Vampire has always been a suspended swinging coaster.Was an Arrow coaster but Arrow I think went bust and brought by Vekoma.The ride is still the old Arrow but has pieces replaced by Vekoma.The current trains are Vekoma.

Ahh right, I can't remeber them swinging but I havent been on it about 3 years so...yeah.

Ahh right, I can't remeber them swinging but I havent been on it about 3 years so...yeah.

I have never been on the older one as I am not old! But yes, Vampire has always had suspended swinging trains. Just older one, you had your feet on the floor like Colossus and now you have no floor like Nemesis Inferno

I have never been on the older one as I am not old! But yes, Vampire has always had suspended swinging trains. Just older one, you had your feet on the floor like Colossus and now you have no floor like Nemesis Inferno

Oi! I am not that old..

Bloody hell that old station themeing looks immense! They could do alot with the current statation by just adding a few more cobwebs and lights around the place, thats pretty vague, but it would be nice to see a station like that return to vampire!

Everyone wants the station to look like that, but I highly doubt Merlin will do it. I'm sure Vampire is running smoother these days, can anyone back up that ass gained assumption?

I cant believe how big the Vampire looks in the photos.

That's airgates for you! - The station could be much better, of course it could. However, it is still really scary for children nowadays, so in that respect its still meeting its target. Basically, the only main thing missing in the 'newer' station is the cobwebs, much like what they have for Halloween. I think they should keep this all year round, although some extra cobwebs would also be very nice too!

I also hear quite a bit about the corridor leading into the station. I know there are a few bits of ivy, a severed hand and even a gremlin of sorts from Hocus Pocus Hall at one point in those windows on the corridor walls. However, it sounds to me as if that corridor was changed to be less frightening for children at some point in time.I know that the queueline does not stack up in there anymore, since batching happens at the Express Pass merge point, but I remember when I was very young we had to wait in the corridor in the darkness! Also, there are added white lights on the ceiling now which I think were added to make it less dark and spooky.Does anybody know if there used to be more in the windows if this corridor?

I don't know for sure, but I don't think they would have taken away windows just for the sake of it, it would be pointless to do so and probably cost money, if they decided not to use one of the windows they might have just darkened the room. I always thought those white lights for some sort of security light or something? - However it's probably not as dark as it used to be due to new health and safety regulations, the same reason why the airgates were installed. The lights were most probably added during the retheme because the park wouldn't want people to slip, fall and then sue!

No, not removed the windows, just altered the theming features behind the glass.They definitely did it recently, as last year there was that goblin in the style of Hocus Pocus Hall stuck on the wall behind the final window. It seems they were trying to promote Hocus Pocus by adding it, but it has thankfully been absent since the start of this year. However, a lot of the windows are completely empty, it just seems likely that they once had more of a purpose and that there was something behind them.

One window has a spider, one window has a hand, one window has a face which lights up every now and then and is freaky, and the other is a room thing which had that **** HPH thing.The light was added this year I believe. It definitely didn't exist pre-09 as I spent a fair amount of time in that tunnel

I love looking at that early Vampire Station picture. It really was quite an intimidating experience, especially when I was an ickle boy! Hehe. It was a great one though, packed with fantasy and theatre.

Aaah how I miss the old Vampire :(I only went to Chessie 3 times as a kid, my family weren't really theme park people unfortunately. Not that my mum went - first time I went was with dad, brother and dad's mates and their kids, second time was dad, brother, next door neighbour and her son, third time was with my friend from school for his birthday. My dad and brother enjoyed it (although not as much as me!) but yeah, apart from trips down to Brighton and going on the pier, not much childhood theme park-age. Having said that, we did have a lot of nice holidays, quite a few in the Caribbean, which is not cheap!So yeah, basically I wish I paid more attention/appreciated the theming etc more at the time...I remember the old trains (epic!) and I kinda remember the station, but I never really appreciated it...but then again, would a 9/10 year old pay attention to that kinda stuff?Now here comes the shocking question...why did they change it? Fangirl doesn't known fan info! OMG! Well I remember being told why, but I forget now Something about maintenance/money?Yes, Mer is having nostalgic times...

I want to say it was something to do with the new trains. Coffins removed due to air gates being installed in the queueline. (Can you imagine Vampire today without air gates?! times have changed!!). The new trains were slightly longer too (I think) and so some theming had to be removed to accomodate them. It's theming, which could somehow have been put back, but sadly wasn't. In my view, I don't think they nescessarily needed to do so much work on the station as they did.

I think they mainly changed it due to maintenance issues more than anything... Though don't hold me to that, since it happened when I was becoming an enthusiast so I wasn't into the whole info thing...But it just suffered a lot I think back in 2000 and hence they made the decision to close it for the year and just completely redo all the electronics/trains/station/etc...It is a shame that it's not nearly enough the same thing as it was now, and it would be nice if they redid the station again (as they REALLY need to put the airgates in line with the cars), but I can't see it happening unfortunately...

I am pretty sure they had to lower the whole floor as well, which would have meant pieces of theming would have been stripped away and not put back. I hear the old trains used to run through a slight 'trench' through the station. With the new trains, since they are floorless, there would have been a random step down when riders boarded their seats. I guess they somehow lowered the whole floor so that the platform was completely even. If you look to the sides of the station, you can see what look like thick skirting boards where the floor meets the wall.Also, I assume all of the cloth cobwebs that hid the ceiling and track mechanics were removed to allow the technical modifications to be made. Of course, they were never put back, resulting in a slightly bare station. I don't like looking up, it isn't pretty...

Bingos - if you youtube old vampires last day, or something like that.. you can see the mega trench in which the trains flew in through.As electric bill says - there's very noticeable signs of where the floor was lowered throughout the station to accomodate these new trains. I bet, all in all, that this was extremely expensive for chessie (probably almost as much as just getting a new main ride).Stolen from the other vampire topic - which I noticed just now and posted in 2007 -

is the video

Oh wow, look at all that. It looks so much more rounded and complete than the Vampire that we have now. Even if it is mostly just more painted cardboard on the walls. It has been a while since I saw that video as well, thanks for reposting.