Alton Towers | The Smiler | Gerstlauer Infinity

[costar]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Could this really have lapbars though? ... Surely that couldn't happen in H&S mad Britain? :lol:

People make this mistake all the time. There is nothing in any of the international standards to which amusement rides are designed, which says that a looping coaster should have over-the-shoulder-restraints. Restraints are categorised in classes ranging from communal lapbars, manually operated, all the way up to individual, redundant and diverse locking restraints, interlocked with ride dispatch (i.e. ride can not be dispatched with restraint open). The latter is the kind of restraint that SW7 will need. The shape of the restraint (over-the-shoulder or otherwise) is pretty much unregulated.

In fact if you're wondering why Intamin always employ OTSR's on their loopers and airtime machines, I reckon Joey has pretty much nailed it with his comment earlier...

Lapbars would be better, but these are the best Intamin have done to combat the throwing people out problem they have.

I don't think Intamin will ever put a lapbar on a ride like this again and rightly so to be honest. It can't be nice to hear about bodies flying out of your rides every couple of years.

Regarding the duelling aspect, I think that is a very real possibility. I'm not sure John Wardley has that much of a say these days but they probably wheel him in for a few ideas at the planning stage and he could well have touted the rebirth of the Schwarzkopf idea. I'm sure if each car was loaded with a decent "average time", there's no reason why they couldn't have one waiting in a staging area to ensure dispatch is regular. They could also slow the vertical lift if needed to aid the duelling.

 

[marc]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Then people can replicate what happened on Duelling Dragon and that would be the end of that!

It only takes 1 chav to ruin it for many and I'm sorry to say it will happen just look at the amount of gum that is spat out on air.

 

[rollermonkey]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

OK, I see what you're getting at now.

As for people chucking batteries at the other car, that should be less of an issue here. on DD, the cars are heading straight at each other in the near misses, here, the cars tend to run side-by-side in the dueling bits....

I hope that'd minimize the idiot-chav factor.

 

[costar]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Fair enough UC. I would accept that. I had forgotten about El Toro and the Mega-Lites (which I suppose went in after long after most of the incidents). I had heard the braking thing before too.

Well, if they are still using lapbars to such an extent, I guess they must have modified the passenger containment in other ways (side containment, seat horns, high knees, procedural changes etc.) because the number of passenger ejections was getting a little embarrassing...

 

[costar]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Ok, to drag this back on topic (I feel kinda responsible for the digression), I was looking at the station in plan view:

I wonder if the rounded section of building on the left could be some kind of loading system. This could support the duelling theory (which would require efficient dispatch) and maybe the Alton guys have been to the Wizarding World and fancy some kind of rolling load. I'm just thinking - there's nothing really stopping you loading a coaster on a curve, like an Intamin rapids ride. So the train arrives, unloads and reloads, whilst it moves to the front of the station. They probably don't have room for a Hollywood:RRR style station, so maybe they've gone circular?? I mean the curve of the building is big so I doubt it is just a slow moving turnaround (it could change direction in a much tighter radius if that was the aim) and I can't see a banked curve being particularly special enough as an 'indoor element' so what does that leave...? Why is the building round?

 

[furie]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Just to take up the "World's First" thing as the explanation it has been missed in all the posts.

Nobody said a World's First, just "like nothing else in the world" - which this definitely is - can anyone think of a ride that's anything like this? Nope - that fits then

BTW, the station is huge, the size of Saw's so it means that there could easily be something extra inside there we don't know of. Whether the curved section is relevant or not though, I have no idea.

If this does duel, we need to make a new term for it rather than Möbius (Möbius being quite a specific one track, but looks like two as you have to get off to ride the "other side"); "self-duelling" I'm coining right now

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

I think the curved section is more theming related... If you look at the other structures in X-sector, there's a lot of circular shapes. I don't think it means anything.

As for the whole duelling thing... Alton will not, under any stretch of the imagination, maintain the duelling if it requires any ounce of effort. Like UC says, it's just about having multiple cars on the track at the same time with multiple places that they interact.

As for Furie keep saying "they didn't say world's first" pretty sure that they did and I'm pretty sure there was two mentioning. One as "true worlds first" and the other as what Furie claims "like nothing else in the world".

So I ask from everyone to report when/where/what context they remember hearing such info.

Someone said the Thirteen day, that sounds right to me too... I'll go nose.

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

The biggest issue with that Joey is that we don't know this is SW7 for definite yet. It could still be a backup plan while the actual SW7 is waiting in the wings until 2018 or something (as we heard Air was delayed).

Plus, it's not very secret revealing the layout when they didn't have to :lol: Going back to an interview from two years ago and hoping that it actually relates to this project is a long shot really.

 

[Brett7710]

Re: New "world's first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Nobody said a World's First, just "like nothing else in the world" - which this definitely is - can anyone think of a ride that's anything like this? Nope

I'm not sure about that. Takashiba for example, it's essentially two layouts on the same track, one starting with the launch, the other with a vertical lift hill, depending on the dispatch timing there is definatly potential for two cars to pass eachother on different sections.

In a way, the term "like nothing else in the world" is harder to justify in that respect. Whereas if they fully intend on making the duelling element work it does set the two apart.

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

In a way, the term "like nothing else in the world" is harder to justify in that respect. Whereas if they fully intend on making the duelling element work it does set the two apart.

It's deliberately ambiguous, like Nemesis is "the world's most intense coaster experience". It means nothing and can be twisted to mean what ever marketing want it to mean.

If you claim a "world's first", then it has to be undeniably right. Look at poor Dollywood "America's first Wing Rider coaster", very shortly followed by America's second at Six Flags. They can't push that point any more through no fault of their own; they've simply made a claim that has been rapidly deprecated.

