Strange to think it closed 8 years ago and is now only finally coming down.
Does anyone know the initial reason it closed without warning at the end of the 2015 season? It operated right up to the final day. Surely Exodus wasn't the reason back then?
I could be wrong here, but a story I seem to remember hearing is that all of Merlin's flumes required some sort of safety enhancement following the Smiler incident so that they would be able to hold boats at the top of lift hills and stop them from dropping into splashdown sections until the boat before had cleared them (or something along those lines, anyway; I could be wrong on the exact details).
I heard it said that each Merlin flume was judged based on the feasibility of having these H&S enhancements made versus other factors like age and cost, and the conclusion for each was as follows:
- For Dragon Falls at Chessington, the work was deemed to be worth it, hence the ride was refurbished into Tiger Rock for 2018. The work could even have been a precursor to that.
- For Logger's Leap, there was originally a genuine intent to carry out the work and refurbish the ride. However, after the failure of DBGT and the subsequent decision to make the Rise of the Demon enhancements for 2017, the money allocated for refurbishing Logger's Leap got redirected towards rectifying DBGT. The refurbishment efforts stalled somewhat after that, hence the ride remained in purgatory for many years.
- For The Flume at Alton Towers, the ride was deemed to be too old for the work to be worth it, hence the ride was removed and replaced with Wicker Man in 2018.
As I say, I could absolutely be wrong there, but that was a story I once heard, and it would seem quite feasible given that both The Flume and Logger's Leap closed in 2015, the exact year that the Smiler incident happened. I could also believe that story for Logger's in particular given that its removal wasn't formally confirmed until 2019.