The Loch Ness Monster

Register or Login to Hide This Ad for Free!
At one point the rumor was that they were considering ripping her down. Those bad people are gone now.

The one thing I learned from my 3 backstage tours of Nessie, the maintenance guys love her and talk about her in reverent tones. They have a way to get replacement parts made. (a place in Richmond) and continue to buy parts from scrapped Arrow rides. Finally she is WAY overbuilt. From what I understand the method Arrow used to build her and the amount of steel was way more then other other Arrow coasters.

I hope that she remains a signature element of the park for decades to some. I hope that one day she is the last Arrow standing, the greatest of her kind!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Diamond Dave, Alf33, SukaUniFl and 9 others
Not to be irreverent of the ride, but it's definitely closer to being Ol Rickety than the smoothness she once had.

I know paint plays a small part in that, guessing track alignment and tolerances on the wheel bogeys are the main culprits. Any idea what could feasibly be done to smooth it out a little?
 
  • Like
Reactions: LudwigII
I have been riding her since the 1980s and don’t remember a time when she was ever particularly smooth.

Smooth for those times, yes. Smooth in comparison with other Arrow loopers, yes. But smooth in any absolute sense, no.

The spinal jackhammer effect in the loops has been there for at least 30 years, and that lateral shot from the restraint during the climb out from the first drop has been there for at least 20 years. IMO those are the two worst bits from a roughness POV.

Arrow loopers all had various flavors and degrees of the lateral violence, and Nessie is better than most. But the jackhammer loops are somewhat more unique to Nessie; I don’t remember the same intensity of, uhh, vertical oscillatory dynamics from Anaconda, Double Loop, Steel Phantom, GASM, Viper, Corkscrew, Canyon Blaster, etc., etc...
 
  • Like
Reactions: b.mac, Zimmy and Nicole
warfelg said:
People who think Nessie is rough never rode Steel Phantom pre-redo.
Click to expand...
I rode it, too many times to count. That lateral punch to the head at the bottom of the second drop was the single most violent moment I’ve ever experienced on an Arrow looper. Loved that ride at the time. Probably would love it somewhat less now, had it not been given a new and different life as a better attraction.

Nessie’s two vertical loops are each rougher than SP’s vertical loop was. The jackhammering on LNM sucks, to be honest, though LNM remains one of my all-time faves and I still ride it.

The existence of something more extreme does not mean the less extreme thing somehow lacks the characteristics that are accurately ascribed to it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Eric, BGWnut, Nicole and 1 other person
Although being a private business they could do what they want in terms of ride removal, I doubt they'd be interested in removing their most iconic ride without paying some some sort of homage to it.
 
Nessie was built prior to Arrow updating their manufacturing procedures, so at least from what I've been told it does not have an official "life expectancy" like most of the modern coasters have.

If worst comes to worst and the track condition deteriorates heavily in some spots I imagine BGW will do what Great Adventure is doing to Mine Train and just piecemeal replace the bad pieces of track as they find them through trackwalk inspections.

Nessie is still fairly popular and even with Arrow being dead and having to find 3rd parties to make parts for the ride I imagine the costs are still not high enough for BGW to consider removal any time soon like what happened with Big Bad Wolf.
 
b.mac said:
Nessie is still fairly popular and even with Arrow being dead and having to find 3rd parties to make parts for the ride I imagine the costs are still not high enough for BGW to consider removal any time soon like what happened with Big Bad Wolf.
Click to expand...
And with the advent of 3D scanning, CNC machining, and 3D printing, the costs of making brand new parts from scratch will probably only get lower. Not saying that they have done any of that on the ride, but if a part breaks, you do what you gotta do.
 
  • Like
Reactions: b.mac
"Planning" is the wrong word.

Plenty of concepts have been drawn up for all manner of bad ideas—especially a handful of years ago. Whether those actually ever had any chance of being implemented is much harder to know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ziva, Lord Robert and Zimmy
Zimmy said:
At one time it was part of a plan to "improve" that part of the park. I believe there were even plans to build some kind of dinner theater.
Click to expand...
Oh, well then that sounds ok. Let's just remove arguably the most iconic coaster in the state (or even the region) an move Dine with Elmo/Santa/FITB there. Sounds great.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Nicole
Zachary said:
"Planning" is the wrong word.

Plenty of concepts have been drawn up for all manner of bad ideas—especially a handful of years ago. Whether those actually ever had any chance of being implemented is much harder to know.
Click to expand...

Considering these ideas got past the spitballing phase and actually had considerable planning effort put into them it's imaginable that they weren't more than a few more approvals from actually happening.

Cooler heads prevailed, thankfully.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nicole and Zimmy
If it weren't for this ride, it's hard to say if the park would have been able to continue on as they had. It's the site for the founding of ACE for what it's worth.
 
Zimmy said:
Allegedly, there was a time (not so long ago) where they were planning of ripping her and really all of Scottland out. As I mentioned those bad men are gone now.
Click to expand...
Honestly if they do ever get rid of Nessie I could see them taking Scotland and redoing it and creating a new country. This would be similar to what they did to create the new country of Ireland.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Consider Donating to Hide This Ad