coasterverse

Unfortunately not - I was literally 2 trains before the second rollback, witnessed it in the Detonator queue. Either way, she was rolling down that top hat incredibly slow - hangtime was insane!

TV screen boxes outside Ghost Train… hmmmmmm… 🤔

According to the super-secret-but-not-so-secret THORPE PARK Passholder Facebook Group, it was filmed on the 14th... a whole whopping 3 days ago. Although if I remember rightly (pretty sure I even posted on here about it!) last year they also left a lot of construction right up until the very last minute, but surpringly everything was cleared away in time for the Passholder Preview Day. So you've definitely got to give credit where credit is due, Thorpe are pretty damn speedy when it comes to this kind of thing!

Paper maps are back for 2023! Slight tease for Exodus in the corner (I personally would've preferred if it was a bigger, more visually-appealing tease as it's kind of just plonked there as if it's just a regular boring piece of information, but I assume they're either not ready or wanting to advertise the theme just yet, so either had to put something there or nothing at all). Also confirmed are brand new, themed maps to each of the events! So there will be brand new maps for the regular season, Mardi Gras, Carnival, Oktoberfest and Fright Nights which should be nice, and perhaps as the season grows longer, the Exodus tease may even be updated as the park start to tease the project themselves 👀

A rather interesting update this one (and one that is much needed to be honest!) Somebody on the THORPE PARK Passholder Group asked earlier this morning "Is Black Mirror to stay for the further future or is it only a near future attraction?" to which the park responded with the following (also talking about that infamous Tidal Wave fire effect too!) So, to me it looks as if the IP is up for renewal next year and the park and/or House of Tomorrow/Charlie Brooker aren't certain if they're interested in renewing it. Not a loss to the park whatsoever if it does close, to be honest. I'd much rather a brand new attraction (even if it's just a new retrofitted one to replace the space that Black Mirror currently occupies, although I would much rather them remove Slammer whilst they're at it to make an entirely new attraction!) than Black Mirror staying around for any longer. Hopefully this will be the last year of Black Mirror. It's a very tired concept that didn't really fit the shoes it had, but optimistic for the future.

I think you're gonna be disappointed, unfortunately. Animatronics are expensive to commission, especially in such a short time period, so I think it's much more likely for them to appear in projection-mapping form rather than physical animatronic form.

I like it! I agree that having it weathered is by far the better option. If they'd have kept it looking brand spankin' new, it would look even stranger against the rest of the Victorian building. I think it looks great to be honest (in a "its an old abandoned train station" kind of way).

I presume you're talking about the Thorpe Park Passholder group and not the generic Merlin Annual Pass Group, in which case the link is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/411460404375628 You'll need to apply to join, however, and supply your annual pass number so they can check your details and ensure that you are actually an annual pass holder! Merlin Annual Pass holders are allowed too, so it's not just for Thorpe Park Annual Passholders only Also worth noting that the group comes to the end of its trial period in 2 weeks today, so there's no guarantee you'll get in right now - although I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the trial is successful and becomes a permanent fixture after the 2 weeks are up.

I don't really think it was anything to do with grandfather rights, only that the attraction was very old and very difficult to move due to the way the attraction was built (being actually embedded in the ground) and a very short timeframe that Thorpe had to make a decision to either retire or relocate before Exodus construction began. I would imagine that Rocky Express' age, difficulty to move and urgency to move to make way for Exodus construction were all elements that resulted in its eventual demise. It just didn't make sense to move that attraction, it would've been a bigger pain than it was worth. Mr Monkey's Banana Boat, however, is located in an area of the park that currently is seeing no big development. Therefore I would imagine it'll stay for as long as possible until the park need to utilise that area for a new attraction. It'll likely be ran into the ground until it's no longer viable to repair, at which point it'll either be demolished along with other rides in the area for a bigger attraction, or simply replaced with another flat ride.

Emily Alton, granted. But so far there's been absolutely zero confirmation, to my recolection, that Snowy is involved at all?

Excuse me, SAW is the WORLD'S FAST HORROR MOVIE THEMED ROLLERCOASTER!... because that's definitely a niche other theme parks are dying to explore (if you'll pardon the pun)

Didn’t even notice that! What’s the betting Thorpe say it was an intentional thing to ‘give a nod to’ or as an ‘easter egg’ to the past…

Some more ExClUsIvE content for all you non-passholding lads - the Final Call Café is making good progress, and actually looks a hell of a lot better than the concept art. Definitely fits the vibe better in person, looking forward to seeing it!

I've seen this doing the rounds lately and I absolutely hate it. Please, please, please don't let this be the name of the new coaster.

Can't disagree more. As a coaster it's doesn't offer much due to its pretty short layout, sure, but as a complete package it's a fantastic coaster. By far the best themed coaster at the park (I'd even place it above The Swarm to be honest), you get a fairly good amount of airtime (especially after the trims which are never switched on) and it's fairly intense. I think it only gets a bad rep because it's got that typical Gerstlauer rattle, but what do you expect out of a Gerstlauer from 2009?!

Yeah I personally wouldn't look too much into that - I feel like he's probably talking about Exodus and Ghost Train, although it is fairly obvious that they're clearly looking to continue investing. I suppose they wouldn't decide to just remove old SBNO attractions like Containment without at least a slight plan for what could go in its place!

It's not even like we can even properly speculate about the name or theme because we haven't even been given an inch for that - not even a teaser! Hopefully we'll have some graphics on that big white construction wall this season teasing something so we can at least speculate a little bit, but the park seem to be giving us everything or nothing at all at the minute!

