Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Heide Park Colossos retracking (2019)

Bq38YJuCIAAjGdm.jpg
 
I think it's fair to say, regardless of the outcome of this rollercoaster, wether it be torn down or repaired... This certainly will be a wake up call for Merlin's strategy in terms of upkeep. It's impossible for it not to be. It's a lesson that most certainly will be learnt from. I know many of us say... 'Oh but it's Merlin'... however this is a new situation for them, especially at this scale... they would be absolutely idiotic not to learn from this, and rectify their up keep and maintenance.
 
^Agreed. I'd love to see what kind of changes have come about because of this. I wonder if it has had any impact on SW8's maintenance documentation.
 
Can only see this going one way to be honest and I think we have seen the last of Colossos. I'm just happy I managed to get on it. This is just huge incompetence being unable to maintain this coaster to the point of a multi million euro repair. Especially when you consider some of the oldest roller coasters in the world are wooden.
Appreciate Colossos is on a huge scale compared to most but the basic maintenance of the wood must be the same.

CSLKennyNI said:
The park is now looking with its investors and company Merlin Entertainments which decision they are going to make.
Click to expand...
I would love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation with the Merlin investors. Especially in the knowledge that the latest huge investment for Merlin is a wooden roller coaster. Having said that it's pretty lucky SW8 is in construction as surely there is no chance Merlin would have added a new wooden roller coaster after this experience.
 
ATI said:
Is this and SW8 the only woodies in the Merlin chain?
Click to expand...

Not quite, as stated above. But your question was a good catch! I'd never realized before that Merlin operates so many coasters (63, across 16 parks), yet they are almost exclusively steel coasters. SW8 is actually the first woodie built by the company, as both Coastersaurus and Colossos were built before their respective acquisitions. And if @spicy is right, it might be the last one as well...
 
What is the main reason of this closure? Is it the park not identified pests in the structure or just not replaced worn out sections of the support/track over the years? As I've read the topic and seen few things put forward, unless I did not see it?
 
The only thing they’ve mentioned is the track I think but the rumoured cost is 10 million euros for fixing it, sounds like bs to me.They’re obviously just going to tear it down or they’d have started fixing it already.
 
Dave said:
What is the main reason of this closure? Is it the park not identified pests in the structure or just not replaced worn out sections of the support/track over the years? As I've read the topic and seen few things put forward, unless I did not see it?
Click to expand...

It's probably a combination of mechanical and biological factors (one could rule out most of the others - thermal, chemical, or electromagnetical factors shouldn't be prominent enough to degrate the structure significantly). The mechanical part is pretty self-explanatory, but the biological component could be fungi, worms, or even woodpeckers.

Either, the engineers haven't done a good enough job assessing what kind of degradation agents were present in the coaster's area (for instance, failed to see if the nearby trees housed beetle colonies), or they have miscalculated the impact of the agents present. For instance, they could have been assured that the wood was treated against fungi or worms, and told that they wouldn't need to inspect for that or treat the wood more often than, say, once every three years, when once a year would actually be required (just making these numbers up, by the way). Actually, I wouldn't rule out action against Intamin or whoever delivered the wooden structure, if it turns out that the park received insufficient maintenance information when the coaster was built.

Colossos is built using laminated timber (not sure if it's just the track or the whole structure) in 2001, back when laminated timber was a fairly new invention. I believe its usage in the construction industry only took off in the 1990s, and mostly for indoor use. It could be that the manufacturers had insufficient experience about the required treatment for outdoor environments, or the industry standards were too lax, resulting in the coaster failing to achieve its projected lifetime. It would certainly not be the first, or the last, time a construction product was misused soon after hitting the market. Scandals involving new products that fail to perform are a pretty much constant phenomenon in the construction industry.

Or it could simply be neglect on Merlin's part. Insufficient training of maintenance personnel, insufficient quality of replacement materials, insufficient yearly treatment of the wood... there are lots of opportunities for degradation of wood, since it is a biological material with no means to protect itself. Lots of things in nature consider wood food, so long-time use of wood in an outdoor environment requires a lot of steps constantly taken to keep the gluttons away.
 
Is El Toro back open now? It was down and I thought it was fishy they both were. then again, I don't think Liseberg's or the one in Korea was?
 
^A quick search on Twitter tells me El Toro was running last week, so it was probably just being spiteful.

It makes me wonder how bad Heide's maintenance is if even Toro is in better shape.
 
I checked the official site and it said its open, but I can't say I trust them. :p

El Toro was down proper at the start of this season, around the same time it became known Colossos was. And it was still down (or, down again?) when contemplating a visit in June.
 
Joey said:
I checked the official site and it said its open, but I can't say I trust them. :p

El Toro was down proper at the start of this season, around the same time it became known Colossos was. And it was still down (or, down again?) when contemplating a visit in June.
Click to expand...

It was open when I went on 15th June and I hadn't heard it had been having any trouble up until that point.

It's rough and poo now so if it had been shut I might have kept fonder memories of it.

Those workmen could mean anything either way so don't get excited.
 
Yeah, workman on the ride could literally just be ticking a box that they've been assessing the ride. It could be absolutely nothing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
https://www.facebook.com/

Google translated description;
In The course of the season you have constantly asked us questions about lift. Today we would like to share with you what has been the last few months.

A little patience is still needed. We await the decision on the future of lift at the beginning of January. Once you have fallen, you will receive full information on 11. January 2018

Until then, we will answer the most frequently asked questions in this video.
 
Nice that after 16 months of Colossos being shut the park have finally addressed the reasons for the closure...

In a nutshell they said that a TUV inspection in the summer 2016 discovered that the rails were in a worse condition than expected, therefore the coaster was taken out service immediately. Since Colossos is not an ordinary wooden coaster the repair job isn't as straight forward and takes longer. The rails have to be replaced along the entire length of the coaster. The exchange of rail is equal in scope and complexity to almost building an entirely new ride.
As only one company in the world deals with this type of coaster they need to find space in their busy schedule to carry out the repair. Another complication is that procuring the pinewood needed for the track is difficult and takes several months, and then afterwards the track needs to be manufactured.

As Heide Park belongs to Merlin Entertainments, Merlin is responsible for the decision. Since the repair would cost a multi-digit million amount a decision about the future of Colossos has not been made yet. The park will find out what the final decision is in early January. They hope it will be a good positive outcome, and the future of Colossos will be announced publicly on 11th January 2018.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top