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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

The way planning works for Alton is different to Thorpe and CWoA. Alton falls under a general development order so making changes is easier. There is little point in a consultation if your planning application is going to be wildly different. You show off what the client is wanting to build. Something that the architects are happy with and the engineers have shown is possible. To go making large changes now would be costly and time wasting. Sometimes they are needed due to feedback from the consultations or the engineers finding an issue but the client shouldn't be making changes from here.

The site they have decided to use is small but if they wanted a bigger area they could have easily have had one. If you located the station on the slammer site they would have had vastly more area to work with and they wouldn't need to go demolishing any of the old town buildings. Angle the lift hill right and that toilet block can even be saved. It seems like such the obvious choice for trying to fit a hyper in there that im very surprised they haven't done it.
 
The way planning works for Alton is different to Thorpe and CWoA. Alton falls under a general development order so making changes is easier. There is little point in a consultation if your planning application is going to be wildly different. You show off what the client is wanting to build. Something that the architects are happy with and the engineers have shown is possible. To go making large changes now would be costly and time wasting. Sometimes they are needed due to feedback from the consultations or the engineers finding an issue but the client shouldn't be making changes from here.

The site they have decided to use is small but if they wanted a bigger area they could have easily have had one. If you located the station on the slammer site they would have had vastly more area to work with and they wouldn't need to go demolishing any of the old town buildings. Angle the lift hill right and that toilet block can even be saved. It seems like such the obvious choice for trying to fit a hyper in there that im very surprised they haven't done it.
Making changes is even easier if you haven't even submitted an application at all yet... Surely?

Can you please explain why the clients 'shouldn't be making changes?' It's their project, their budget and if they want to make changes, they damn well can! Perhaps I interpreted that wrong, and you meant that the client is 'unlikely to make changes that aren't deemed necessary,' In which case I'd agree. But you and I don't know what criteria they have set that could force changes. It could be, (although extremely extremely unlikely so don't get your hopes up) that as part of this consultation, Thorpe are looking to gauge the reaction to the layout from park goers too... It is an incredibly big investment!*

(*I wish I didn't feel compelled to include this bit, as it's extremely unlikely, but I included it, as nobody can possibly know for sure, without any doubt, that it's not the case!!!)


Anyway... I'm not sure what the debate is here?

Nobody is suggesting they absolutely 'will' make changes... Or even that changes are 'likely!' I Don't know about anyone else, but I'm suggesting that...

Firstly, we don't even have access to detailed plans, just a basic overhead, and some artist's impressions to go with it... The elements on the artist's impressions could be way off the elements in the actual layout design, as they are exactly that, artist's impressions. If you're expecting every bank angle to be accurate and the curvature of every hill to be spot on, then by all means, correct me... But I've yet to see a single project, ever, anywhere, look exactly like it's artist's impressions when it's built.

Secondly, that the plans aren't final! That is, at this stage, fact! It cannot be argued with, these plans, until approved, cannot be considered final. Changes can be, and historically have been, made. Both before planning applications are submitted and after. Again I reiterate, I'm not saying that will happen, I'm saying it 'can.' And until that is no longer the case, these plans are not final.

Hell, the project may never be built! It may never even be submitted for planning approval!
 
They didn't really give much away in that presentation, which is totally understandable. However they did reiterate that they were still talking to a number of manufacturers, and that the 'splash down' element essentially hasn't even been designed yet. Gets me thinking that this layout may change quite a bit in the next few months!
 
I wouldn’t mind them replacing the splash down straight track with a low to ground speed airtime hill, after the dive loop.

From an operational stand point, we all know Thorpe doesn’t always have consistent throughputs, but I do hope this coaster isn’t like Colossus and only has three block zones, station, lift, final break run.
 
The ride isn't really long enough for another block. It could have another one on the brake run but that would mean a train would nearly always be stacking. My initial guess would be a throughput around 1000pph which is the same ballpark as the other coasters in the park.

However that is highly dependent on the lift hill speed. If the lift hill was on the slow side a three train operation could be of benefit. While a faster lift which is more likely would favour 2 train operations. Thats something more detailed plans would help determine.
 
