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Maybe they can save Rocky Express and Apocalypse.

I mean its just concept art there. The final product might look as dark and dingy as your local station's Pumpkin Cafe/Costa/Nero.

Look's like someone has pressed the button too early on the Thorpe Park official site 😱

Proceeds to be a video revealing the same entrance sign

Ding Dong Derren is dead 🥰 Calling it now, this is termed as a brand new attraction...

Nicked from Facebook - now THERE'S a view we've never seen before!

I request that should TCaAM be 'better' than Phantom Manor by an unknown metric as yet to be determined by myself; @MattyMoo be banned.

I mean it could be better than Phantom Manor but basing it on marketing alone is a bit odd. We know what Phantom is about, we've had four years since it reopened. We don't actually know anything concrete about the new attraction.

Officially confirmed to be a Merlin Magic Making project and not Thorpe doing it themselves! This project just gets more and more exciting…

Thanks @coasterverse - you beat both me to creating the thread, and StevenVig to moaning about an improperly titled thread! I'm impressed and thankful!!

I thought this was a weird flex - having a video scheduled just to prove the fact that you knew they were making this announcement... bitter much? 😆

Announcement is due at 10am tomorrow, whatever is happening.

I definitely would not be surprised if this is true after the Silkstone sponsorship Fright Nights we had last year. I do think it could potentially be for the better, however I also feel that Thorpe is losing a lot of its nostalgic charm at the moment. It’s nice that they are getting input from enthusiasts, but it feels as though they are trying to stay up to date with current trends and catering to a mostly younger target audience. I can’t say I know what the answer would be to bring back the nostalgic charm, but for a start the themed lands definitely made Thorpe feel like more of a complete experience so I am sad to see them go.

Can I just lay all my negligible credibility on the line now and say Phantom Manor is still going to better.

As Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon has been rethemed, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a new thread on the new iteration just to make things easier for archival sake. Discuss away!

Which was, of course, called Ghost Train Smokery. Now that is my true ghost train.

Best food on park during Fright Nights was from the non-Aramark run smokehouse stand, without a shadow of a doubt. Says it all really.

Something to note, the investment into the cafe is not by Merlin or Thorpe. It’s actually Aramark, which by me is fine. Leave them to create their own dining experiences and that’s all they have to focus on right? Wrong, the quality of food and prices which accompany them have been poor. They can’t get the basics right…. However if the quality of the food was better and I’d be much more excited for better dining experiences in the parks. This is much needed for U.K. weather, the park does not have chill indoor places to sit.

My expectations on this have gone up and down more than a the much anticipated Thorpe B&M hyper. ↗️At first I did think, wow this could be fab! No more VR and no more Derren - it’s what people have been asking for for years. ↘️Then I got thinking about what it could be… As Josh mentioned, the “ride” itself is an absolute yawn fest - it’s literally a box that slowly moves from one position to the next… If not done well, this could be a very awkward and drawn out experience. ↗️However.. with screens for windows and actors etc, really there are many possibilities.. if they can “do up” the experience to match the incredible station theming inside, this could be something very special indeed. ↘️Then my mind casts back to the other (non fn) “walkthrough experience” type attractions Thorpe have done over the years, and to be honest they’ve been lacklustre to say the least. ↗️Then you see Merlin Magic Making are involved, planning has been ongoing for over a year, and they’re even investing in a cafe and shop etc…. Looks like they’re taking this seriously after all? This is like something a “proper theme park” would do isn’t it? ↘️See-sawing the other way again though… why haven’t they hyped this up? Is this a just small refurb / removal of Derren and masks after all? I don’t know what to think! ↗️I’m optimistic and hopeful that Thorpe can FINALLY deliver a good attraction before they blow everyone away with Exodus, something they haven’t really been able to achieve for over a decade.

@Trooper Looper I also got this reply “Can certainly say the spiders scene will be staying,but I’m not allowed to say anything else regarding the ride. The vehicles have been sent away for 2 reasons 1)to have the guns fully removed 2) a refurb with a paint up and a slightly different design,but again that’s all I can say unfortunately. @Trooper Looper does it give you comfort that a percentage of the original Haunted House/Duel will live on in Alton Manor?

Year isn't too surprising, would've known the contract was ending and the likelihood of renewal was zero. From the sounds of it they'd got Derren on board after the choice of system & VR inclusion, and probably means a lot of butting heads between those involved in the design. I'd imagine Derren could easily design an interesting attraction at first stage rather than having to work around the system in question. Resulting in the confused final product. I mean they can't do any worse? But if it's going to be actor led again Metlin don't have the best record of the quality or consistency of those.

You'd hope that changing to a Merlin attraction would be done by their big in-house design team (even if they used to charge far more than external contractors for... reasons?) over the in-park entertainment mob. Hopefully consideration for the long term is the big push there. Or at least making things at Thorpe that last slightly more than 2 years before it gets cut to pieces and mothballed.

