Thorpe Park - Derren Brown's Ghost Train

[sw7nutter]

The 500ft ceiling is the ultimate hight they can build but the council has restricted them to 164ft. If you have a 160ft drop then getting to the top and back down is going to use about 150m of track. That leaves very little for the rest of the ride. Merlins ride do exceed 850m thorpes dont. I would suggest finding other 50m rides amd there track length. For example gatekeeper is 50m tall and has 1269m track length. 850m is nothing, swarm was called too short and the next one will get the same complaint unless the limit is changed.

[inFusion]

What about an enclosed two or three inversion coaster on the Arena site?

[Danny]

It would be two enclosed coasters next to each other :lol

[Ryan.B]

Nemesis is under 1000m proving all a world class coaster needs to do is have a brilliant layout, amazing theme. I would much rather have Nemmy than Raptor just because raptor has that boring part at the end while Nemmy is full intensity til the brakes.

[inFusion]

It would be two enclosed coasters next to each other :lol

It would. One (X) could be a family-friendly coaster and the other could be a more intense coaster for those looking for thrills. I've never seen an indoor SLC - that might work well. And a Rip Ride Rocket-esque music system? That could be good.

[stealthsmiler]

Nemesis is under 1000m proving all a world class coaster needs to do is have a brilliant layout, amazing theme. I would much rather have Nemmy than Raptor just because raptor has that boring part at the end while Nemmy is full intensity til the brakes.

But as said before, they are too short. People want a decent ride length to justify queuing 2-3 hours for the ride. But instead they get a 1 -2 minute ride. However exceptions to this are rides like Oblivion and Stealth.

[RollercoasterGEEK100]

The rides at Thorpe i do find rather short other than stealth are The Swarm and Saw because they literally go round the course quick... Where as I find Nemmy Inferno and Colossus have been paced out so it gives a longer ride time which I feel they should do with the next coaster if they still have the restrictions...

[TheBeast]

The 500ft ceiling is the ultimate hight they can build but the council has restricted them to 164ft. If you have a 160ft drop then getting to the top and back down is going to use about 150m of track. That leaves very little for the rest of the ride. Merlins ride do exceed 850m thorpes dont. I would suggest finding other 50m rides amd there track length. For example gatekeeper is 50m tall and has 1269m track length. 850m is nothing, swarm was called too short and the next one will get the same complaint unless the limit is changed.

I get you now. However, Swarm was seen as too short as it wasnt really that interesting, if anyone minds me saying. That was mainly due to its lack of tight turns, quick inverts or any sort of speed.

[sw7nutter]

Becuase if they added anymore track it would have gone over the 800m limit for that coaster. Swarm is 775m long so it could only have had 25m more. They packed in as much as they could to swarm but the restrictions which were even tighter made it impossible for a ride that tall to be any good.

[Dom]

Thorpe will find some way of over coming the restrictions to give a decent coaster. The thing with Thorpe is, it doesn't need to be big or long to be impressive. Stealth isn't that tall (when compared to other coasters in the world) or that long but still gives a decent ride. I personally think that if The Swarm was any longer, it wouldn't be as good as it is now because you would have a lot of easy riding so to speak. UK parks, who ever owns them, have a habit of making great coasters in a small amount of space or with height restrictions. So just because length and height are problems, they aren't going to stop the construction of great coasters. The Uk coaster market will never be as good as America because we are no where near as big or as populated as America, so UK parks get less money into them, then say Six Flags. I guarantee you that Thorpe's next coaster will be a family friendly coaster with none to minimum inversions. It may not be what us enthusiasts want, but it will be what the park needs to progress with the older end of the family market that it is heading into.

[TheBeast]

I disagree. There is no purpose in pushing Thorpe down the "family park" route, because there is Alton and Chessington for that...its not good fkr making money if all of Merlins parks are similar.

Btw Dom, did you work at Camelot near Preston for a bit? Your face seems quite familiar

[sw7nutter]

Thorpe has not done as well as they thought they would this year. There has been a drop in season and annual pass sales and days which should have been packed were not. Angry birds worked but i don't think it worked anywhere near as much as they hoped. A intense family coaster is what i think they will go for next. A large ride but no inversions and instead a combination of high G turns and airtime hills. UK parks do have the budget of american parks its just restrictions and a lack in confidence limits the rides. There is nothing stopping a UK park from having a ride like gatekeeper except from planning permission. If local councils want to limit the development of their main employers and tax revenue generators then they can but fundamentally it is a stupid idea and limits growth in the UK because people are too dumb to see what they are doing.
With the right amount of effort a coaster will always bring in new people (the swarm didn't because of terrible advertising) it is local councils and the operators which stop themselves from being as big as american parks.

[Dom]

I disagree. There is no purpose in pushing Thorpe down the "family park" route, because there is Alton and Chessington for that...its not good fkr making money if all of Merlins parks are similar.

Btw Dom, did you work at Camelot near Preston for a bit? Your face seems quite familiar

No i didn't work at Camelot. I'm a southerner. :lol As for the family market. Thorpe Park ARE heading down that market. This has been confirmed by senior staff at the park during Southparks Southern Screamer Event. But it is more the older/taller end of the family market.

Thorpe has not done as well as they thought they would this year. There has been a drop in season and annual pass sales and days which should have been packed were not. Angry birds worked but i don't think it worked anywhere near as much as they hoped. A intense family coaster is what i think they will go for next. A large ride but no inversions and instead a combination of high G turns and airtime hills. UK parks do have the budget of american parks its just restrictions and a lack in confidence limits the rides. There is nothing stopping a UK park from having a ride like gatekeeper except from planning permission. If local councils want to limit the development of their main employers and tax revenue generators then they can but fundamentally it is a stupid idea and limits growth in the UK because people are too dumb to see what they are doing.
With the right amount of effort a coaster will always bring in new people (the swarm didn't because of terrible advertising) it is local councils and the operators which stop themselves from being as big as american parks.

We don't know for certain how Thorpe Park have performed this year. Angry Birds could have helped increase gate figures because it was attracting to more the family market who tend to avoid Thorpe because they assumed it was just for teens and thrill seekers. The local councils, although annoying, do put in the restrictions to benefit residents and help with health and safety and all the other stuff like that. So in some ways it is good that Thorpe are restricted because it means they have to actually use their imaginations and come up with something amazing in the restrictions. I personally think the restirctions placed on parks is a good thing because it does mean we get surprised with things.

[Jack]

I have a solution to the 850m problem http://www.intaminworldwide.com/amuseme ... fault.aspx

[sw7nutter]

its got 820pph. That is not something Thorpe should be looking at. 1500+pph is the region they should be looking into. Although saying that a megalite would be welcome.

[Jack]

^they bought a Gerstlauer, that argument is invalid

[sw7nutter]

They "should" be looking at 1500+. Which means only 1 thing, they are not looking at 1500+pph rides.

[Jack]

the best rides that can be bought, but have kind of bad throughput > a half decent ride with insane throughput :P

[TheBeast]

They cant have a throughput that is too big though. You need time to build up the suspense in the queueline, so the throughput can't be too good. For example, Thorpe couldnt theme a ride like Oblivion as it has a great throughput, so there wouldnt be any purpose

[Jack]

A queue is a queue, no matter how much theming you put in there…you are still queueing and you want it to move fast. I know I say about an Intamin Mega Lite, but at least with one of those you get a world class ride despite the queue