Attraction Iron Menace

On August 10th, 2023, Dorney Park officially announced Iron Menace, a new, Bolliger & Mabillard-made, 160ft tall dive coaster coming to the former site of Stinger in 2024. This steel mill-themed coaster will feature a 152ft tall, 95 degree first drop, four inversions, and be the North East's first dive machine.

Promotional Video:​

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Fact Sheet:​

• Designer: Bolliger & Mabillard
• Coaster Type: Dive Machine
• Lift Height: 160 Feet
• Drop Height: 152 Feet
• Max Drop Angle: 95 Degrees
• Top Speed: 64 Miles Per Hour
• Inversions: 4
  • Immelman
  • Zero G-Roll
  • Inclined Loop (World’s First on a Dive Coaster)
  • Corkscrew
• Length: 2,169 Feet
• Duration: 90 Seconds
• Trains: 2
• Riders Per Train: 21
• Hourly Capacity: 1,140

Animated POV​

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Lore​

In the early 1900s, Scottish businessman Hiram S. McTavish opened McTavish Steel Mill, a direct competitor to Bethlehem Steel Company. Greed dictated McTavish’s every move, and he was well known to prioritize profits above people.

With an eye on maximizing output, McTavish created a massive hauler he dubbed “Iron Menace,” a device the steel industry had never seen. The rail transporter moved workers and ore at record volumes and dizzying speeds.

Suddenly the greedy steel baron mysteriously disappeared—no one knows how or where. Shortly after, McTavish Steel Mill closed. All that remains today are the mill’s decrepit shell, rusty relics and wild tales of the owner’s whereabouts.

Off-Ride Animated Fly-Around​

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Concept Art​

Official Website​

https://www.dorneypark.com/new-in-2024

 

[Thrills & Chills WQAQ]

Will be at opening day. Looking like light but persistent rain most the day, hopefully scares crowds away.

 

[Thrills & Chills WQAQ]

My new favorite dive. Has much better pacing than Griffon and sheikra and a much more complete layout. Shimmy is noticeable but did not cause any pain nor did it bother me at all. The jolt also is very noticeable but does not hurt. Train 1 rattles more than train 2. But the real standout is the newly reprogrammed steel force. Rips over the lift hill and has awesome strong sustained floater. Then you hit the mcbr and where you’d expect to be slowed to a crawl, you fly through and while a few tap the train, it flies back to the station. The return run has great sustained flojector airtime. Overall iron menace is the 3rd best coaster in the park.

 

[Thrills & Chills WQAQ]

I will be making a full video review on iron menace soon! I’ll have more in depth thoughts there about the ride

 

[the_pantsmith]

Cool opinion about it being better than Griffon but it's unfortunately incorrect

 

[CoasterAuditor]

Cool opinion about it being better than Griffon but it's unfortunately incorrect

Is @Coasterguy95 not entitled to his opinion of rides? I can easily see am argument for why this would be more fun than Griffon, especially based off what people say about Emperor.

 

[the_pantsmith]

I'm just goofing. I figured calling an opinion incorrect made that pretty clear, my bad. Griffon is my number 1 and always will be for no other reason than bias

 

[guy305]

Finally got to ride. The shaking is definitely noticeable but it didn’t bother me, however I know a couple of my friends who are sensitive to that stuff would find it too much. It’s just weird that it’s probably the roughest B&M in the park (Hydra would be a close second, but Talon is butter smooth). Layout is snappy and to the point. I think I like the larger-scale dives I’ve been on more (Griffon and Valravn) but it’s a solid addition and fits into the lineup well.

The highlight for me is the presentation. They did a fantastic job with the station and the subtle details like the rusty-looking handrails. The creaking noise they play when the gates open is great, and I honestly think they could have stopped there, because all the other noise they play when a train dispatches just feels like loud noise lol. Felt bad for the ride ops because hearing it over and over again would give me a headache. Maybe this is just one of the first signs that I’m an old fart now.

 

[paintervision]

Rode Iron Menace on Saturday, 7/1. Dorney is the only park I can think of, where you can walk in the park an hour after opening and ride the new ride as a walk-on, twice. Great ride, perfect themeing, and I didn't notice any roughness.

 

[RollyCoaster]

I’ll post a full thing about Dorney sometime tomorrow or Monday when I get time.

Iron Menace went down 3 times that I know of last night. Tried riding it all day and finally had a chance around 10:15pm. I did it twice (row 1 and 3) and really enjoyed it!

