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It stalled this morning. Call me Derren Brown.

The closure was very much for maintenance checks and nothing else. Due to large equipment being in the plaza, I expect that logistically it wasn't practical / H&S-advised to also do things like work in the queue line. But yeah, it's a real shame to see it in such an unfinished way. I didn't expect it to be perfect (the ride area side of things moreso), but the queue line section is bland and sad. That really should have been dealt with. We can only hope they sufficiently add to that over winter. The ride area side I'm happy for them to let bed in. Many ride areas have been like that. Colossus is a Thorpe example. But even rides abroad like Baron 1898 (Efteling) and Fenix (Toverland) started off a bit bland and muddy, but grew into it naturally over time. I think the ride area for Hyperia will be the same. I noticed yesterday that the lake has 'returned' a bit more now, with the final remaining land that connected the two sides of land together now submerged (thanks to the rain). I'm sure over time things will slowly progress. The splashdown is verging on being the biggest waste of money if the park can't / don't reintroduce it. Whatever the reasons are for it not operating, it's not good that it lasted a couple of months before stopping. Doesn't help that, despite being 'okay', it wasn't a special splashdown in any way. Feels very much like a design choice which didn't appreciate the operational practicality. My biggest concern for Hyperia, right now, though is it stalling again. Yesterday, I saw it shutdown a couple of times. When it did test runs, empty, it was going through the outerbank twisted dive (and even the stall loop) quite slowly. I was getting serious déjà vu from a visit a few days before it stalled. This wasn't a case of it needing to warm up either. One instance was just after 5pm. It had been running reasonably consistently throughout the day, and then had a short (5-10min) shutdown. Both test cycles were worryingly slow through the outerbank. Yesterday was cool, but certainly nowhere near as cold as we're going to see over the next month. Should stress that with riders, it didn't struggle, but was slower than other rides I've had. I don't know how Macks run and if they have winter / cold-weather wheels. But if they do, it feels like Thorpe need to put them on now if they haven't already. A second valley would not be a good look or ideal for the park, especially in their busiest period of the year.

I can see it being back up and running very quickly - last time they had to build a concrete base for the crane to sit on, with that already done plus the experience how to get it off the track I wouldn’t be surprised to see it open tomorrow or Friday. Seems like a crane is already on site too. I do wonder where they go from here though, it was hardly cold today with minimal winds, plus the train had 3 rows of water dummies. I expect in future it will have to test with more rows of these which will make it take longer to get ready each morning. Hopefully Mack have a solution ready to implement over winter.

2, 3 and 6 are definitely in them.

Right in time for Fright Nights :))))))) It was clear it was running slow, so why not fully load the train with dummies? Especially in the morning Anyway, looks like over closed season they will have to implement new procedures to avoid this occurring. It’s too late now to modify the ride in anyway.

Love a Mark9 trip report. Joint trip next year? 😉