Linear Gale closed for good...

[Anonymous]

Looks like Linear Gale, the first gen impulse coaster at Tokyo Dome City, was shut down for good last weekend...

This is an image posted on the attraction page that is thanking it for the time it have been operating. Click

And to be honest I couldn't care less, since they ran it on a very low setting, making the ride very boring. This would make it the third ride that have operated on that location after an Arrow Shuttle Loop and a Togo Ultra Twister. We just have to wait and see what they are going to replace it with...

Hoping for a Zac-spin

 

[Tomatron]

I had more powerful sneezes than this thing.

Here's also hoping for that ZacSpin!

 

[Jer]

And nothing of value was lost.It looked pretty ****ty, and it's launches were pretty weak.

 

[Xpress]

What did they close it for?

Also, it helps if you translate the logo :roll:

 

[Gavin]

Yeah, no big loss there.

Hopefully they'll replace with another coaster (their last coaster removal resulted in some kind of shooting dark ride). Zac Spins have been mentioned, which would make perfect sense given the area the ride takes up, assuming there will be a replacement at all.

Which other coasters could fit the "narrow" category? Sky loop X-car thing I suppose? Screaming Squirrel?

 

[Anonymous]

No idea, it seems like it have been topping the rankings of the most popular ride there, but I can't find any info about why they closed it down, maybe it got too expensive to run??

Tried to make a translation of the image above:

踏N張Renai minutes on foot at Oster's Tadashi Masu thrill!
Linear Gale
October 31, 2010 (Sunday) at the close of business now. Thank you for your patronage for many years.

But as always, most of it came out as crap...

 

[rollermonkey]

Actually, the shame was it was very fun when it ran full power. I ranked it above the 'standard' version and WT.

 

[Nick]

Any idea why they ran it on such a lousy setting? Seriously, when I went on it it was an absolute joke. The trains only reached about 1/4 up the track, can't believe I wasted my 800yen or whatever it was, grrr! Hopefully they'll get something good to replace it. One of those Vekoma 'manta' flying things would be cool, cause they actually have an extremely narrow footprint, then the track branches out above the station. However their capacity is terrible...

 

[Gavin]

^ I don't think that the park needs a high-capacity ride though.

The locals don't treat it as much of a "proper" amusement park. Yeah, it gets busier at weekends, but even then most things aside from Thunder Dolphin (20-30 minute wait) are basically walk on. People use the whole area as a place to hang out, get something to eat, do some shopping and maybe jump on a ride or two. Very few actually view it as a day out to an amusement park, so a low capacity ride would actually work there much better than it would at somewhere like Fuji Q, who insist on installing low-capacity rides that don't suit the park.