What's new

Busch Gardens Tampa | Iron Gwazi | RMC Gwazi | 2022

I'm curious here. Zadra is supposed to be taller, but this faster. Zadra is probably almost as steep. Maybe Zadra's lift will stall out on the top, like on Joker SFDK, or something; where it slows down just enough to let gravity slowly take over.
 

You can see towards the end of the video that steel ledgers have started to go in. Looks like it'll lead up into the turn around into the first inversion to me. Some nice up close shots of the purple track as well.
 
We have very much moved from the deconstruction phase to the construction phase now. Ledgers being placed going up into the turnaround into what is presumed to be inversion 1, new wood placed will form the bottom of the exit out of that inversion, then leading up into what was previously the top of the lion side lift hill.
9homxmlo2ax21.jpg

jw5eedlo2ax21.jpg

From:
 
Last edited:
There's so little left of Gwazi... I don't see why they just didn't do a full new-build since this is basically what its gonna be at this point!
 
There's so little left of Gwazi... I don't see why they just didn't do a full new-build since this is basically what its gonna be at this point!
I guess this way they can re-use most of the old footers so they don't have to pay for much new groundwork. Also there seems to be 4 areas in which they are using old Gwazi wood (first inversion, hill after that, wave turn (or whatever you call it) and then the last third of the ride), so that'll save some cost as well.

Certainly when the ride opens it'll be quite strange seeing lots of the brighter new wood with bits of older darker wood here and there.
 
I guess this way they can re-use most of the old footers so they don't have to pay for much new groundwork. Also there seems to be 4 areas in which they are using old Gwazi wood (first inversion, hill after that, wave turn (or whatever you call it) and then the last third of the ride), so that'll save some cost as well.

Certainly when the ride opens it'll be quite strange seeing lots of the brighter new wood with bits of older darker wood here and there.

Agreed with his point. And to be fair, the IBox track is very expensive, which is why most of the ground up RMCs are Topper Track, which is cheaper. Zadra being the first RMC IBox from the groundup, and at 200+ feet, is probably from that EU money.

For reference:

• Iron Rattler, NTG, and Outlaw Run were all around 10 million USD. And that was in 2011/2013
• Wicked Cyclone and Storm Chaser were both 10 million in 2015/2016

• Wildfire was 12 million in 2016
• Lighting Rod was 22 million in 2016, although that was also because of launch system and terrain

Those were both Topper Track, which is cheaper

Now the new one:

• Hakugei was about 25.5 million USD, and that's in 2019!

So it's comparable to B&M Prices, if not more! For reference:

• Fēnix was 14.5 million USD in 2018 and Fury 325 was 30 million in 2015

B&M has the advantage of years of rock solid name brand as well as excellent reliability and superior capacity.

I think now that RMC has had some years to prove the technology, and is delivering some of the best coasters worldwide, with excellent maintenance, parks are starting to see them as similar to investing in a B&M.

I hope we will see more ground up RMC's in the future, but man, I can't imagine what Zadra costs!

I think that's also why only the Raptor track and not the T-Rex track is out, it's just so expensive to manufacture the track. But you get the smoothest track in the industry!
 
Last edited:
I mean, the big draw for single rail is it lowers manufacturing cost? Wasn't that the big point when it was introduced?

I'm gonna call bull **** on those numbers without some evidence. I can't imagine a world where Hakugei is only 8 million less than Fury, even taking into account demolition costs and factoring in for added supports for earthquakes.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
Iron Rattler, NTG, and Outlaw Run were all around 10 million USD.
Didn't realise this before and I'm mildly surprised that the two conversions cost the same as the ground-up. I guess the terrain at Silver Dollar City saved a small fortune in wood and construction time.
 
Didn't realise this before and I'm mildly surprised that the two conversions cost the same as the ground-up. I guess the terrain at Silver Dollar City saved a small fortune in wood and construction time.
It's also possible that those parks got the coasters a bit cheaper as they were the first of their kind for RMC. They needed to establish themselves in the market and were probably willing to cut their profits significantly to build this early portfolio.
 
Top