Alton Towers is the UK’s biggest theme park. In 2021, despite restrictions,
the park attracted roughly 2.3 million visitors, making it one of the busiest in Europe. What sets
this theme park apart however is its unique setting. Alton Towers sits neatly within the
quiet countryside of Staffordshire, amongst the ruins of a once-used stately home. That’s right,
a stately home, it’s not quite a castle like at Magic Kingdom,
but unlike everything at Magic Kingdom, it’s real. The whole grounds,
including the extensive gardens, once belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury in the early 1800s.
Like any good theme park, Alton Towers has rides - lots of them. The park is home to over 40 rides,
including a collection of 10 roller coasters. Since opening in 1980, it has accumulated a unique
selection of roller coasters, including ones rare to the continent. Alton Towers has Galactica,
one of only two large-scale flying coasters within Europe, allowing you to soar above the ground like
Superman. And even Rita, one of the world’s increasingly rare hydraulic launch coasters,
which accelerates you from 0 to 100kmh, 60mph in just 2.5 seconds.
One of the things all Alton Towers rides have in common is their height, or really,
their lack of it. The park has a height problem, oh and that roller coaster problem
we’re getting to. Due to laws conserving the views of the surrounding countryside,
they can’t build rides higher than the treeline. This means that, in theory, it shouldn’t be
possible to see any attraction from outside of the park. To deal with this, the creative and
engineering teams at Alton Towers have come up with a range of solutions over the years.
No solution could beat the one they employed during the 1990s. To make exciting roller
coasters, despite the short building height, the park used a two-step strategy. First,
find the tallest tree in the area you want to build your new ride. That point becomes
the top of your lift hill. Step two? Dig down - as far as you need to, to get the
ride you want. For both Nemesis and Oblivion, Alton Towers used this strategy to perfection.
Nemesis opened in 1994 as Europe’s first inverted coaster. When it debuted,
there was nothing like it. The vast majority of the ride takes place within a large,
purpose-built pit. The park used explosives to carve out a very specific hole in the ground,
a hole that the ride would follow. Nemesis climbs high into the trees, before dipping in and out of
the ground below. This enables the layout of the ride to follow an untraditional flow. The
inverted coasters prior to Nemesis often used an almost cookie-cutter layout - a vertical loop,
followed by a zero-g roll, then another loop and two corkscrews. Nemesis begins with a corkscrew,
then flies over the station with the zero-g roll, dives into the loop placed within the pit,
and ends with a second corkscrew. It’s thanks to this, and the unique terrain, that Nemesis
still remains one of the best-inverted coasters in the world 30 years later.
Oblivion has a similar story. It opened in 1998 as the world’s first vertical drop roller coaster,
allowing you to plummet near-vertically towards the ground. Known as a dive coaster,
these rides are all about the drop. Due to the restriction, Alton Towers had to dig down to
create the same kick - so they did. Roughly half of Oblivion’s 55m, 180ft drop is below the ground,
beneath your feet. This creates one hell of a visual spectacle. The ride vehicles for
Oblivion simply vanish into the hole whilst dropping near vertically. It’s a sensation
no other dive coaster around the world has managed to replicate to the same degree, yet.
That’s not to say Alton Towers don’t use this approach anymore. The park’s latest
two major roller coasters, The Smiler and Wicker Man, both received substantial terrain
manipulation and follow the park’s natural hills. It’s just that Nemesis and Oblivion take this
concept to the extreme. Terrain is great because it creates bespoke rides, ones which couldn’t be
replicated elsewhere because the landscape is unique. Well, unless you’ve got a big hill that
just so happens to be the right size for Oblivion - it still looks a bit wrong though, I’m talking
about you Diving Machine G5. The problem with this incredibly bespoke terrain approach comes when
you need to replace the ride. How do you put a new ride in a hole designed for something else? Hence:
Alton Towers has a roller coaster problem.
Sadly, roller coasters don’t last forever, they have shelf lives. The amount of time an individual
ride can last depends on a whole range of factors, including maintenance costs, popularity,
and how many cycles it has completed. More complex rides require more maintenance. at some point,
a theme park might not be willing to spend the money to maintain a ride any longer. This goes
hand-in-hand with popularity - why spend money to keep an attraction no one is riding? Finally,
some theme parks are open all year round. Rides at these parks will
be ridden more than their counterparts at theme parks which close over winter. This
means they’re subject to more wear and tear, leading to a shorter shelf life.
I’m not sure there are really any hard and fast rules regarding the life span of roller coasters.
I’ve heard figures like 25 years be thrown around, especially for rides produced by Swiss roller
coaster manufacturer, Bolliger and Mabillard, more commonly known as B&M. Both Nemesis and
Oblivion were designed by B&M and it's safe to say, they’re getting old. As of 2023, Nemesis
is 29 years old and Oblivion is 25! Ultimately, neither ride has been designed to last forever.
