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Alton Towers | Wicker Man | GCI Wood

But Mouse all you've stated is your opinion? Even if you absolutely hate The Smiler it's far from bland?

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Someone on TowersStreet worked some magic on the PDFs and found hidden layers, which showed traditional wooden coaster style supports in the key.
 
owentaylor121 said:
But Mouse all you've stated is your opinion? Even if you absolutely hate The Smiler it's far from bland?
OK, so for the sake of argument, let's take the Smiler out of consideration. Not everything is going to appeal to everyone, and I expect any successful park or chain to have a mixture of a couple of top tier rides and a bunch of supporting filler.

That being the case, you'd expect there to be something from the ten year Merlin era that would have lasting appeal for me, right? Out of all the ride installations, you'd hope that the company with one of the biggest budgets that can actually afford the rides from the top tier manufacturers would build something that's at least top 20 worthy somewhere along the line. It hasn't happened yet, and I seriously doubt it's going to happen now. Everything has felt like a half-assed effort, and I'm yet to see any actual evidence of a change of approach here.
 
Could see a woody with some sort of worlds-first water element - be it splashdown, water tunnel thingy ala 'Diving Coaster: Vanish' (come to think of it, how often does a picture of that come up on your social-feeds - that is something Alton-marketing could get a hold of) - would work there with a pirate-theme and fit the "water coaster" tag.

Hard to see a 'proper' water coaster (ala Mack's things) really being any good there though.

Hmmm.
 
We've had splashdown on Woodies before, it'll just be Vikingar all over again.

Yeah they'd plug it as World's first but I can't see that being it.
 
Dar said:
Someone on TowersStreet worked some magic on the PDFs and found hidden layers, which showed traditional wooden coaster style supports in the key.

Interesting, I have PDF to AutoCAD conversion software on my PC at work and you are right in saying that previously used of frozen layers can be uncovered. When I'm in the office tomorrow I'll have a play around and see what I can do. Watch this space.
 
^Do you mean the PDF that has been screenshotted into the first post?

That's still on the planning website. It's the last attachment titled "Appendix 3_ Initial Arboricultural Implications Assessment" an is on the last page of that document. It's a mid-size PDF on a slow website, so might just be taking a while to download on your end, but I just downloaded a copy.

If you still can't get it to work, let me know and I'll email it to you. I looked into any hidden layers in our PDF software, and couldn't find anything, but I don't have time to do a full look in AutoCAD or something.
 
Cheers Hixee! I have extracted it now and have run a .dwg back up and uncovered some rather interesting frozen track notations!



Ok ok i may have fabricated this evidence... Lyons Seaman Hoare have spited us and edited the original PDF's so no information can be extracted. The Tree people weren't so clever but there is nothing of any value in their drawing just 3 standard layers.

Dar could you link me to the post on Tower Street? I couldnt find it looking just now, i'd be interested to chat to the bloke that extracted the info as i can't see how its possible.
 
Looking at that map, what's a bit frustrating is they're planing new planting where the bulk of the flume ride is now. Would have been too much effort to make SW8 use this area too?

To use less space than they have available seems a wasted opportunity.
 
I think it's because all the woods are protected and getting permission to put anything there would be too difficult.
 
Dar said:
I think it's because all the woods are protected and getting permission to put anything there would be too difficult.
Possibly, although I'm talking about the space where a ride currently is - which they're intending to replace with new trees. The protected wood is presumably a separate area.
 
My guess is that they are probably planting additional screening to "soak up" the noise - a woodie would be a fair bit noisier than the log flume, and they'd have to include noise reports from rides of a similar nature (which they had to do with Nemesis back in the day) to get the plans approved.
 
I've just come back from Alton and they seemed to have done LOADS of tree/shrub clearance in the area where the flume currently sits. Seems weird that they'd then want to re plant.
 
zazobo said:
I've just come back from Alton and they seemed to have done LOADS of tree/shrub clearance in the area where the flume currently sits. Seems weird that they'd then want to re plant.
Very strange, is the flume still standing on site? Also off topic but how were the crowds today?
 
Yeah the flume is still there, just drained of water.

I was there on Friday/Sat over the weekend. Friday was really quiet, mostly walk on for all the big coasters. Saturday a little busier, perhaps 15-25 min queues on average.
 
zazobo said:
I've just come back from Alton and they seemed to have done LOADS of tree/shrub clearance in the area where the flume currently sits. Seems weird that they'd then want to re plant.
It may be that's where the building site base will be (including materials storage). The above explanation about muffling sound might be a good one but it does seem a shame AT aren't taking advantage of all available space.
 
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