Gutterflower

The GCI has gone vertical. Looks like it will use the terrain well I assume this chap is reading the Ikea style instruction manual on coaster construction.

Update on some of the parks other coasters today as themeing goes in on the two new Vekoma junior coasters. The park is starting to look very nice.

Nice big update for you today They have enclosed the boomerang lifts in a glass dome now but the cobra roll looks pretty cool wrapped around the upper floor of the indoor park. Some more pictures here: http://www.vhcoasters.com/?p=5473

This looks excellent. But I am actually a little sad its not the Vekoma. Don't get me wrong this will be an excellent world class ride but the enthusiast in me wanted to see that Vekoma, this to me has a rather uninspired layout comparatively. never thought I'd hear myself say that.

As always my pleasure. As for where. thats a tricky question as it tends to be a lot of places. In this instance it is their official Weibo page http://www.weibo.com/5576040030/album?from=reclayer&wvr=5&loc=tabalbum#profile_tab I believe you won't be able to see it as you have to be a member of Weibo. Which is tricky to do sometimes but I believe they now at least have English signups. I have most major Chinese parks followed and bookmarked on here so I quite often see what they post quickly Another useful site i often use is gaoloumi.com which is essentially a chinese version of Skyscrapercity. But again you need an account to see most of the pictures http://www.gaoloumi.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=904035&extra=&page=233 Baidu is also handy. This page for roller coasters is used often by the Roller Coaster Dream club members. http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=%B9%FD%C9%BD%B3%B5 My friends and the RCD members themselves quite often send some pictures my way as well. So a few different places. When pictures come from a particular member i try and give credit but sometimes especially with Chinese news sites its really tough to figure out where the original pictures came from. The Chinese news agencies have no issues with just using whatever pictures. As an update. Heres some pictures of the GCI wood also now on site at this park

As this will open in late 2017 this will actually be the second to open of five. There is Parrot Coaster at Ocean Kingdom already open and the one at Hotgo Park which is built but won't open until 2018. There are then two more at Wanda Wuxi and Colourful Yunan which havent gone vertical yet and open in 2018/19.

Remember the lime green B&M track seen at the factory we saw here a while back? It has finally shown up and gone vertical at the new under construction Happy Valley park in Chongqing The park is also due to get a GCI wooden coaster which has wood on site already but no vertical construction Look closely here for an artists impression of how the new ride will look

Something else people may have missed from IAAPA. Vekoma announced a new launched coaster model called Firestorm. A model that was confirmed at the Asia Attractions expo as being sold to Vietnam's Vinpearl group for a new park in Thu Thiem. The park will also open a Vekoma mine train which I imagine will be a clone of the one opened at Vinpearl Nha Trang. Thu Thiem is a new district in Ho Chi Min City being built right now. The IAAPA announcement seen here states the park is already open. I believe this is a misprint but its possible information hasnt leaked out from Vietnam yet. But back to Firestorm. This new launched coaster certainly carries on Vekomas recent run of excellent new designs. A second Firestorm model has been sold to the Chinese Evergrande Group who are constructing a number of projects in China. News on that one when we know more.

Something i missed at IAAPA https://rcdb.com/14440.htm Land of Legends in Turkey is getting a Flash Clone. Flash currently has the record for tallest inverting loop

Yes... i sort of do. So the company is opening an indoor area with its new Spa Resort (which has an indoor water park that seems to be already open) and we believe its part of that. We've added it to the RCDB and we added it as such here http://www.hotgopark.com/park/view/3 I'm sorry to say it is 100% a chinese knock off. The Lifts on Vekoma's use catch cars. The BSA ones use chains on one of the hills. The Catch is the only operating BSA boomerang at Lewa World has already closed after less that a year. So no idea if this will even open. They may buy B&Ms but in their first park they bought a Gravity Group woodie and a BSA SLC knock off so they arent scared to go cheap https://rcdb.com/12143.htm

Afraid we know very little. Perhaps we will find out more at IAAPA but i doubt it Found this picture today. Terribly taken but shows more of the supports up in quite an interesting layout.

