Alton Towers’ 2013 rollercoaster will have a capacity of “64 passengers on each ride,” according to local newspaper The Sentinel.
Currently dubbed Secret Weapon Seven (SW7), the ride will open on 16 March next year and feature at least eight inversions, plus a heavily secretised unique element.
Park official Katherine Duckworth said: “Some details of the new ride are still a closely-guarded secret. We still cannot reveal the world’s-first element.”
A planning application submitted in December 2011 revealed that the ride will be manufactured by German company Gerstlauer, who also built Saw: The Ride at Thorpe Park.
The documents also stated that it would be the same type of rollercoaster – a Euro-Fighter model.
The ride is currently under construction in the X Sector area of Alton Towers and has recently been linked by the park to a face-style logo featuring spiralling eyes (pictured).
Capacity
This website understands that the “64 passengers on each ride” claim is misrepresented, and that the ride will actually feature trains of small factors of 64, with either 8 or 16 seats per train.
A 64-capacity train would seem highly unlikely, and even two 32-seater cars would represent unsustainable stress on the track and vertical lift hill design of SW7.
The eight eight-capacity car configuration would give a throughput of around 1,000 people per hour, which is similar to Saw: The Ride.
1.1km track
The track length is reported as being 1,170 metres and each ride is to last 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
The concealed section within the station building is expected to be shorter in duration than Saw: The Ride’s, which lasts for between one and two minutes.
Plans show that SW7 will feature two lift hills and sectors of track, suggesting two trains will pass through some elements in a synchronised, or duelling, fashion.
The Sentinel also reports that the rollercoaster will feature a maximum speed of 85 kph (52 mph) and a drop of 30 metres (98 feet).
The newspaper reports the SW7 project as costing £18 million, although planning documents last year claimed it represented an “overall investment of £20 million”.