Hello everyone
A couple of months ago I heard that Walibi Belgium (former Walibi Wavre and Six Flags Belgium) was planning on refurbishing Turbine, the famous half-enclosed Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop. It has been SNBO for nearly 3 years now and they want to repair and replace/update all the broken parts to give the old girl another 10 year life-span.
Best of all? They're serious! 2 weeks ago these pictures came up:
The plan is to make the coaster fully enclosed, to ensure noise reduction for neighbouring residents on that side of the park (main reason it became half-enclosed in the first place).
They're considering 2 plans for this:
1) Encasing both ends in flashy-coloured tubes, to match up with the neighbouring logflume FlashBack
2) Extending the building on both ends, changing the theme to and old coal-factory, and have 2 diagonal chimneys (like the tower of Pisa) to serve as casings for the 2 slopes
Both will contain light and sound effects. Also the queue will now be in the front of the building, and indoors, to protect guests during rain or intense sun. The old queue was behind the building, in a very boring and very hot spot.
Now maybe you're wondering: what if they can't fix it? After all, Schwarzkopf is gone, and these shuttle loops are slowly disappearing.
Well, should it fail to save this monument, Walibi has a Plan B: a spinning rollercoaster, going by the project-name "Fabulous". In this case Turbine will be taken down, and a brand new spinning coaster will take it's place, using the building as a station, with the lifthill and first drop being in the area where Turbine's loop is.
These pictures were also send out, showing a couple possible lay-outs and a comparison to where Turbine now is.
This shows 3 possible lay-outs, although I think number 3 is the only "correct" one.
Also a quick and rough translation of the French on that last one, covering the advantages of replacing Turbine with Fabulous:
- Height only 21 meters instead of 42
- The attraction is more family based: no violent launch (buuuuh!), 2x4 cars instead of a 28 people train (how is this an "advantage"?), 55 km/h instead of 85 (again, what?)
- It replaces a dated attracion, it opened as Sirocco (non enclosed) in 1982, had the accident were a full train was stuck upside down in 1998 (97? not sure), and opened again, half enclosed as Turbine in 1999.
- Uses magnetic brakes
- Takes less time to develop
- Makes for a nice sight
So yeah, I think my opinion on this one is obvious: go Turbine! It's allways been a fan favorite in this part of Europe and I would love for it to be completely indoors with special effects.
On the other hand plan B isn't all that bad, but only, OOOONLY if all else fails please .
Will keep you updated if this develops!