Shane's Amusement Attic

by **montezooma** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:08 am

TOWERS - INTAMIN Part 1

Your going down the freeway, anxiously anticipating your arrival to Kings Dominion..."where is it? Where is it?" Nothing but trees...and finally you spot it! The Eiffel Tower. It stands majestically over the park and makes quite a statement. The same is true for many other parks, Magic Mountain, Six Flags over Texas, even the Sea Worlds in Orlando and San Diego. They can be seen for miles around and signal your arrival.

Towers have always been favorite attractions of mine because they really symbolize the amusement park. While these towers usually serve as a landmark to parks, unfortunately not all of them have survived. "The Great Gasp" from Six Flags over Georgia is sorely missed from their skyline, especially at night. The "Sky Jump" at Knott's has been mutilated having all of it's arms cut off. And I am pretty sure that the Sky Scraper from Geauga Lake is soon to meet the same fate that AstroWorld's "AstroNeedle" did.

This update takes a look at the beautiful structures designed, built and conceptualized by Intamin. I picked up this brochure from the Intamin IAAPA booth and it has been one of my favorite pieces of manufacturer literature since.

by **ebl** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:30 am

I really enjoyed the Intamin tower information, as towers are one of my favorite attractions at parks. I wonder how many people know that SFMM's Sky Tower really was destined to be a Playboy Club (hence the wording on it in the brochure) in Chicago (I think) before that deal fell through and the tower was made available to Sea World/Newhall Land and Farming Co. when Magic Mountain was on the drawing boards?

Interesting, also, is the fact that Intamin apparently offered the combination parachute and observation tower, but so far only Knott's ordered one (that I know of).

Eric

by **AllenA07** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:49 am

EBL wrote: I wonder how many people know that SFMM's Sky Tower really was destined to be a Playboy Club (hence the wording on it in the brochure) in Chicago (I think) before that deal fell through and the tower was made available to Sea World/Newhall Land and Farming Co. when Magic Mountain was on the drawing boards?

Eric you beat me to the Playboy club trivia. And yes the tower was originally going to be placed in Chicago. As far as I understand Playboy backed out at the very last minute on the deal, apparently Hefner thought the tower just wouldn't fit the "classy" Playboy look. However I can tell you that the originally plans (these are off pure memory, and might be backwards) had called for the bottom level of the tower to be a restaurant/bar, and the top level to be the dance floor.

-- Allen (has lost his ability to spell!)

by **arrowfanman** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:50 am

Great installment!

I laughed at that "Playboy Club" tower! ::lol::

-Jahan

by **montezooma** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:00 am

Eric-

Thanks for that information about Magic Mountain's Sky Tower. I had no idea that it wasn't originally designed for the park. I always thought it was strange that they showed a rendering for the tower with Playboy Club on the side, now it makes sense.

The 1986 World's Fair in Vancouver, British Columbia also had a parachute-gyro combination tower. It had a crazy UFO theme and was called the USSR Space Tower. After the fair it was disassembled and for years it was advertised for sale on Ital International's web site. It ended up rusting away in some field and finally scrapped.

Shane

by **montezooma** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:48 am

^Here are the pictures

by **verticalzero** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 2:07 pm

Some lovely picturesd of "C" at MM, why was the coaster re-profiled and does not race anymore. Can it still race in 2008 if needed..?

by **montezooma** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:13 pm

TOWERS - WAAGNER-BIRO Part 2

I am not sure what the connection between Intamin and Waagner-Biro is, they obviously work together since they market the same rides. I think Intamin is the broker, they do all the sales and project management. Waagner-Biro does the engineering and manufacturing. Here is part 2 of Towers and a few other miscellaneous cool rides (Triple Wheel).

Notice the cool concept for the telescoping observation tower, Climbing Globe and Cosmos Tower 2000. They sure would have been cool if they were ever built.

Also in this catalog there is the Ferris Wheel that was built for DCA, so I imagine that Waagner-Biro designed and built it for Premier Rides.

Shane