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Leading Canadian theme park Playland is set to debut its latest addition - the country’s fastest launch coaster with the CA$17m ThunderVolt
Tom Anstey | Planet Attractions | 05 Jul 2024
Thundervolt is a new rollercoaster addition to Playland Credit: Playland
Canada’s Playland is about to debut a colourful and mind-bending new addition to the park, with the CA$17m (US$12.5m, €11.5m £9.8m) ThunderVolt rollercoaster set to open to the public at the Vancouver theme park this weekend.
Featuring a 380m (1,250ft) track, ThunderVolt is Canada’s fastest launch coaster with the ride reaching speeds of up to 72kmph (45mph).
Open to the public on July 6, the new attraction will take 12 riders at a time through a “supernatural environment with extraordinary animals, graphics and lighting that pulses as the ride system charges, leading up to its launch”.
Launching through an illuminated tunnel, riders will feel around 1.3g of force as they ascend up a steep incline and down an 18m (59.1ft) drop.
The ride model itself is a former Intamin-made product, which Zamperla purchased from Italy’s Miragica theme park and resold to Playland, overhauling the ride with a new launch system and a new train, recategorising it as a Zamperla lightning coaster.
“Our engineers have worked to make sure this is the best rollercoaster train in the world,” said Adam Sandy, Zamperla’s rollercoaster sales and marketing director.
“We thought about every square centimetre of the Lightning, from the bottom of the wheels to the top of the seat. The Zamperla engineering team kept our core design values at the forefront: safety, ergonomics, the total cost of ownership and of course pure fun for thrillseekers.”
ThunderVolt replaces the now-defunct Corkscrew coaster, which was made famous for its appearance in the 2006 horror film Final Destination 3.
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