Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Path To Hersheypark 2012?


Keystone Thrills has published what is said to be a shot of one of the planning documents for Hersheypark's 2012 addition, showing off the ride's layout.  The photo ran in the print-only version of the Patriot News today.  You can view the unedited photo of the layout on Keystone Thrill's 2012 coverage blog.

To me, the ride looks like a relative to Intimidator 305, or even a larger version of one of Intamin's mega-lite rides.  It definitely does not resemble any B&M ride I could imagine, so perhaps the Intamin rumors are dead on.

Either way, I tried to put the layout into the park where it seems it'd go, and met some frustration due to getting things properly aligned.  Here is what I'm calling the smaller version:


Some things don't jive with this one, though.  The station is highly rumored to be where the Tilt-A-Whirl currently is, so that works.  The enormous lift supports (for a structure much like Intimidator 305's lift) fit on either side of the creek, which I'm sure the park has to do.  The ride layout sits in the expected area, but the part around the Comet seems too small.  I'm not sure I see the ride's final turn being directly over Comet's lift like that, though it is possible.

Rumors pointed to the ride fully wrapping around Comet and going over its station, thus I made big version:


Everything from the first drawing holds true, but the end of the ride fits neatly around Comet's structure.  The scale of the ride seems a tad too large for me, including coming way too close to the buildings in the park's entrance area.  Perhaps in the end one of the drawings will be closer than the other to reality, or maybe a blend of the two will win.

I think it's safe to say that a pretty exciting, potentially extremely great (looking at how other similar Intamin rides are ranked) coaster is headed to Hersheypark next year!


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