Missing "Tera" Coaster?
Maybe it was all rumor at one time, but I thought there was serious discussion earlier this year, regarding a 400+ foot "tera" coaster in development at Heide Park courtsey of Intamin...Then I had heard that the project was cancelled, but was still being brought to the U.S. to an undisclosed park, for obvious reasons. Is there any truth to this rumor?...If so has anyone heard any recent/revelant infomation?
Not to sound stupid (or obvious), but this woudn't be CP #16 would it?
*** This post was edited by pokeyron on 12/17/2002. ***
There was a topic about this yesterday, but that kind of completely vanished. I promissed some info... so here it is!
Heide-Park is currently constructing a very unique and large free fall tower. I'm unfortunately not at liberty to give any more details than can be found below.
http://frank.drnk.net/coastin/2003/de
Heide-Park is a medium Northern-German themepark. When the wall fell, Heide-Park faced doubling visitor numbers. They almost panicked and started building new rides. They now have two swinging ships, two monorails, two log-flumes and so on. The owner and founder of Heide-Park at that time was Hans-Jürgen Tiemann, a very rich man. Heide-Park became one of Germany's best attended themeparks.
In the mid 1980's, Hans-Jürgen was extremely rich. He almost completely stopped working. He now focussed on his two main hobby's, cars and extreme sports. In this period, he decided Heide-Park was to built several new rides, among others a carting track (which never became part of the park, but functioned as his own "test track"), a bobsled coaster, a Vekoma DLC, a Vekoma SLC and some minor thrill rides.
In 2001 Hans-Jürgen wanted to built something record-breaking. He alone would pay for the 45 million DM (approx. 20 million USD) costing ride. This ride became Colossos, a 60 metre (approx. 180 feet) tall woodie, the highest all wooden roller coaster in the world. Colossos was a great succes, and the number of visitors broke every Heide-Park record. What was next?
Hans-Jürgen began planning for the future. He came up with three options for the 2003 season.
1) A huge B&M floorless, possibly featuring 12 inversions, code-named "Blue Bird".
2) A refurbishment of one of their two "look-out towers" (what's the English name for that? :) ) to a 103 metre (approx. 309 feet) tall freefall tower.
3) The worlds largest Intamin Hypercoaster. No official statements where made concerning this ride.
Then, everything changed. In the beginning of 2002 the Tussauds Group purchased Heide-Park. Former owner and founder Hans-Jürgen now lives in France. The Tussauds Group immediately changed the on-going projects. The current projects Heide-Park under Tussaud control is working on are significantly different.
1) A ride similar to Chessington's Tomb Blasters, or Six Flags' Scooby Doo ride.
2) The refurbishment of the 103 metre (approx. 309 feet) tower to a freefall tower, the freefall will "only" be 73 metres (approx. 219 feet) including a 15 metre (approx. 45 feet) brake-section.
3) The world largest Intamin Hypercoaster. There where still very little official statements made.
During the last two years I have had several conversation with park-officials. It is now confirmed that the hypercoaster will not be built before the 2005 season. There where some difference in opinion with Intamin, who refused to built the ride Werner Stengel designed. The only agreed with the design if Heide-Park would add another 500 (approx. 1500 feet) or so to the design. Tussauds as of now refuses to, because of the large cost.
I talked to Werner Stengel himself about the upcoming hypercoaster, and he said he wasn't allowed to tell me much. He would say though that the ride would be about 120 metres (approx. 360 feet) tall, and feature a drop of over 100 metres (approx. 300 feet). The ride would be located where now the desert race track (carting track) of former owner Hans-Jürgen is situated.
Currently, Heide-Park is working very hard at "Scream", their new freefall tower. No further details can be released by me at this moment. Sorry..
Sources are: Werner Stengel, the ride manufacturer, Heide-Park former park manager, Heide-Park press department.
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Dutch Coastin' :: European coasters, thrills and theming!
*** This post was edited by DRNK on 12/17/2002. ***
*** This post was edited by DRNK on 12/17/2002. ***
Colossos is big but not the biggest on earth. The record still belongs to Son of Beast, which is also a Stengel design. And then we have Rattler at the 2nd place... so Colossos is the 3rd highest woodie on earth, which is very impressive anyway.
Oh yeah another project that didn't went trough was an Intamin rocket coaster that would be indoor with two inversions.
*** This post was edited by olov on 12/17/2002. ***
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Dutch Coastin' :: European coasters, thrills and theming!
I would personally prefer to have the B&M looper anyway, since I'd rather have one close by than having to travel to spain. As far as I know the only B&M round here is Silverstar, and that's supposed to be a bore.
olov: DRNK was correct. The key word he used was "all-wood". Rattler has a reprofiled smaller drop and while SOB does indeed have laminated wood rails on the loop, it's not an all-wood coaster.
-'Playa
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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.
Playa
Not sure if you were joking, but I can't think of many wooden coasters that don't have some sort of steel reenforcement braces as part of the support structure. I wouldn't doubt Colossos is one of them too (can't remember specifically, however). Just because the loop is steel doesn't mean it's not "all wood" really...
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"No honey, the monkeys have already done enough damage on this trip." - Guy coming out of front gate at SFGAd
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Dutch Coastin' :: European coasters, thrills and theming!
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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.
Bah, stop talking about chains and supports: The fact is, even the earliest coasters had metal rails, which sort of disqualifies them as "all wood." Sonny's tracks are still wood in the loop, so I say it's as "wooden" as the Coney Island Cyclone. If Heide Park want's to clain the "World's Largest Coaster with all-Wood Supports," then they've got something.
(But possibly not for long. I know Viper used to have have a few more wooden supports than it does now: Do other wooden rides get steel supports as they age?)
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