It shuffles a little, but the forces and theming more than make up for it. Currently my 2nd favorite dive coaster behind Yukon Striker. My favorite parts are the dispatch sequences and the incline loop. Tons of fun and it looks great at Dorney Park!

Random note: The “nudge” on the final turn isn’t thattttt bad. It doesn’t hurt at all and gave the ride a bit of a bite for me.

 

[Zachary]

Share many of the same thoughts @RollyCoaster. It's not smooth (like it very much should be), but because of the restraints, it's not remotely uncomfortable and I didn't think it substantively detracted from the ride experience at all. The kink at the end is super apparent on-ride, but again, with nothing for your head to hit, it's a non-issue from a rider comfort standpoint. Obviously B&M should be building smooth and comfortable coasters and Iron Menace isn't smooth. It is still comfortable though which, honestly, is what actually, primarily matters to guests in my estimation.

Putting smoothness aside, the drop is as great as it could be given the vests, the element lineup is strong, I love the inclined loop on a dive, and it all flows really nicely. Do I wish it was an element or two longer? Sure. Realistically though, given that anything longer was highly unlikely, I have no real layout complaints.

As for the general presentation of the coaster, it's excellent. Not an all-encompassing immersive experience or anything, but Dorney is an amusement park and, for an amusement park ride, Iron Menace is ideally presented in my opinion. Visually appealing station, queue, and ride area, quality, novel, and locally significant thematic direction, and a nice little dispatch sequence that adds a modern touch to the station experience.

Overall, Iron Menace isn't my favorite dive machine—I honestly don't believe any vest dive can compete with the non-vest dives I've done—BUT I believe Menace was a fantastic investment for Dorney and will likely be a guest favorite for decades.

 

[nophibbing]

We were at Dorney last weekend and Iron Menace went down so many times. I think we ended up getting 5 rides on it throughout the day and into Haunt and it went down twice after we had already boarded. It was raining that day so I don't know if that played into it. It was never down for long, they maybe ran one or two empty cycles and it was back up. It's also much much smoother in the front than it is in the back. Hoping B&M improves on the model with Wrath of Rakshasa.

 

[CoasterAuditor]

The “Dive Narrow” model is interesting to me. They come off to me like expensive Euro-Fighers. Wrath seems like the sequel to Iron Menace in a way. I do wonder if the 7th seat in each row tests the narrow track gauge a bit more since it sounds like Emperor is the smoothest of the currently 3 operating narrow dives.

I thought Dr. D was a bit smoother than Iron Menace, my first ride the valley in the first drop caught me off guard with how violent the shake was. Dr. D was certainly not as smooth as Griffon, SheiKra, or Valravn. It also seems like none of the European narrow dives have tested having a 7 car wide train. Makes me wonder if the 3 extra people per ride was worth the potential sacrifice, that side I’m an accountant not an engineer. I will say I do like Dr. D and Iron Menaces steeper drops more than the other larger 90 degree drops more.

 

[paintervision]

Went on Friday, 10/18. They finished the queue structures since my last visit:



Here's some more photos. This ride is beautiful.

 

[horsesboy]

I had my first visit since it opened yesterday and I am puzzled by the ruff hate the thing gets. There is a little vibration but no where near what I expected based on the comments I had heard over the last year.

 

[Great Adventurer]

Meant to post this earlier, but I had the pleasure of riding this for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I had a lot of unpleasant expectations based on what I'd seen about the ride online.

I got seated on the far left side of the front row and... I absolutely loved it. I don't know if it was because I hadn't been on a Dive in a while (7 years or so), some luck with my seating position, or a hint of internal bias because I want Dorney to succeed, but this was a home run for me. The drop was exhilarating and the layout was enjoyable despite being short. The vest, which I had some trepidations about going in, was quite a bit more comfortable than I imagined - and every single bit of force from the infamous ending jolt got perfectly absorbed into that vest, which made it completely tolerable (hopefully this is the case for most riders instead of being a result of the vest just fitting my proportions well). The immaculate steel mill theming is icing on a delicious cake.

I've been in love with Dive coasters ever since my first magical ride on Griffon, and I'm thrilled to have one that's more accessible from a travel perspective. You could tell that Dorney was immensely proud of getting this ride at their park and in my opinion they had every reason to be. My future should have many more laps on Iron Menace in it.