Issue with that is the room that they have to play with. A park with, when you think about it, very little expansion room is going to make the whole 'two day park' thing extremely difficult - because when you think about it, Alton Towers is also very much, in terms of rideable attractions, a one day park. However, the park is absolutely massive, so can make constantly walking around different corners of the park to ride everything you want to ride extremely tiresome, therefore is a better fit being a two day park. Building on the island behind The Swarm is certainly a step in the right direction, but judging by how much friction they've had from the environmental agency with Project Exodus, building more land in the lake to further expand how much space they have to play with in the park is probably going to be met with equal or greater friction from said parties. I think if they were to actually build a decent hotel (with a waterpark would be a nice bonus!) and actually have good evening entertainment - such as the shows that Alton Towers have in their hotels - it would do them more favours in terms of getting returning and overnight customers than it would filling the little room that they have with more attractions. More attractions are always nice, don't get me wrong, but the focus is currently in the wrong place in my opinion. If they want to become a two day park, they need to make better investments to their overnight lineup to actually entice people to want to stay on resort.

Alton Towers is a shadow of its former self currently in my opinion. It was my first major theme park and therefore will always hold a special place in my heart, but the Merlin execs need to be held accountable. They just really don't know how to get the balance right with that park currently. Right now, you've got the big coasters and the little rides in Cbeebies land that are clearly their biggest hitters - but that then leaves a massive gap inbetween for flat rides and other generic rides that have a wider appeal. There's currently very few rides for families at the park - it's worthwhile to visit if you're a family with little kids to explore Cbeebies land (that they are obviously still investing lots of money into, definitely quite the cash cow for the park), but then there's nothing for families visiting until their kids are big enough to ride the big coasters. Wicker Man was a step in the right direction with their height restriction of 1.2m opposed to the 1.4m on the other big coasters, but was it worthwhile removing The Flume - an attraction with a much bigger throughput and much wider family appeal - for it? Wicker Man is currently my #1 coaster so for selfish reasons my answer would be yes, but on a wider scope, I'd probably say no. Hex, Duel (TCaAM) and the Rapids (perhaps even Gangsta Granny, although I probably just enjoy that as an enthusiast - not sure if those grown out of Cbeebies Land but not big enough for the big coasters would agree as it might be too childish for them still, it's definitely got a Cbeebies-esque vibe to it!) are literally the only filler attractions at the minute. Hopefully with Project Horizon will come new flat rides and variety too, but I wonder how viable that actually is.

Interesting point! I never even noticed that they were fake tbh, I always assumed they were real. If there's one thing DBGT did right, it's the physical theming for sure. There's some really impressive stuff in there. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they're taking away the brick panels because they're in-filling it all for a new fake platform. But, then again, filling the bottom of that room up until where the bridge is would be a HELL of a lot of concrete - so maybe not. Either way, suuuuuuuuper intrigued to find out what they've got up their sleeves for that room and to find out if it will top the floating carriage spectacle (which will be a hard feat I can't lie!) It mentions in the description of Jack's video that the video was filmed numerous weeks ago, so progress inside has likely significantly come along since then. I'd like to see more of the ride system itself and perhaps even the fake shop section in the next construction update for Ghost Train. Would be interesting to see all of the aspects of the ride we've never (and will never) be able to see!

Yo, @MattyMoo this you commenting on SLKSTN's newest video bruv?

Oh yeah almost certainly. Considering Jack mentioned there's going to be some significant changes to the train interior, I'm like 100% certain there'll be screens or some sort of projection mapping in the windows.

ngl this is actually really sad - they are taking a big gamble with this, especially with removing the actually good scenery pieces. I agree with you - I think our best bet here is that they're building a new train platform in the grand illusion room instead. But yeah you're right, the windows are definitely different already. I'm pretty sure DBGT just used to have a white cloth or something similar over the windows, so not sure if they've just removed the cloth, exposing the actual windows underneath or if they've fully replaced them. I'll happily trade re-ridability with consistency any day of the week. To me, a ride doesn't have to be different every time I ride it. Don't get me wrong, it would be awesome to have this, but it's totally unnecessary for a ride of this calibre and budget. It just needs to be fun and consistent - if it manages to achieve both of these things, it's instantly re-rideable.

Falling at the first hurdle already. On the passholder group, somebody mentioned that they're visiting on the 15th April and wish to ride Ghost Train, to which Thorpe responded with "We don't want to make you disappointed but it's very unlikely to be open on this date, but just another reason to come back 😉", so whilst March 23rd isn't entirely out of the question, the fact that mid-April seems to not even be on the cards at the minute, I'd say that March 23rd is very, very unlikely. A bit of an obvious observation regarding the least popular ride at Thorpe, considering Ghost Train in its current (or should I say, previous) iteration was exactly that and the confirmation that the ride system will remain the same, I think it leaves little to be desired. Considering the lineup of thrill attractions at the park, I don't think anybody would ever see a ghost train as a highlight attraction. It's certainly a welcome member of the Thorpe Park lineup, but seriously doubt anybody (or at least, a very small number of people) visiting the park, regardless of how well received the attraction will be on opening, will say that Ghost Train would be even on their top 5 attractions at the park. The Network Rail sponsorship, again not very likely. The park have already confirmed that the attraciton is a unique IP, and although it wouldn't be Network Rail's intelectual property (I very much doubt they'd want to be seen as promoting an attraction in which a train goes wrong... which will most likely be a key storytelling element on this attraction!), a theme park attraction sponsored by a transport company is an interesting prediction, and one that if does come true would certainly be a left-field decision for sure! One thing I do agree on, however, is that this very likely won't be an attraction that'll be around for very long - although I think your estimates of 2025/26 are a little bold. I think we'll see it around for another 5 years at least before it's pencilled as a location for, probably, a new coaster or at the very least gutted inside for another completely new, from the ground up, dark ride.