Mirabilandia to get rid of Bill Cobb woodie

It started as a rumour but is now reported by Amusement today:
Mirabilandia in Italy will get rid of its 15 year old "Sierra Tonante" wooden coaster, which was the last to be designed by Bill Cobb. It will make space for a hypercoaster which is supposed to open in 2009.

Very strange!

Not that strange, really. Those I know who've ridden it say its a pretty underwhelming ride with one redeaming moment: the mid-ride Traveresque diving helix.

Still, hard to go wrong with a B&M hypercoaster as a replacement, eh?

I hardly ever hear anything about the ride so I assume it's not very popular. Still, it's never good to see a wood coaster go down. At least the replacement is pretty much guaranteed to be a winner.

But why not build a steel coaster *around* the existing woodie....unless that woodie is REALLY bad. Reminds me of Dorney taking down Herc - let's hope THIS replacement is better than Hydra... ;)

The woodie sucked. No great loss.

Two year old trip report:

http://www.bannister.org/coasters/trips/2005/0723.htm

I disagree. Whilst it would never (I imagine) be in anyone's top ten, Sierra Tonante was a much more fun and less bruising ride than I'd been lead to believe. The park isn't exactly short of space, so why not build the B&M over and around the woodie?

^ Maybe because the ride isn't that popular anymore and probably costs a considerable amount to maintain each year.

See Hercules.

Mike

Apparantly the park has bought a set of new trains just recently.
On the other hand, some people claim that the ride was built with untreated wood and has therefore become a problem to maintain.

Makes you wonder...

---

MHammer82 said:
Maybe because the ride isn't that popular anymore and probably costs a considerable amount to maintain each year.

Compared to a B&M hyper????

---

Eh, a B&M hyper costs a lot to install but I rather suspect it'd be less to maintain than a dilapidated woodie. Besides, it'll be a signature ride for the park, especially if they end up building the tallest in Europe.

I'm not sure where they got this information, but RCDB lists the ride's height as 50 meters. The ride could still be a mini-hyper at this height (Hollywood Dream is shorter), but it would be 23 meters shorter than Silver Star.

---

rollergator said:
But why not build a steel coaster *around* the existing woodie

---

Goliath West comes to mind as a waste of steel track built around an existing woodie...As does Steel Phantom.

On the other hand, Phantom's Revenge kicked my bootie.

The soon to be torn down Cobb coaster has that Cobb Le Monstre disease. The first drop is about as steep as the pitch of the lift hill. Combined with the morgan trains I can see how this would be a boring ride.