhmazing........ Just saying! I really appreciate driving skill, and that man has tons of it! P.S. Not normally a Fiesta fan, however I wouldn't mind one of them Rally Spec Fiesta's! (If I had a spare £100,000 or there abouts!)

^ Here comes the "is it or is it not" an inversion arguement! Although that looks to me like about 100 degrees rather than 90! Looking at the height difference from the first drop to the dive loop that is going to carry some crazy speed through that element!!! May have to pop over to France next year!