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Big One (10 Years): Making a Molehill out of a Mountain
So,
how do you go about building the tallest and fastest coaster in
the world? Well, first of all, you find yourself a nice big
patch of empty space, and… oh, hang on a second; maybe I
should rephrase the question. How do you go about building the
tallest and fastest coaster in the world at a park that is
already crammed to the limit with other coasters?
Answer:
With great difficulty.
Visitors
to Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 1993 must have thought the park
were playing some sort of elaborate practical joke. As they
walked around this most crowded of amusement parks, footers had
appeared over the winter, most with a notice saying “At this
point, the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster will be”
followed by a list of statistics for height and speed. More
observant visitors would have noticed that similar footers were
sprouting up all over the park, as far north as the Grand
National station, and as for south as, well, the entire southern
boundary of the park. As the season progressed, parts of the
structure began to appear, mainly in areas of the park
inaccessible by foot, such as the supports for the helix near
the end of the ride. Between the Avalanche and Steeplechase, the
foundations were visible for the station, although their long
thin shape suggested that the building would be something rather
unusual.
Let’s
start with the station. Designed by Fiona Gilje, daughter of
Pleasure Beach MD Geoffrey Thompson, it was designed to occupy
as little ground space as possible. Whereas to build a
conventional station on the site would have forced the Monorail
and Pleasure Beach express to be either closed or re-routed, the
building instead opens out from its narrow base so that the
queue passes over the two scenic rides. Another ingenious
space-saving device was the world’s first vertically-moving
transfer track, which allows unused trains to be stored directly
beneath the station track, rather than alongside the brake run.
Overall, the building fits the park’s long tradition of
stylish coaster stations, which dates back to era of Joseph
Emberton’s distinctive designs of the 1930s.
Indeed,
the need to use as little ground space as possible is a theme
that runs through The Big One’s construction. Fortunately, the
designers at Arrow Dynamics had already come up with a way to
build their hyper-coasters without the need for side supports.
On previous rides, this had been done simply to make the ride
look more intimidating, whereas in Blackpool, the idea would be
put to practical use, squeezing the lift hill into a narrow
corridor between other rides, and then running the main part of
the ride in slender gaps between other rides and buildings.
Furthermore, the bottom of the support structure had to tailored
to the various oddities around the park, such as the need to let
the Monorail and Pleasure Beach Express run below the lift hill,
to cross the public road that runs through the park, and to
allow the continued use of the west car park, where visitors can
now park almost directly beneath the track.
As
soon as the park closed its gates for 1993, the race against
time began. The park had rented some ground at nearby Blackpool
Airport, where large sections of the structure were being
pre-assembled, ready to be transported to the Pleasure Beach and
craned into place. While most major coasters are constructed
behind within a strict veil of secrecy, The Big One almost
became a tourist attraction in its own right, as locals and
winter holidaymakers crowded around the southern end of the park
and watched as the ride stretched ever further into the air.
Construction workers became celebrities in their own right, and
the press revelled in stories about the workers who were happy
to walk around on the structure, but who claimed to be terrified
at the prospect of having to ride the finished product
(Guardian, March 6, 1994), or Bernard and Phyllis Buxton, an
elderly couple who would spend hours parked on the seafront,
diligently watching the construction work, despite having no
intention of ever riding, and who were always ready to
contribute a sound bite to the many reporters who covered the
construction for the media.
The
first section to take its shape was the lift hill. Despite all
the artist’s impressions and publicity pictures, it still came
as a surprise to see exactly how tall the ride was. Previous
hyper-coasters had all been built in open spaces, and so the
fact that this giant structure was towering over such an urban
area just served to make the ride seem even taller. When the
bright red track was laid onto the blue support structure, it
suddenly became apparent how boldly the ride would assert itself
onto the Blackpool skyline.
Even
today, as the ride passes over and threads through several of
Blackpool’s classic roller coasters, the Big One is littered
with clues how such an unwieldy structure had to carefully
tip-toe around one of the most historical parks in the world.
The construction photos are available only on the graphical page (34Kb).