coasterverse

I know concept art isn't really anything to go by, but my oh my does that look incredible. Struggling to see how they would recreate such a scene inside that building though - perhaps the second station platform has had all of the walls demolished to open it up as one big room rather than the station, scare maze tunnel and where the infected used to appear on DBGT - but not sure how structually sound that would be 😂 I suppose the building is massive, but I'm not sure how much of the room is taken up by the ride system itself...

Some may also argue that they've plunged their usual advertising budget into the attraction itself... which in hindsight doesn't sound like a good decision if nobody knows the refurbishment is taking place other than those on social media and/or have visited the park 😂 To be fair, the park are fairly limited on what they can do with the attraction itself. Fundamentally, the transit system will remain exactly as it was and is the crux of the attraction - so regardless of what they do with the rest of the scenes, that's all just filler until you get onto the train. Those expecting Duel to Alty Mans level of refurbishment I feel are going to be bitterly disappointed. As a rather generic style ghost train as opposed to Ghost Train at Thorpe Park, the options that Towers had for a refurbishment could've been endless - whereas Thorpe must maintain a transit system that's effectively just a stationary train (for the most part) on a motion platform. I'd love for some more physical effects though. The fake train crash scene in the original iteration of DBGT was brilliant - but horrendously unrealiable for whatever reason. More of that please, but make it reliable.

Yeah I'm like 99.9% sure that's what they mean

Thorpe have just announced that 'The next train to depart Platform 13 at Thorpe Junction will be announced tomorrow 👀" - some news, finally!

And I can't really see actors starting if there's no place for them to rehearse properly. Yeah, sure, there's probably rehearsal rooms tucked away in the Thorpe Park Backrooms, but I'd imagine the park will be wanting to rehearse everything fully with places to hide for optimal scares and they'll want everything as streamlined and optimal as possible. Therefore I've got a feeling that at least the very basic sets are in place and are just finetuning things at this point. Feels like opening is not too far away now, but also very likely that something goes wrong and ends up getting delayed again. I saw on Twitter too that it looks like the actors have been told a date - I saw somebody asking when it's due to open and they responded saying it's top secret or something along those lines. So I feel like there's definitely an internal target, but they're waiting for a couple of things to fall in place before they actually announce anything.

Would be very, very interesting to find out the budget for this refurb! I'd imagine after the millions they pumped into it only 7 years ago it's probably not going to be too much... which I hope doesn't hinder the quality of the finished product.

Is this confirmed? I’ve not heard this, but also I’m pretty sure he’s spoken about/teased ghost train when it was first announced? Unless I’m remembering incorrectly…

Providing that they have been working on this for over a year like they've been saying, hopefully it's just been a case of stripping everything out and installing everything without having to think too hard about it, as I'd imagine most of it had already been figured out long in advance. The Duel/TCaAM refurbishment does give me tremendous hope. I've not experienced it (yet) and I'm staying away from spoilers as much as I can as I want to experience it first hand, but the general consensus is that it's very good - which really does fill me with hope! Don't let me down, Merlin! For the first time in a long time, you've got my full support.

Exciting! Hopefully that means they’ve built everything (or most of it) and are trialing it with the audio now 🤔 Probably not, but a man can wish!

I reckon you're bang on the money with that one. Might have to start calling you Theme Park Fanatic at this rate!

Either way, I can't wait for this attraction to open. Whether it's amazing, good, mediocre or absolutely dreadful - I'm sure we can all agree that having another indoors attraction to either shield from the rain or something else on the park to eat up some queues, it will do wonders for the park.

Let’s just hope it’s been a long time coming for them and not in protest because of how the project is going (although again, highly doubt this would be the reason as there’s likely many MMM projects in the works currently)

Rule 3 - don't not give out time frames because people will get angry that they don't have something to hold you to

Yeah I speculated something like this a while back - mostly as a joke - but after seeing The Curse, I think it is looking more and more like a plausable option.

