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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

Tonkso

Hyper Poster
Mack Hyper? Okay, I was firmly in the B&M camp but if this is true then I'm very happy. DC rivals looks incredible and if we're going to get a bigger version of that... then I'm all in.

Thorpe has been disappointing me for a few years now, this might turn the tide a little.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Just a heads up for the mods; I've edited the thread title now we've had a (sort of) reveal. I've tried to get it to match the format of the Roller Coaster Construction threads, but if I've done it wrong, I apologise.
 
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Ethan

Strata Poster
If this goes ahead, I really hope it's a turning point for the park. It's such a dump, honestly, but it has SO much potential. If it is a Mack Hyper though... Fair play. I'm into it!
 

Howie

Donkey in a hat
236ft though, wow. I'll take that all day long. At the very least, I think we can safely rule out an Axis coaster now. Or a Freefly. Or a woodie from any manufacturer.
I quite like that social media post from Thorpe too, even though it doesn't actually reveal much, it's nice to see them engaging with their followers and actually talking about their new project, rather than the vague, secretive, hush-hush, 'something-is-coming' approach usually favoured by Merlin. This is much more exciting. Can't wait to find out more. 😁
 

Matt N

CF Legend
I've got a question, unrelated to the ride itself; could this thread possibly end up becoming CF's longest construction thread ever?

I'm unsure what currently holds the record (I think some older ones might well go into triple figures, from memory), but we're already at 41 pages and the initial consultation has only just happened! Not to mention that I think the hype seems pretty palpable from this thread... I think there could be a lot of discussion taking place here over the next 2-3 years!
 

JoshC.

Strata Poster
As promised, I'll go a bit more in depth now. Will try and address a few questions, and give a few more things. This post will be long, rambling and a bit scattered, so I'm sorry in advance.

No photos? Ouch :(

But..........DAMN!
No photos could be taken today, but they certainly suggested that all pictures will form part of the website going live tomorrow.

Is it confirmed to have a lifthill? Otherwise Intamin might still be an option with their two LSM launch coasters in Turkey.
It has a "inclined hill taking it to the highest point", if that's what you mean by a lift hill. I very much certainly expect that it will be a traditional lift hill, and not launched lift hill.


Cheers, Josh.

And there's the burst of reality. If locals are frustrated about noise, it could be a spanner. But hopefully the local council and business will see it as an opportunity for growth and it'll go ahead. As exciting as all this is, there are still some hurdles to jump. (Champagne is on ice, though!)
Good to see a level head!

I think I'll start here for my expansion from my original post. It's not my place to post online what people's specific concerns were. But as I say, the general vibe was that there wasn't anyone who seemed particularly against it during the Q&A. People were more concerned that the current noise levels are very high, and they want that addressed. The new roller coaster won't increase baseline noise levels though.

As such, from this small sample, I don't see any reason why there will be any resistance to the new coaster. Obviously, I stress that this was a small sample size, and people may have had more specific concerns which they raised more privately, or will have after digesting the information. So I think, from the view of "being people who want to see a new coaster", there's cause for optimism.

Related to this, I think @Jared said that the plans shown during the consultation for the Chessington area differed slightly to that of the submitted plans. SO that does show that whatever we see now can change.

The Area
Photos will be up tomorrow, but I'm sure people are impatient. From memory, this is roughly the space the coaster will take up, location of the station, and direction of travel to the lift hill:
1639083356326.pngWARNING: This is from memory of a photo I saw for like 30 seconds, whilst more looking at the layout. This could be very wrong, but gives a very loose idea.

Basically everything will be flattened and new stuff will be built. The rest of the area will be some sort of plaza for the ride, along with (I assume) shops/food/etc. There was also a "splash zone" mentioned, which overlooks the lake. It didn't look like it was near track though, so was confused by that.

The Ride
I will give an honest reaction here: when people see the visuals shown today, I think people will be divided. It didn't look that long. Looks can be deceiving and it was hard to get much of a feel from quick looks at the visuals.

It's a very densely packed layout. It goes over the central lake a few times, but doesn't sprawl much. It has quite a few high points, again all closely packed together. It gave me a little bit of Steel Curtain vibes in some sense, where there's a lot of elements packed together.

