Dollywood Discussion Thread

[dr.gumboThe classic!]

This could be useful

www.smokymountainherald.com/story.php?s=9149

[BeemerBoyWDW Monorail Fanatic]

^ Hmmm, four to a car, huh? Perhaps Vekoma Fan Boy really was onto something.

how the hell did we/I miss that article!

[socalMAN123This 16 year old puts you to shame]

120 feet is really tall for a bobsled ride, and the old cocept art picture that came out before the mystery mine site shows a very steep drop. I still think this will be a eurofighter.

On the website, it said it will be a four-person mine car, which matches the description of a bobsled ride, but the vertical drop and height doesn't match the type. Maybe it will be some type of new euro-fighter.
---Brent

a company can change the seating style, car type, or anything to accomodate what the park wants. Its just that we have never seen a euro fighter w/ only 4 cars...also this is the media so it can be 4 people per row which makes 8 per car but 4 people per car is more scarier!

Jarvis "wonders what is the difference between a bobsled coaster and an eurofighter coaster " Morant

It's Heeeerrrreee!!

http://www.dollywood.com/mmine/default.htm
INVERSIONS!!! YEESSS!!

[coasterdude5Randomness]

The ride has officially been announced: http://www.mysterymine.com

From the press release:

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn.—Dollywood’s new ride for the 2007 season is a mystery no more with the theme park’s announcement of the $17.5 million Mystery Mine steel roller coaster.

Marking the largest capital investment in the company’s history, Mystery Mine brings a one-acre expansion of Dollywood’s Timber Canyon area, also home to Thunderhead™, the world’s No. 1 wooden coaster. In a continuation of the area’s lumber camp theme, Mystery Mine is set in an abandoned coal mine where eight-passenger mine carts immediately plunge riders into darkness before continuing along a 1,811-foot track through the ruins of an early 1900’s mine.

“I’ve had to keep my big mouth shut about the Mystery Mine, but I can tell you now, it’s the most exciting thing to come out of these hills in a long, long time,” Dolly Parton said. “And I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve that I’m still not telling you about until it opens at Dollywood next year, but I can guarantee you it’s well worth the wait!”

During Mystery Mine’s 2.5-minute journey, passengers encounter a 95-degree, 85-foot vertical drop in addition to a weightless inversion known as a
“heart-line roll” and a “rollover loop” or double inversion which consists of an upward half-loop and a half-roll. Mystery Mine also features an Immelmann maneuver. Named for German World War I pilot Max Immelmann, the maneuver begins much like the first half of a traditional vertical loop. As the coaster car approaches the loop's apex, it is inverted and travels back in the direction in which the car first entered the loop. Rather than completing the loop, the coaster car rolls on its axis, becoming right-side-up while simultaneously turning away from the loop. The coaster car exits the Immelmann maneuver almost in the same direction in which it initially approached the loop.

Passengers will encounter several high-speed twists as the miner cars maneuver their way through a series of uncertain encounters including a fall from a collapsed trestle and a plunge into an abandoned tunnel. Mystery Mine, the first ride of its kind in the U.S., also incorporates state-of-the-art special effects.

Artist renderings and ride simulation video of Mystery Mine may be viewed at www.mysterymine.com.

Here are the statistics:

Layout Steel, sit-down
Vertical lifts 2
Track length 1,811 feet
Ride duration 2 minutes, 30 seconds
Maximum speed 46 miles per hour
Tallest vertical drop 85 feet at 95 degrees
Inversions 1 Heart-line Roll; 1 Rollover Loop
Vehicles 7 cars that carry 8 passengers; 4 passengers per row
Capacity 1,000 passengers per hour
Area 1.1 acres
Minimum Height Requirement 48 inches
Facility Construction Dollywood Maintenance & Construction
Ride Manufacturer Gerstlauer Elektro GmbH - Munsterhausen, Germany
Project Producer B Dudash & Associates, Inc.
Scenic Fabrication Adirondack Scenic - Saratoga Springs, NY
Special Effects Entech Creative - Orlando, FL
Audio/Video Systems Edwards Technologies - Los Angeles, CA
Attraction Design Forrec Ltd. - Toronto, Canada
Project Producer B Dudash & Associates, Inc.

Here's some of the concept art from the site.

[JonathanDonkey eat mullet pump.]

Me likey.

Looks like they are putting a lot of work into this. The Eurofighter itself is pretty cheap, and this is a $17.5 million project, so a ton of money is being spent on special effects. The people involved in the audio and theming aspects of this have worked with Universal and Disney, so they really are going for top quality. Now they just need to get that animation up.

[DerekRxI'm the gyro!]

Looks really sweet. I enjoyed Speed at Oakwood, and with the darkride aspects of it and the overall charm of Dollywood, I'm sure I'll really enjoy this one too. I know one place I'll be going next year, and not just for Thunderhead and the skillet potatoes.

[ECZenithGood to the last drop]

Awesome stuff! Looks like the ride will in fact seat 8 in typical eurofighter style. It'll be realy cool if the cars actually have headlights on them.