I read the following on a Facebook Group I belong too “I can confirm cars are back on site, and also can co firm that set pieces from duel will be staying”. The same person confirmed the same ride system and carriages will remain. According to my source the Cars have had a lick of paint and the guns and scoreboards removed. Finally my source said the Spider Scene has been kept. @Trooper Looper I know how passionate you are about The original Haunted House/Duel so I thought I’d share this information. I’m relieved the ride system,arguably the best in the world, will be part of Alton Manor. It’s brilliant that Emily Alton has let the spiders reside in her Dollshouse. The Spiders are amazing. Despite this I bet people with arachnophobia won’t be so pleased. Let’s hope Alton Manor enables the ride system to survive another 30 years. @Trooper Looper do you look forward to seeing the carriages minus the guns and scoreboards?

Always better when Merlin Magic Making is involved. This is no way to dis the entertainments team at Thorpe. However, I find the quality at Thorpe when entertainments make an attraction with external contractors differs from a proper MMM attraction. Post DBGT I don’t think MMM have missed a mark with attraction considering budgets and constraints. They envisaged the original concept for the ride so it’s only fair that they make it work which I’m glad about. For me, I am 100% sure that the budget will make or break this ride. Higher budget = more changes, Lower = Temporary fixes and short term ride If they want a reridable ride, will they keep the fake shop? If you have to wait every time. It won’t be rerideable, Jack did hint saying that DBGT wasn’t rerideable

I very much think the ride system will be pretty much exactly as it were - but I do think they would have gone with what the general public have been saying for years and that's adding screens to the train. They can do it super cost effective now that they have the likes of Jack and Kieran on board - no need to pay thousands and thousands to get a professional movie studio to create the visuals when you can give it to a couple of talented enthusiasts to do at a fraction of the cost. The mention of 'multisensory effects' does get me excited because as far as I can recall there wasn't really any on the original DBGT other than the motion platform the train sat on. I'm pretty sure the ride vehicle was fitted with leg ticklers right from the offset in 2016, but were never utilised for one reason or another. I wonder if they've programmed those in finally. A smoke machine would be really good, but wonder how they would do the whole live actor thing inside the train without it getting awkward being sat there for prolonged periods of time? Just good timing I guess as they'll need to reprogram the amount of time spent on the motion platform etc to fit the new visuals anyway. I'm just really glad that the attraction is finally getting some attention since 2017. It's been in a dire state for years and to see some loving coming to the attraction is really warming. I really hope they keep the fake shop ending though, that was the best part of the attraction. Providing that this 'Ghost' on the Ghost Train building is the antagonist for this ride, I would love to see a costume made for him for the fake ending... but I suppose that all depends on the budget for the attraction as it definitely wouldn't be at a small cost that's for sure.

There is also that meaning but knowing Thorpe they are careful with what words they use. I can’t see a whole lot of money spent on it, no more then how much the dome toilet refurb cost. What do you guys think will happen to the ride system. Smoke machines ect?

The promo video looks pretty sick, ngl

Silkstone's Ghost Train. Try and keep up with the YouTube algorithm with the finale demon replaced by an apology video jumpscare. Will probably just be that they've lost the IP (as much as it was) and being renamed with the NUMEROUS references to Derren Brown being removed.

I predict - no more VR, no more Derren... and I'm going for some sort of year-round horror type attraction, because those have definitely worked brilliantly before. Wouldn't surprise me if they called it Thorpe Junction. Or are they going to stick in The Crows into the attraction, hence the crows flying over...?

I hate to be a pessimist but I really do hope there are some substantial changes if they are going to announce this as a new experience. Part of me thinks they have been working on this for the past few months and it just flew under the radar which is quite exciting. With the way Merlin are investing in the parks at the moment I just hope Thorpe haven’t got the short straw by just dropping the DB brand and parading it as something entirely new.

Has your account has been hacked by @StevenVig? I am under the impression that the new attraction will actually be called Not Derren Brown's Ghost Victorian But Actually Tube Carriage Train: Death of the Demon Turned Coughing Person - Venture into the Tunnel Which isn't a Tunnel (Revenge of the Buckwheats Against Project Exombus).* Unfortunately, that name is too long to fit into a thread title, so no new thread or renaming of threads will occur now. I look forward to riding NDBGVBATCTDotDTCPVitTWiaTRotBAPE this year. *The short form of the title, more to be revealed soon!

We need a new thread now to discuss the secrets as we are now allowed to speak about them, if the mods could please assist.

To be fair it could've been renamed that a long time ago...

My new official name for it is NDBGTTDHAG: Not Derren Brown's Ghost Train The Demon Has Also Gone. Think it works.

Without a doubt - but if they've managed to pull off a total retheme in March without any prior announcement or teasing from the park (other than now) I will be majorly impressed. I suppose everybody had their sights fixed on Exodus that they didn't give a second thought to DBGTROTD. Exciting!

I think there's been a few rumours circulating that silkstone & co have something to do with refurbing it. Sounds like complete utter bogus to me, but then again this is Thorpe Park we're talking about... 👀 In all seriousness though, Thorpe did reveal in the Passholder group that they had been intentionally messing about with everybody by changing the imagery and toggling it on/off on the app, but they also (probably a freudian slip if anything) said "So, c’mon what are everyone's predictions for our spooky dark ride?! 🤔" so pretty much all but explicitly confirm that something is happening to it.

Instructions unclear, hope I did it right.