Update on the mysterious new coaster. Oddly wide track and clearly a launch section along with quite a large first hill. There is also an indoor section. So far my best guess is a Moto Coaster type ride but that is just speculation

Capitol Bullet Train the Mack launched coaster at Motiongate has finally gone vertical.

To be fair to Happy Valley they seem to have been alright with their maintenance in my experience. Especially on the wood coasters. Fireball and The Dragons have both had large sections retracked.. None of the rides I've ridden at the Happy Valleys ive been to (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan and Shenzhen) seemed to be poorly maintained. The second time i visited Shanghai Fireball was running even better than the first time. I know the SLC at Beijings Happy Valley had some issues though. Although it sounds like it may have been Vekomas fault. The smaller class of parks are another matter entirely. I saw a mechanic run into the ride area of Shenzhou Coaster in Beijing, collect a small piece of the train and run back to bolt it back on. If you want some nighmares theres a lovely site with a list of failed inspections and reports. http://chinaridesafety.org.cn/tag.php?tag=%E8%BF%87%E5%B1%B1%E8%BD%A6 With a translator it makes for some interesting reading.

The GCi has begun to rise. No sign of the B&M yet.

Here is the full update from the Wanda Harbin park. Several rides testing and the park looking much more complete than before. Pictures by craiglv over at Gaoloumi.com http://www.gaoloumi.com/forum.php…

There was some yellow track at the plant ages ago with Mega Coaster for Hotgo on the label. And as of today I've finally got a shot of the thing under construction. Source

We have vertical construction Source

Not much news here but a couple of new pics of the wing coaster from B&M Doesn't look like the park will open until 2018 so plenty of time to go. No sign of the B&M Hyper.

Yup really, Sure we've never felt airtime on a Vekoma before. But when have Vekoma built a coaster that focuses on airtime? they haven't as far as I can remember. So I cant base my preference on which one may give the best airtime. I know Intamin gives good airtime but Vekoma could give just as good. we simply don't know, i mean we can analyse the hills in these videos for shape and so on but that's never too conclusive. So going on pure layout terms and which I think is better. The Vekoma walks all over the Intamin. Can Vekoma push some boundaries on force? which is being built just down the road from Energylandia suggests maybe they can. And this design of a hyper from their advertising material suggests they are certainly willing to push some boundaries elsewhere This is always going to be subjective though and many people will just pick Intamin because they know Intamin will produce a good ride. In my opinion Vekoma came up with a better design and I think they deserve the chance. Having said that I'm certainly not going to moan if the Intamin gets built. I'll be in line the same as everyone else when it opens.

I agree but the other way round. I think the Vekoma is a much better layout and has the potential to be a much better coaster. And it has the potential to be groundbreaking. Especially if as we kind of all assume its cheaper the price is right (*this may not be true), If the ride lives up to its potential then more parks with lower budgets could end up getting hypers and thats a good good thing. I genuinely don't think the Intamin layout is as good as the Vekoma. Sure the first few hills look excellent but not significantly more so than the Vekoma and the ending is really weak. In my opinion It's overall quite poor layout from Intamin and yeah sure it's Intamin it more than likely will be a good ride but post final traditional airtime hill It does nothing for me. Which is something I never thought Id say

Good to see this park finally open. I really enjoyed the clone of this Jungle Trailblazer in Tianjin but feel it would have benefited from the newer GCI trains. How did this one ride after sitting dormant for 2 years?

Like I said I read it on Facebook and I only thought they announce the Intamin water coaster and the Vekoma family boomerang where is the 3rd coaster??? You missed the most exciting one The GCI rumour comes from a picture the park posted at IAAPA last year stating they had signed an a memorandum of understanding with GCI that if they were to get a wooden coaster in the future it would be GCI who provided it. Something which they haven't taken them up on yet. But who knows, at this rate we could see one in 2019.

Yeah, I never thought I'd say it but the Vekoma one looks miles better for me. The Intamin probably edges it on the Out and Back run but after the last returning airtime hill it loses it. The Vekoma keeps up the twists and turns towards the end much better and seems to keep its speed too. Plus I kind of want to see Vekoma given the chance to strut their stuff. The two new loopers in Poland and one in China all look first class. Would love to see how they handle this.