Looking at it, it's hard to tell if there were inversions or not. The visuals are very loose. There's elements which look like they could be inversions, but they could also be non-inverting elements.
IF there are inversions, we could be looking at the world's tallest inversion. We could be looking at anywhere up to 6 to 7 inversion or so.

Obviously, there's this aforementioned splash zone, which could indicate a splash down too.

The layout looked nothing like the cancelled Six Flags Dubai one.

So this will be very interesting to see people's reactions when we get a look at the visuals.

Other details
-Manufacturer: The official line was they are still talking to multiple manufacturers. One member of the team speaking at the consultation said "there's people doing noise tests on a similar ride in Turkey". Would suggest the Flash clone, but who knows.
-Other rides: No other rides were shown in the area.
-Existing rides: They said they're looking to retain "at least one of the existing rides".
-Height: 72m/236ft
-Speed/Length: Nothing said

Timeline (if all goes to plan)
-Today to January 2022: Consultation period
-Spring 2022: Plans submitted to council
-Summer 2022: Plans approved
-Late 2022: Construction starts
-Date TBC: Ride opens.
They did mention 2024, seemingly by accident. It also seems likely, given the timescale.

It does beg the question why Old Town needs to close now if construction isn't due to start until late 2022. I guess they could do some work during 2022 to prep, with main construction starting in 2022.
It also answers a potential question about Creek Freak Massacre. That could certain return next year if work around that building hasn't started by next October.

Project Name
One of the visuals labelled the roller coaster as Project Exodus. So that answers that.

I should say that the project name of previous coasters has had various implications for the resulting ride.
Colossus: Project Odyssey (a coaster was meant to open at Thorpe in that site in 2001)
Nemesis Inferno: Project Calypso (it went into the area called Calypso Quay at the time)
Stealth: Project Stealth (the name was ironic, because of the height. It just stuck. It was almost called The Edge. Humdinger was also considered)
Saw: Project Dylan (named after the lead project manager's cat, as something random which couldn't be related to the name, after Stealth)
Swarm: Project LC12, Long Count 12 (because 2012 was end of the world according to the Mayan Calendar)

We'll see whether that means anything.

Track Colour
Stealth is coloured white on the top to blend in with the skyline, then has blue elsewhere.
The park are considering something similar with this, but nothing is confirmed.

Visitation
The park said that they see the need for investing as a way of stopping declining visiting numbers, and getting people coming back. They don't expect the visitor levels to rise up dramatically. They also acknowledged the potential for competition from London Resort.
Personally I found it convenient that Merlin don't think it will happen, but they'll cite it as a need to invest in a new ride. ha

Anything Else
I can't think of anything else major. There will be lots of trees cut, but these will be carefully chosen and likely lots of ones which are dying. The area isn't of any ecological interest. I'm sure everything else will come tomorrow and I'll remember more.

Locals
The actual consultation was fine (at least, the one I went to was). Maybe a couple of questions which were more geek-oriented, but it was nice to see people being respectful that this was a process for locals.
That said, it's a little disappointing hearing and seeing people online referring to people as "Karens" for bringing up concerns. I don't think that anything raised by anyone was unreasonable. These are people with genuine concerns, some of whom have lived in the local area for many years before the park became filled with thrill rides. As I've said, I don't think anyone is against development particularly (and indeed, even those with pressing concerns acknowledged that it looks and sounds good for the park), but these are people's lives.

I think it's worth stressing time and time again, there's a pretty good two way communication between the park and locals, and both sides are keen for that to continue. I just hope that everyone appreciates that, and don't berate people in any way for having concerns. It's not like they're even being Roper-esque (Alton Towers reference), they just want a very happy and respectful compromise.


