Colossus Partial Retrack (Thorpe Park)

[northernfanboy]

it kind of does take a lot of space, more so than any other coaster at the park

they could easily fit a bigger/longer coaster in that space, it literally takes up the whole side of the park from rush to saw island, with the saw alive infilled land added it makes it an even bigger plot of land really

I Know this is a strange hill to die on and apologies for the tangent, but Colossus is a compact ride by my standards. It's not much bigger than the area for Nemesis Inferno, and considering it crams in over twice as many inversions you can't deny it's an incredibly efficient use of space. That's before we consider about 40% of the land use in that area is for pathways.

For interest's sake I also looked at the rough areas for Dragon Khan and The Smiler as comparable coasters which have all held the most inversions crown. Colossus uses nearly half the area of Dragon Khan and remarkably The Smiler was about 50% smaller again, though we suspect those constraint's led to some of the issues Smiler faced.

Long story short, I don't think you could 'easily fit a bigger/longer coaster' in there. And I can't imagine them going to the effort when they have the island behind swarm and as you point out, space to in-fill around the Saw maze.

PS. If I was the big boss and had an infinite money cheat code, of course I would replace it with an Intamin multi-launch flying above and below all the pathways.

 

[I'veGotFourB&MsInMyGarden]

Wahey! We're getting a repaint! (and some other stuff)

It's about time! It'll be great to see the vibrant blue track return!

 

[Climb]

A REPAINT? Do my eyes deceive me? What am I going to make fun of every year now that it's actually happening?

 

[I'veGotFourB&MsInMyGarden]

A REPAINT? Do my eyes deceive me? What am I going to make fun of every year now that it's actually happening?

Don't worry, it's only getting half repainted for next year so it'll look pretty weird for a bit. You'll just have to make twice as much fun of it until it's complete in 2025!

 

[EnigmaHyena]

A REPAINT? Do my eyes deceive me? What am I going to make fun of every year now that it's actually happening?

There's always Inferno's mossy, mouldy green lifthill and faded """red""" track

 

[Nitefly]

Oh thank god.

 

[Jamesss]

A lot of the park needs a repaint. Hopefully this will be the start of something.

The fact they're not painting the first drop and vertical loop first makes me think those parts might be seeing the track replacement.

 

[JoshC.]

As has been said, the park are doing a partial retrack and partial repaint.

The retrack is also happening over multiple years. "Technically" it started last year, and is continuing this year. The repaint is happening to ensure everything ends up the same colour. I believe the focus of the retrack is around the area closer to Samurai, such as the start of the inline twists, possibly the vertical loop, etc. This is because they required the most need for it due to some of the ground issues around that area (hence why they filled in / concreted that area a few years back).

Project Sparkle is a multi-year project in a similar vain to Alton Towers' "Towers Loving Care" from a few years back. The park are aware of the need for bigger repainting projects, like that of Colossus and Inferno, along with the likes of Rumba, Angry Birds Land / Big Easy Boulevard, the Slammer area, etc. It's not all going to happen at once, but the park clearly have a plan, and are moving forward with it.

 

[Tonkso]

Can they dial Rumba back up whilst they're at it? I know rapids have a bad rep now, but Rumba is more akin to a lazy river than a rapids ride these days.

I'll be looking at River Quest in a couple of weekends (not riding as it doesn't operate for Wintertaum, Chiapas does though, woohoo) and thinking what could be.

 

[JoshC.]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1727028572278444273

The repaint is well underway

 

[Tonkso]

I never actually appreciated how bad it had actually gotten until now, now I've seen that repaint. I'd love them to bring back the water too, but that ship has not only sailed but they pulled a Great Musgrave on it.

I've been very impressed with Thorpe over the past year, to be fair to them they've noticed where the park needs attention and are making the right decisions alongside major new CAPEX!! I can't really fault them, however it has to be asked, how did it get to the state it was in in the first place? If the current management is serious about improving the park (and from the evidence, I believe they are), they need to be serious about acknowledging the failures too. Colossus was allowed to get into this state, market-leaders Disney and Universal would never allow a ride to look like that. Merlin is big enough that it should have been unacceptable to them too.

Tl,dr: Thorpe shouldn't have got to this state in the first place, but current management seems to care, full credit to them.

 

[emoo]

It is stunning in both a good and annoying way. I guess Merlin needed a reason beyond making any given day the best it can be.

Looks like they are doing everything they can park round to make the most of Hyperia's buzz. Ideally turning one shot guests into repeat visitors and not put off by the sorry state much of Thorpe has apparently gotten into.

 

[Jamesss]

My concern with this is that all the repainting still won't fix the rattle and the horrible trains.

It'll look prettier, but I still won't enjoy riding it.

 

[spicy]

Interestingly, the first inline that was retracked last season has been removed again.

Taken from this video:

 

[JoshC.]

No use not saying this now I suppose...

The reason Colossus had a significantly delayed opening this season was because the new track in that inline did not fit correctly. As such, to stop the delay any further, the park repainted the original piece of track and put that back in.

Whilst the old track was in need of replacing, it wasn't at the end of its life, so it was still okay to use.

Not the finest moment from Taziker, the company doing track replacement. Thorpe weren't at fault and did the best they could given an awkward situation.

 

[spicy]

^ I know that was strongly rumoured to be the case, thanks for confirming that’s what happened.

Can’t have exactly filled Merlin with confidence that Taziker are to retrack the whole coaster if they couldn’t fabricate just the inline correctly..

They must have considered to go to Intamin but are sticking with Taziker?

 

[Matt N]

They must have considered to go to Intamin but are sticking with Taziker?

Don’t quote me on this, but I heard rumblings that they tried Intamin and Intamin refused to do it unless Thorpe would commit to a full “big bang” retrack like what Alton Towers are doing with Nemesis. Intamin apparently refused to take the more piecemeal approach to retracking that Taziker and Thorpe are currently taking.

 

[Niles]

Looking so vibrant, just wish for new trains one day




I like this final pic with Hyperia looming in the background .

Source

 

[Boodangy]

Oh those are some lovely new colours! I will say, wouldn't it be lovely since they're playing with track replacements if they could remove the first two rolls and replace them with some classic intamin ejector bunny hops? Smiler took the inversion record a decade ago anyway, they don't need all those back to back rolls.

 

[Ethan]

Would be lovely if whilst they’re at it they slapped in some nice new rock work and cleaned up the old theming a bit, would look so much better!