Maybe when this was planned (assuming it is SW7) Takashiba wasn't on the drawing board. Alton have been delayed and Takashiba has gone on full pelt. So what was a "World's First" on note paper at Alton Towers/Gerstlauer in 2009 has moved on to a full development in 2011 and made Alton back-track into "like nothing else" ambiguity for their 2013 build.

 

[Brett7710]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

It's deliberately ambiguous, like Nemesis is "the world's most intense coaster experience". It means nothing and can be twisted to mean what ever marketing want it to mean..

This seems to pretty much sum up marketing at AT.

Also I guess the "like nothing else" statement doesn't have to refer to the whole concept, just like the 'worlds first' could be just one aspect.

I think the term "like nothing else" leads you to think of the whole picture, but that doesn't have to be what they mean by it.

 

[Nic]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

They can't push that point any more through no fault of their own; they've simply made a claim that has been rapidly deprecated.

That's never stopped Blackpool...

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

True, and we now know Oblivion is 195 Meters tall...

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Sorry UC, but you needed to digest "The Covering Letter". I did say about 34 pages back everyone should do it

Essentially, it says "this part of the park is under a general ride development area and we don't actually need to submit plans for a new ride, but we do for a building". So there's a big question of why they included the coaster plans...

 

[Hixee]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

Sorry UC, but you needed to digest "The Covering Letter". I did say about 34 pages back everyone should do it

Essentially, it says "this part of the park is under a general ride development area and we don't actually need to submit plans for a new ride, but we do for a building". So there's a big question of why they included the coaster plans...

But there isn't a big question... is there? They included the plans to prove that their new structure WON'T breach the restrictions. With a situation like they have, I'd have thought they have to show that their new stuff won't breach the limit, even when they know it won't.

At least, that seems the logical explanation to me...

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

But... they could have shown the plans unofficially in private and asked the council if they believed the plans should go through officially or not, rather than going public right away at the first opportunity? If the council had said "we'd rather you submitted things" then fair enough.

It just seems suspect that if this is meant to be a secret, then why release details if you're under no legal obligation to?

 

[Darren B]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

So after digesting the plans, here are my thought's....

Manufacturer- I don't see this being anything else than a Gertslauer, of course i hope im wrong, but i don't think i am. The argument that says otherwise stems from the statement thats telling us it will be a Gerstlauer Eurofighter, WITH a beyond vertical drop, Well, where is this beyond vertical drop?, it's not on the plans but there is still a realistic chance that it's housed inside the station/building. Even without the vertical drop, I can't see the WHOLE statement being incorrect.

Viral campaign- If this is infact a hoax and we end up with a B&M looper/Intamin airtime machine etc. then kudos to AT, it would be a genius stroke on their behalf, however UC and others have dismissed this idea and im happy with their conclusions.

Thrill factor- Whilst im happy with this being a white knuckle ride, im very underwhelmed by the proposed manufacturer, ok so i haven't ridden that many Gerstlaur coasters, I've ridden enough to tell me that A. even though being fun rides, they don't blow you away, and B. they don't age gracefully, Saw is only 2 years old and already showing signs of a brutal future ahead.

All in all im very sceptical about it, I hope for the best of course, but i reckon it's going to be SH1T!

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

I agree UC and I like the way that it was quite a "bollocks to you, we're doing it anyway" bit of phrasing. However, the application is for the building and the ground clearance. They don't even know if they'll get permission for that yet, adding the coaster plans just gives more grounds for them to be rejected rather than accepted. If the building plans were accepted, then they could come forwards with the coaster plans if they feel they should be revealed at all.

It may be that this is a new local law (I think it mentions quite a recent law) and they're not entirely sure where they stand on it just yet so they're testing the waters (as much as they are doing a local bit of PR).

However, I think it says more about the state of the whole "Secret Weapon" thing (especially after the whole SW6 debacle), in that it's become a marketing ploy to excite enthusiasts and build vibe rather than as anything truly significant in terms of park/ride development. IF they really cared about the Secret Weapon moniker or IF this was one, then they would do their utmost to keep it a secret - no matter what the local PR issues. They could of course spin that local "clash" to their advantage and go on about how the development of the ride will be a leap forward in ride technology and entertainment to keep Alton Towers the premier theme park in the country and a world class attraction bringing in millions o fpounds to the Midlands with jobs, boost in economy, national pride, the locals are arseholes if they object, etc, etc, etc.

Of course, they could always have their "surprise" in the building

But generally, I think that you're right in saying it's to get a positive result by being open and honest (we're the fair play multi-national corporation). I just think there's a little more around it, but we'll never know :lol:

As for it being a viral campaign, I can't see it. It's cost them over £5K to submit the plans (okay, that's cheap in terms of marketing budget generally), but it's the local PR equivalent of running over the local cats and hanging them from the main gates. Legally it's fine, but you're upsetting people needlessly which means when you come to do "the real thing" people will feel aggrieved and annoyed (including the people it causes work for in the local council) and your next application is going to get a very negative view.

Unless they're really planning that baby coaster, and they're applying for the ridiculous to make what they really want seem tame to make it easier to get through :lol:

 

[furie]

Re: New "like nothing else" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

To add on to this...
Alton Towers has issued a statement saying it's a world-first new attraction. So like the manufacturer, it's confirmed
http://old.towerstimes.co.uk/news/parkn ... %2C9%2C10&

 

[Hixee]

Re: New "world-first" coaster at Alton Towers 2013

I don't think I like the idea of a World's First. I'd rather a good solid ride, where they've focussed on the coaster, than focusing on some gimmick.

*sigh*

Oh well, hopefully the outdoors section will ride well enough to counter any **** that they try and claim about the rest of the ride.