The ride isn't really long enough for another block. It could have another one on the brake run but that would mean a train would nearly always be stacking. My initial guess would be a throughput around 1000pph which is the same ballpark as the other coasters in the park.

However that is highly dependent on the lift hill speed. If the lift hill was on the slow side a three train operation could be of benefit. While a faster lift which is more likely would favour 2 train operations. Thats something more detailed plans would help determine.
I agree.

To be honest I think that kind of capacity 'should' be plenty for a coaster like this in a park like Thorpe. If it isn't, it means the coaster has been far more successful then even they dared to imagine.

Also, unless there is an offload station, I can't see a 3rd train making much difference to capacity, considering the recreations show the ride from station to brake run taking about 55-60 seconds*. This isn't Europa Park.

*Of course this depends on unknown factors, like lift speed, as you've rightly pointed out.
 
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Has anyone else noticed they’ve changed the track type on the renders to the two single rails on all pictures ?
They've done that on the online consultation too... All pictures show the basic rail.

Interestingly they also said that the images do not show the elements within the layout which they want to keep secret... Pinch of salt, or not?
 
Should say that during the in person consultation, all of the visuals showed the basic 'two rails' track rather than the tri-track. Made it harder to make out the layout...was surprised when I saw the tri-track visuals on the website.

Speaking of the website, I can only see the tri track visuals still? Unless people are referring to online consultations for the visuals in question?
 
Not when they've already said that location is Turkey... There's only one ride of similar height in Turkey... The Intamins are much shorter.
Purely out of curiosity - I wonder if, for example, this was going to be a Gerstlauer (jesus good god I hope not) whether Hyper Coaster would still be the best comparison. Like, let's pretend that they are looking for an example ride to sample for something like that - what else could they pick in Europe (yes, yes, Turkey's not in Europe but it's a shorthaul flight away so you catch my drift)? Maybe the Intamin hypers? Probably not a B&M. Karnan wouldn't be a good match.

It'll be a Mack though, I'm sure of it.
 
Purely out of curiosity - I wonder if, for example, this was going to be a Gerstlauer (jesus good god I hope not) whether Hyper Coaster would still be the best comparison. Like, let's pretend that they are looking for an example ride to sample for something like that - what else could they pick in Europe (yes, yes, Turkey's not in Europe but it's a shorthaul flight away so you catch my drift)? Maybe the Intamin hypers? Probably not a B&M. Karnan wouldn't be a good match.

It'll be a Mack though, I'm sure of it.
Interesting point.

But I would have thought manufacturer is more important than height, if you can get both, great, but if not, just use one of the coasters within the chain / park already???

BTW, Just said 'a ride like this would be targeting 1000 riders per hour.'
 
Purely out of curiosity - I wonder if, for example, this was going to be a Gerstlauer (jesus good god I hope not) whether Hyper Coaster would still be the best comparison. Like, let's pretend that they are looking for an example ride to sample for something like that - what else could they pick in Europe (yes, yes, Turkey's not in Europe but it's a shorthaul flight away so you catch my drift)? Maybe the Intamin hypers? Probably not a B&M. Karnan wouldn't be a good match.

It'll be a Mack though, I'm sure of it.
Why would Karnan not be a good match?
 
But I would have thought manufacturer is more important than height, if you can get both, great, but if not, just use one of the coasters within the chain / park already?
I think it'll be a "like technology" that they'll be looking for. A 200ft chain lift in a tri-track arrangement with a big first drop is probably going to perform acoustically as a better stand-in than anything else. Ultimately, good acoustic consultants would be able to use a variety of different sources of information to figure out a sensible acoustic profile (both emission from the track, trains, lift, riders, etc, as well as how the sound carries from those sorts of heights) - something as sensitive as the noise would probably have had lots and lots of factors contributing to the calculations.

Why would Karnan not be a good match?
Vertical, enclosed lift hill and first drop with a massive complicated mechanism involved. It's nothing like a "standard" hyper, is it?
 
Seems interesting when asked about location of the noise surveys they refused to answer. However before they did say Turkey. Backtracking ?
 
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