Is a new wooden coaster for the UK actually a good idea?

[furie]

The odd thing is Scott, that while they have this bad attitude, you see a lot of people riding, and enjoying, the wood at Blackpool. Maybe not the Nash so much, but certainly Big Dipper and Orange Thingy.

However (and you spend a lot of time at the park), how often are people just completely won over by The Big One - simply because it's so massive and long? Tall and a long time on a ride beats everything.

Yeah, we need an El Toro

 

[Frank]

I've only ridden the Grand National once (post-fire), but I thought it was great

I've always liked the woodies at Blackpool, but I always thought the reason wooden coasters (sort-of) died out was that steel coasters could do everything... better? Not just the fact that steel coasters can do more flamboyant movements, but that they use less materials (a few large steel struts as opposed to the complex wooden lattices a woodie requires) and they need less maintenance over the years. The layouts seem like they can be similar - A lot of hypercoasters just look like the bigger brother of the Big Dipper.

A new wooden coaster would be a novelty in an "it's just like I used to ride as a kid" style, but personally, I'm satisfied with the Blackpool trio (they're the only coasters I ride at Blackpool anyway. Can't believe they scrapped the log flume for Infusion

).

Although, as someone who's only ridden the Blackpool three it's entirely possible that they're all bad examples of the style - Do other woodies have anything going for them (over steel coasters) with the exception of the "charm" factor?

 

[furie]

My top coaster is wooden (Boulder Dash), and prior to hitting the States, my top five coasters had two woodies in there (Megafobia and The Nash). I think that El Toro is maybe in my top 5 too, but it's definitely top ten.

There's something great about a good wooden coaster that steel just can't emulate and that's the wild, out of control feeling. It's a mix of things, but mostly it's the fact that the trains aren't tightly secured to the track. As you hit airtime, the train itself lifts until the upstops catch it. Then it crashes back down. So the trains and seats are designed to deal with this, and the lap-bars enhance the situation. Then the tracks are designed to take advantage of this "looseness" with sudden drops and strong ejector.

So yeah, they get that which steel just can't emulate (well Vekoma try) without making for massively painful and uncomfortable ride.

 

[caffeine_demon]

The thing I don't get is, is the "negative public opinion" of wood, purely a UK thing? I'm sure the US has a lot of horribly rough, old wooden coasters, and that a sizable chunk of the US public won't have heard of el toro etc...

 

[furie]

It does seem to be a UK only thing, but we had a massive shift/change in the 70's/80's that the US seemed to avoid.

In the UK, with the exception of Belle Vue (okay, and Battersea), coasters were in parks on the coast. It was all holiday destinations. In the late 60's/early 70's most brits were heading abroad instead of the the seaside, so the entire amusement park industry wavered really badly. That led to the death of most of our parks.

In the US though, people still travelled within the US. They also had Disney suddenly making these great theme parks and the American companies thrived, installing new rides and enhancing themselves. I'm not saying that the US had it easier, but they were leading the development waves because they still had custom, whereas over here the market was rapidly dying.

Look at most of the parks in the States, they often have wooden coasters that range from properly ancient, to 70's and 80's builds. The parks may have been installing new steel coasters, but the wooden coaster was still a mainstay attraction. So they kept on adding in the wood.

In the UK though, everywhere that had wood was demolishing it (sometimes because it was a death trap, but most of the time because of maintenance costs or because the park was downsizing, or to replace it with something "modern").

Then 1979 happens and "bam", we have our own "modern" theme park at Alton. There's nothing old about the place beyond the Towers themselves. Drayton, Thorpe, Flamingoland, LWV, Camelot, etc, etc, ,etc all jump on the bandwagon and start adding in rides. What are the one rides that say "old, dilapidated, unsafe and part of an empty park"? Those wooden coasters. So there was never any investment in the new parks in wood. It didn't offer anything new and exciting to sell and they (probably very subtly) pushed that the wooden rides were old and rough and rubbish compared to The Corkscrew or whatever.

So we've convinced ourselves that's what it is. Wood is old technology and for ancient parks like Blackpool. If it's wood, it has to be old and there's a reason the "new breed" of parks don't have them. Poor public opinion.

I don't really know enough about Europe to comment on why wood is popular there. It may be that they're happier to copy the US business model? Maybe there weren't so many parks with such ancient wood? No idea really - but in the UK, well, there you have it.