Nothing says 'spa' quite like office complex ceiling tiles

The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure this retrack did start pretty close to the beginning of the winter season! I get that things take time but for it to take 5 months, have the track arrive on site, Thorpe attempt to install and find out it doesn't fit and have to send it back for a replacement... really doesn't look all that good on Taziker. By extension it doesn't necessarily look good on the park either, but I suppose at the end of the day it's totally down to Taziker to ensure the project gets delivered on time.

Come on then lads, what's gonna come first? Colossus or Ghost Train? Thorpe seem to love to give these ambiguous 'opening spring' estimations this season!

I really don't think the 'shade' was intentional, but I get what they were trying to say. I think they're basically saying that Towers are doing an entire marketing campaign around the retrack to keep things interesting, whereas Thorpe just wanted the project to be undertaken and completed as quickly as possible to ensure people can keep riding it throughhout the year, therefore they have no interest in doing any special marketing projects to coincide it. I feel like once they've got another coaster at the park to eat up some of the queues that having Colossus closed for a prolonged period of time would be the most beneficial time for a complete retrack - whether that happens or not is another question entirely.

Anyone else concerned that with Taziker taking the track back to, what I would imagine, grind it down a little or solder a little extra on so it actually fits might actually... make the ride experience worse? The trouble with not retracking the entire thing (and now essentially having two different tracks from two different manufacturers) is that it runs the risk of the different bit of track being substantially different. I know it clearly wasn't viable for the park to do an entire refit of the attraction at the moment - but I feel like if the new track rides horribly it will ruin the experience further, but also if it rides smooth as butter it will stick out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the attraction? Hopefully Taziker do a stellar job, but I suppose this is always a worrying prospect with a project like this.

I've heard through the grapevine that Intamin would've only done the retracking if the park agreed to an entire coaster rebuild - much like the Nemesis retrack - and not just small portions of the track over time. With Exodus over the horizon, finance at the park is obviously very closely observed right now and the park likely won't want to make any big purchases until Exodus and the surrounding area (flat rides would be nice!) are complete. So I suppose from a financial point of view, Taziker were the only real option and their proven success with The Big One's retrack probably also helped finalise that decision. Definitely agree that an Intamin rebuild, complete with new trains, would be the much better option. Sik looks to have gone down a treat at Flamingo Land and apparently rides amazingly - so a like-for-like Intamin rebuild of Colossus (maybe even with the cable lift! 😍) with Sik-style lap restraints would've given the coaster a whole new lease of life. Perhaps it's because Colossus, being the park's oldest coaster, is probably looking to retire some time in the distant future - and therefore pumping loads of money into a coaster retrack that (in all probability) wouldn't bring any more custom to the park and therefore would'nt make financial sense to do, when building a brand spanking new coaster in its place in a good few years time would drive swarms of customers to the park.

I'm very, very sceptical for a Spring opening to be perfectly honest with you (and until we get another Silkstone or official Thorpe Park video showing the progress inside I will remain sceptical). We all know how over-ambitious parks usually are with their attraction deadlines, and if this Ghost Train retheme is even half as ambitious as they're leading on (removing the hanging carriage scene etc) then I would be massively surprised if deconstruction and reconstruction managed to only take up the winter season and a portion of opening season - I would probably say that a summer opening is much, much more likely... but I'd love to eat my hat on that one.

I hope it does, but I don't think it will. I've got a feeling they're going to be gutting the attraction out pretty much entirely and refitting with completely new scenes across the board - which is disappointing because I really did love the fake shop ending - it was so unique! As for images of the demon costume, I don't think there are any online (or at least if there are, they are extremely scarse), so THIS is probably your best preview of it: (taken from Jack Silkstone's POV when the attraction closed) The low light really doesn't do it any justice as the costume was essentially in total disrepair as far as I'm aware in the later years of the attraction, hence why they hardly (if ever!) used it in the years leading up to its closure.

I know for certain at least one of them sold at auction last year (not sure if it was a job lot, I remember seeing it and posting about it in the DBGT thread)

Wouldn't really class those as antiques per se, but about as close as you would get to one in a theme park I suppose... but the point still stands that the majority of the general public are not going to see that sign and thing "Oooh! I'll grab a nice new antique dining table whilst I'm here!"

Nobody - I repeat, nobody - is entering a shop in a theme park expecting antiques.