Hamburg Winterdom 2013

As every year the Hamburg Winterdom rounds up the carnival season of 2013.

This year featuring 3 coasters. Next to a Mack standard Wild Mouse there are 2 Schwarzkopf coasters: The 1964 Wildcat No.1 "Rock'N'Roller Coaster" all the years owned by the Vorlop family and the Double-Loop "Teststrecke". Other highlights include the Mondial Mistral "Artistico" - an XXL-Afterburner with outward-facing seating - the KMG Inversion "Avenger" plus 2 Huss Dancers, a SDC "Double-Tagada" and the home-in-Hamburg 1950s Siemens "Rotor" owned by showmen Pluschies.

Last Wednesday featured the first chill but dry day of the year

View over the fairground from the ferris wheel. The new - 2013 freefall Skyfall - and the old - 1964 Wildcat - standing nearly side-by-side.

Welcome to Hamburg - this homne-proud showmen has nicely themed his/hers gaming arcade

Teststrecke running great today

Loopin' into the sunset...

Break Dancers always big fun - in lights and sounds and fog-machines

Skyfall standing 80 meters tall with a falling height of 70 meters

First spin on the 50s themed 60s coaster

This Wave Swinger got a splendid new paint

And another classic flat - a Mack Walzerfahrt/Tilt-A-Whirl

Random colorful kiddie-ride

Huge 4-level darkride by Mack

Lots of Mack rides around this winter

View from the Rotor's upper level down the midway

"Poeple sticking to the wall like flies!"

Teststrecke all lit up at night

And some more DOM goodness...

Love "3 rides for €5" offerings!

Girls wanna have fun...

Unique Double-Tagada "Double-Jump"

Nerd-shot of the heavy hydraulics

Artisitico soarin high above the midway

Beautifully lit Wild Mouse

Also love "20 beers for €10!" offerings

And another darkride by Mack

Classic kiddie Carousell

Love how Vorlop mantained this next year 50 year old coaster

In case one wonders who built this...

Mondial Shaker always packs good fun

Random walktrough funhouse

Finally a view of the 55 meter ferris wheel.

Thats all folks for this season - next PhotoTR SpringDOM late march.

Very cool to see pictures of Dorney's old "Laser" at this fair as "Teststrecke". Great TR, thanks for sharing!

I wondered what happened to Lazer, sad to see it leave Dorney but very happy to see it alive and kicking still.

Love that Laser is still going strong! Was one of my favorites when it was back at DP. Very intense

Looks like an awesome time there

Is interesting to compare two Schwarzkopf coasters with 15 years of development between them. The old Wildcat still packs a punch in the helices and the final helic is nearly identical to those on the later looping coasters. Also the Wildcat features the small pre-drop before the real first drop - a feature you also find on Alpina-Bahn and Thriller.

We caught the 10 beers for €20 bargain with 5 guys and took 2 each immediatly and 2 each on our second round around the fair...

Thanks for sharing with us your time but I don't see a pic of your 20 beers

Awesome color and clarity in your pics! Are you using a special setting?

Most night pics are hard to capture for a lot of us or it could be you have one of the expensive cameras... just wondering, haha.

^This time I only used my Note2 with HDR photo software - which makes even better night photos than my Panasonic FZ-8 which tend to have too much graining on the "Easy Night" setting - all pro night settings need a tripod which is hard to handle on a carnival as you mostly do not have a clear path of vision from the low tripod height to the ride.

For summer daylight picutres the FZ-8 "Sports" setting of course is far superior to catch fast moving objects without blur.

^ That's all I needed to know! Need to still adjust my HDR settings... then all should be well. Always a bummer snapping nighttime pics and they do end up grainy or out of focus adding extra effort and time in photoshop before liking them.

Great job capturing all the lights and rides at night. Thanks for the TR.

Great pictures! All of the lights on the attractions are awesome. The scale of the attractions just blows me away compared to the small state and county fairs I went to growing up. As a kid, I would've loved that huge, crazy car ride with the multiple levels.

Awesome pictures! Even though carnies can be crazy and a little sketchy at times, the really know how to light of the fair grounds at night! Seriously, almost any fair grounds looks great at night with all the lights.

Jimmy "Bright lights + Dorney's old Laser = AMAZING!" Bo

Someday I'm gonna take the train down during the fall and do a carnival trip!

Such a crazy-elaborate building for a ride as simple as a Rotor...

Seeing older Anton rides being taken such good care of makes my heart go bang

I've heard the new Testreke trains aren't very comfy, but at least it's better than scrapping the whole ride.

Lovely images!!

Really miss the German fairs, I try to hit as many as possible every time I go through Germany.

I've heard the new Testreke trains aren't very comfy, but at least it's better than scrapping the whole ride.

Well, I don't agree with that at all. Sure they are a bit more snug than the original trains, but they are really comfy in my mind, same with the restraints. But I guess it all comes down to the size of the rider.

^Strangely the new trains are not made for taller poeple - I am 1,95m and fit in barely - any taller and it will not fit. And while taller riders could - with nice attendants - still ride with one lapbar over each leg with Schwarzkopf looper trains this is not possible for the new trains as they have individual seats.

Awesome pictures! Even though carnies can be crazy and a little sketchy at times, the really know how to light of the fair grounds at night! Seriously, almost any fair grounds looks great at night with all the lights.

 

Jimmy "Bright lights + Dorney's old Laser = AMAZING!" Bo

The German Fairs are not some hillbilly cooperation. The German Tüf(spell?) will come first before anybody can ride the rides. In addition, the "carnies" in Germany are mostly long standing family companies that take care of there rides(as you can see from the above pictures) and there is nothing "sketchy" about them.

Nice pictures. Only if all fairs were like this...

So where did the Doppel Looping that Conklin Shows owned end up?

It apparently ended up in Pakistan.

IMO its kind of amazing how far some Schwarzkopf coasters have gone. Loved the pics from the Looping Star at some Botswana safari park...

Today major storm Xaver hits Hamburg with a 6+ meter flood over normal high tide and winds up to 180 kph. So far all levees and floodgates are holding without problems. So far the whole of nothern Germany but also surrounding countries in general and Hamburg in special have no floodings and no victims - fire departments even reported a "quite quiet" night with mostly toppled trees as the worst effects.

So far also no major damage reports from the DOM or northern theme parks. The DOM was closed last evening and will most likely be this Friday but hope to do some last rides during the weekend.

Some pictures from the city during the storm on the Radio Hamburg site.

I REALLY love German fairs.

What is not to love-beer, cool rides, food and women dressed in Oktoberfest outfits.