Couple of final things:
I make it no secret I help out with the updating of Thorpe Park Mania aka TPM, which is just another Thorpe fansite. We'll be doing some sort of round up post tomorrow/over the weekend when the website is live. If you do want a simple summary of everything, please keep an eye out for that over there ;)
[Mods: I know this is a very cheeky plug, and I will bare no grudges if you delete this side comment :)]

And finally, on a light hearted note...
With the guessing game....
Thorpe is 66ft above sea level ; so giga confirmed then. ;)

If we go all the way back to September, I said:
Everyone and their grandmothers know that Thorpe could do with new attractions, including Thorpe and Merlin themselves. I'm sure plenty would agree that a new roller coaster would go down a treat too. But right now there's no indication what they're up to.
Maybe we'll see a launched T-Rex? Or the fabled B&M hyper? Or heck, why not a 300ft Mack? Or an Xtreme Spinner?

And, if we go to yesterday too:
Maybe, just maybe, Thorpe will throw a curveball and give us the SPF Hamster Wheel we've all been craving in the UK. 😉

All jokes aside, it will be interesting to see what's revealed. Could be an anticlimax if not much is announced. Keeping fingers crossed that whatever the set up for the in-person consultation is, people are respectful of the process mind.

Going off comments online, there's a lot of expectation already. I fully expect whatever this is, some people will write it off from the moment they see a picture because it doesn't meet their insane expectations, whilst others will hype it to be the best coaster ever. Goodness knows what all the clickbait YouTube videos will look like...

Anyway, I'll throw in my prediction as the Hamster Wheel, because why not?
(I hope people don't find the other posts I made with "B A M H Y P E R", "S A S A X I S", "R M C", "I N T A M I N" and "S I N G L E R A I L" as the first letters to the sentences, because that would make this joke a lot less fun 😂)
 

Rob Coasters

Hyper Poster
That area does look very small for a 72 meter coaster but we'll see what Thorpe can do.

If it's yet another inversion-carried layout I will cry (because I really feel like this new coaster is supposed to diversify the park's lineup slightly more, not just a taller copypaste of their other multi-loopers). Bring on the airtime machine. I know they can do it. But all we can do now is wait.
 

Jared

Hyper Poster
Related to this, I think @Jared said that the plans shown during the consultation for the Chessington area differed slightly to that of the submitted plans. SO that does show that whatever we see now can change.

The only real changes from consultation to planning was the changes to the pathing of the area as well as the scope of foliage etc.

The coaster layout, area layout etc remained the same. If I recall, the additional flat rides moved location alongside the path layout. But the actual coaster layout remained.

We were also told manufacturers weren’t confirmed, but at the same time they were able to confirm the rides height restriction, so we took that with a pinch of salt.
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I've got a question, unrelated to the ride itself; could this thread possibly end up becoming CF's longest construction thread ever?

I'm unsure what currently holds the record (I think some older ones might well go into triple figures, from memory), but we're already at 41 pages and the initial consultation has only just happened! Not to mention that I think the hype seems pretty palpable from this thread... I think there could be a lot of discussion taking place here over the next 2-3 years!
The longest we currently have archived and open is the F.L.Y. thread at 217 pages. However, the current forum only contains construction threads dating back to 2009, which was a few server migrations ago. Digging around a bit on archive.org I found that the Maverick construction thread had reached 341 pages by June 2007. Not sure if there were any later posts after that. However, there are slightly more posts per page now than there used to be. The Maverick thread reached 4769 posts, while the F.L.Y. thread currently has 4335.

Other construction threads with a triple-digit page count include Saw (148 pages, 2495 posts), Thirteen (139 pages, 2762 posts), Swarm (169 pages, 3365 posts), Smiler (232 pages, 4633 posts), Icon (134 pages, 2669 posts), and Steel Vengeance (105 pages, 2091 posts). Generally, the major UK coasters tend to get quite long threads. To the point that they are usually locked the day the coaster opens, so another discussion thread can be made about how they ride.

So yeah, there is a possibility of this thread overtaking Maverick's in time. It's big and at Thorpe, and those criteria tend to carry a thread quite far.
 

Swat

Mega Poster
The Exodus naming has been in the park all year, on the spray painted wall by DBs Ghost Train and on the claw games at the nearby arcade.

I know this is all just concept but its intresting that the turnaround out of the station is outward banked like Untamed.

Given the fact that the X:\ odus poster was across from 22 in Trailers and the clear TP RMC 22 in the maze, I cant rule out an RMC just yet.
 
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