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Part of it was down to the fact that's where the space was, and that's where investment was going. The Canada Creek Railway was introduced when they introduced the Canada Creek area (including Loggers Leap). It wasn't just a means of transportation, it was also an attraction in its own right, and looping round Canada Creek and giving that - albeit minimal - interaction with Loggers Leap helped too. The area by Rumba and what's now Inferno had other attractions, and didn't really have the space for a train station, train storage shed and a turnaround. It should be remember that the farm was just that - a farm! It had animals and restaurant. It wasn't noisy or disruptive in any way. If Thorpe Park didn't exist, no one would bat an eyelid at that area being used as a farm. It should also be remember that when Thorpe Park opened, it wasn't really a theme park. It was a leisure park, which slowly developed into a theme park, with rides added in at certain periods. A farm in that location made perfect sense in the context of what Thorpe Park originally was. At the same time, having it far away from everything else made sense. It was a place for animals and for quiet, away from some of the louder and busier leisure activities at the park. I don't think the plane exhibits were in any different parts of the park than what exists now. They were located in various parts of the park, including what is now The Jungle, where Vortex/Zodiac are, and parts of where Loggers Leap are. When Loggers Leap an Canada Creek were introduced, some parts of the lake were infilled to create the area. This might be the separate lake that was spoken about. It was separate. Treasure Island opened in 1983, so pre-dates CCR. Before CCR opened, one could take the waterbus to the Farm, or you could walk there. To walk there, you would go alongside the lake, from what is now roughly between Rumba Rapids and Inferno to the Farm. About a third of the way along was the station / entrance for Treasure Island. You can see a pathway in the video @Mattgwise posted. When CCR opened, you could still walk to the Farm, and I believe walking was the only way still to get to Treasure Island. Yes, the park own them. Treasure Island could function as a ride site, Thorpe Farm almost definitely not. Here's a very crude picture: Roughly speaking, everything within the yellow region is - in some loose definition - Thorpe's, or of Thorpe's responsible. Everywhere within the red region (up to the yellow line) is pretty much where the park are allowed to develop rides currently. That's not to say that the park couldn't develop outside that region, but it would require a lot of extra work and changes with the council. As you can see, Treasure Island lies within this region. Back when Treasure Island was an attraction, The Swarm island didn't exist, nor did the straight patch of land above it. In the mid 2000s, the park decided to build an engineering facility building (which is one of the buildings directly above where "The Swarm" is written, just under one my crude yellow lines). The new land helped create a service road to connect it towards the back of the park in an easy way. The Farm is outside of this development region. The park currently use it as storage and work space for some teams (such as Landscaping and Waste Management). At least one of the buildings there is listed too, so can't be demolished. There is some stuff that's also just kind of chucked there (if you've seen the Big Top documentary from Jack Silkstone, you'll see that the clown entrance feature has pretty much been dumped there). Again, it's not impossible for it to be used for something low key or quiet, but highly unlikely. The park certainly has gone through several transformations over the decades. Especially in enthusiast circles, there's more and more people who weren't born when Colossus opened, and that was truly the turning point for the park becoming a thrill park. So there's lots of people like yourself who will never know Thorpe as anything other than a thrill park, and it's really strange. If you're interested in learning more, there's a fair few sources out there, albeit less stuff pre-Tussauds Thorpe Park Mania: We have an okay selection of history / archive bits, albeit a bit more recent stuff... https://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/ Memories of Thorpe Park: Memories of Thorpe Park have a good range of stuff too... https://memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/ / https://www.facebook.com/MoTP.uk/ Thorpe Park Nostalgia: If you're on Instagram, this is a great account to follow from someone who worked at the park and shares lots of stuff from the later 90s/early 00s... https://www.instagram.com/thorpeparknostalgia/ And obviously, feel free to ask on here too!

Going back to the name, I hope we see a simple, crude name that milks the height. There's the likes of Fury 325 and Intimidator 305, for example, which have their height included in the name. This exists in part to take the UK height record, something which is very hard to envision being broken any time soon (after all, Big One's record will have stood for 30 years by the time this opens). Something along the lines of Rampage 236, Bolt 236 or whatever. Just a simple noun followed by the height to get it across. It's not something that lends itself to a heavily themed ride, but then, this isn't the type of ride that needs that. It's funny, because in the past, I've never liked the ideas of names like that. But I dunno, it just feels like it fits for this.