Corkscrew was a steel roller coaster located at Alton Towers theme park, in the United Kingdom. It was manufactured by Dutch company Vekoma, engineered by Werner Stengel of German Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH (Ingenieur Büro Stengel). The coaster was located in the Ug Land area, formerly called Talbot Centre. It was the theme park's earliest ride and considered one of the greatest factors in promoting the new theme park to the British public. It was the first double-inverting coaster in the UK, and was well received publicly in the 1980s.

History

By 1979, Alton Towers had made plans to develop its grounds into a new style of leisure park, under the leadership of its Chairman John Broome. As part of this scheme, Corkscrew opened on , to a crowd of 30,000. It became the main attraction of the park, and led to attendance numbers doubling from 500,000 in 1979, to over 1,000,000 in 1980.

It was a Vekoma MK1200 Corkscrew with Bayerncurve. Weighing a total of , and built within a base area of , the modular steel track was painted yellow, whilst the steel supports were painted black. It originally used two trains of six cars (24 riders per train, four in each car) in red, white and blue colours.

In 1984, more attractions were added surrounding it in the new 'Festival Park' along with Enterprise and the Twirling Toadstool (then Wave Swinger).

In 1996, the ride received new trains from Vekoma to a new design. When Festival Park was revamped as Ug Land in 1999, Corkscrew was integrated as part of the wider area theme with a prehistoric overlay, including a dinosaur skeleton that the queue line passed through. The trains also received a new look and the track became a bone-coloured yellow.

In October 2008, after 28 years of service, Alton Towers confirmed that the ride was to be removed at the end of the 2008 season, to make room for TH13TEEN in 2010. On 9 November 2008, after carrying an estimated 43.5  passengers, Alton Towers held a special event in honour of the attraction in which the Corkscrew completed the final circuit of its track. The official date for the last day in regular service was 2 November 2008 - the last day of the season.

After being dismantled, the section of track that formed the two corkscrew inversions was preserved; it is now displayed as a feature at the park's main entrance.

Ride experience The ride started by a slow ascent of , powered by a lift motor. Once it had reached the top, the car went round a turn and down the drop reaching a maximum . The train then pulled through a camel hump and a 180-degree turn, before entering the two Corkscrew inversions. Once the train exited the two inversions, it then went around a 180-degree turn and into some trim brakes. After that, the train went across another camel hump, and into the Bayernkurve (a helix-type manouvre), and around the perimeter of the coaster again, before going into the brakes and station.

The Corkscrew became a very rough ride toward the end of its life, which contributed to the decision to dismantle it in 2008. The over-the-shoulder restraints were bulky and the motion of the coaster caused riders' heads to bang against them. Local newspaper The Sentinel added that "you usually left feeling as though your neck would never be the same again."

Popular culture

Footage of the Corkscrew and the Pirate Ship feature in the music video for British doo-wop band Darts cover of "Let's Hang On!".

The opening title sequence used by The ITV Chart Show between 7 January 1989 and 30 November 1991 was created by digitally rotoscoping footage of the Corkscrew. A photograph of the Corkscrew was used on the cover of the 1991 single "Everybody in the Place" by The Prodigy.

One of the Corkscrew's train cars was put up for sale on eBay. The car was sold on 15 December 2008 for £7,200; the proceeds went to Merlin's Magic Wand children's charity. Alton Towers retained the famous corkscrew inversions, which were refurbished, and placed as an artwork feature in the entrance plaza. Much of the remaining track has been scrapped.

References

External links

Corkscrew on Alton Towers Net Corkscrew data on Theme Park Junkies