For your average theme park, this isn’t a problem. They tear down the old ride and replace it with
a brand new one. Simple. Alton Towers have done that in the past. Thirteen replaced the
park’s first-ever roller coaster, Corkscrew, which operated between 1980 and 2008. Whilst
the Smiler replaced the Black Hole, Alton Towers' previous indoor roller coaster,
which was around between 1983 and 2005. The difference here is that these two old rides
were the opposite of bespoke. Corkscrew and the Black Hole were mass-produced.
They featured no permanent foundations. Instead, they sat on a large steel frame,
often known as a "base frame", which are most commonly found on travelling roller
coasters. The Black Hole in particular was one of 50 Jet Star rides designed by Schwarzkopf
for mass installation by theme parks across the world. Except this one was inside a tent. Cool!
The same demolish and replace solution can’t be applied to Nemesis and Oblivion. How can
you design a new roller coaster to fill a hole specifically built for a different one? Well,
I guess in theory you could. Though I expect the end result would be a ride
that doesn’t feel as integrated as the one it replaced. So, what are the other solutions?
Tear it down and do nothing? Tear it down and fill in the pit? Tear it down and fill the pit
with water to make a nice lake? Or; keep the same ride. Extend the lifespan of the
original roller coaster by refurbishing it. In the world of roller coasters, this often
involves fabricating new like-for-like pieces of track to replace the older,
worn ones. Thus keeping the same ride, now with double the lifespan.
I had the idea to make this video over two years ago. If I’d have made it then,
the video would have ended with this prediction:
“Due to everything I’ve explained, I predict that Alton Towers will refurbish Nemesis. They’ll give
it new track with the intention of keeping it around for many years to come”. Except,
it’s now 2023. Nemesis is closed. New pieces of track are currently being swung into place as
I speak. A prediction doesn’t hit the same if it comes after the fact, does it? The all-new
Nemesis will open in 2024. It’ll feature black track, instead of the old white, probably to aid
in marketing it as a ‘new and improved’ version - Nemesis 2.0 if you will. Nevertheless, the fate of
Nemesis is decided. Perhaps it’ll stick around for another 30 years, check back here in 2053.
But what about Oblivion? Well, its fate is much more complicated. A considerable proportion of the
ride's track is effectively locked underground. How do you replace that? Dig up the hole,
remove the old track, put new pieces in, and cover it back over? Or maybe slowly fish each
piece out of the small tunnel, to then carefully put the new ones back in? Both of these scenarios
seem unlikely. Perhaps Alton Towers will do what they can to maintain the ride without
replacing entire sections of track. That is until the cost of maintaining the aging ride
outweighs the benefit of keeping it alive. If they do close the ride and cover up the hole,
does that mean they’re officially burying parts of Oblivion? RIP.
This alone is a problem for the park. However, to add to this, Alton Towers is running out of
undeveloped space. From the outside, it looks like they have too much space, the park grounds are
huge. In reality, the vast majority is protected from development. Previous long-term development
plans published by the park have outlined a few areas for new rides. This included replacing the
old flume ride, with what would eventually become Wicker Man. The potential for the development of
an area of the park known as coaster corner, which is currently the future site of the new-for-2025
indoor ride codenamed Project Horizon. There’s also the area behind Thirteen in the Dark Forest,
proposed for the development of the insane idea of building a cross-valley roller coaster. Yeah,
that’s the one that dives through the gardens to the Forbidden Valley,
only to dive back the other way. Sure, like that’s going to happen. And finally, there’s the plot of
land behind Galactica, out side of the existing park, which is currently used for parking.
You’ll notice that some of these areas have already been used,
are currently in the process of being used, or are stupidly unlikely to be used.
What happens when there’s no more space to build new rides? You remove the old ones. Alton Towers
has done this before, like Corkscrew for Thirteen, the Blackhole for the Smiler, and The Flume
for Wicker Man. These were all ageing rides, however. If Nemesis and Oblivion, two of the
park’s oldest attractions, are immovable - what major roller coaster is first to go? Galactica,
the third oldest coaster, built in 2002; or what about Rita, the fourth oldest, built in 2005?
In my mind, there’s the most potential with Galactica. The ride fills a large and relatively
vague plot of land, with the option for expansion right next door. Galactica does use the terrain,
but it isn’t defined by it either. When Project Horizon opens in 2025, the world’s first B&M
flying coaster will be 23 years old. We are yet to see how well these flying coasters age,
but they’re complex machines, far more complex than other roller coasters out there.
Alton Towers is in a unique position. They’re bound by a complex set of rules to protect the
local landscape; have a limited amount of space and a finite amount of money. Historically,
it’s been fairly simple for the park to expand. Older, previous rides were mass-produced glorified
fairground attractions. It’s not really a difficult decision to remove a ride that
has been replicated many times across the globe. Today, it’s different. Alton Towers
is full of unique additions, ones which have become an iconic part of the park’s history.
The next decade will be extremely interesting. It’s becoming complicated for Alton Towers to
expand their portfolio of rides, and it’s only going to get worse. By 2033, who knows what
will have happened? Oblivion could be 35 years old, Galactica 31 years old, Rita 28 years old,
and Thirteen 23 years old! Which of the ‘big seven’ will close first? Only time will tell.
Thank you for watching, subscribe if you enjoyed it, and, we’ll see you all next time.