Verbolten

Manufacturer

ZIERER

Model

Elevated Seating Coaster w/ Vertical Drop Element

Hamlet

Oktoberfest (Germany)

Official Opening

May 18, 2012

Soft Opening

May 11, 2012

Tallest Drop

88ft

Top Speed

53mph

Inversion Count

0

Launch Segments

2

Riders Per Train

16

Number of Trains

5

Height Requirement

48in

Verbolten is an indoor/outdoor ZIERER Elevated Seating Coaster that features a Vertical Drop Element. It officially opened in mid-May 2012 on the site formally occupied by the Arrow Suspended Coaster, Big Bad Wolf.

Videos​

Development Documentary​

• From Dreams to Screams: Verbolten by Devin Olson

Ride Recordings​

On-Ride Videos​

• Opening Year POV (Storm Sequence)
• Opening Year POV (Spirit Sequence)
• Opening Year POV (Wolves Sequence)
• Spring 2019 Lights-On POV
• 2012/2019 Side-by-Side POV

Backstage Footage​

• Verbolten Control Booth Screens

 

[Icer]

Zachary woke up and chose dream crusher

 

[GrantLee123]

Verbolten is a top tier family coaster. There is a reason the line is always so long, because it creates the perfect balance of adults feel it was fun enough to re ride, while kids are slightly scared but one ride makes them want to go again. You don’t get this from invadr or Nessie.

 

[GoHokies87]

Yes. The Mummy at Universal Orlando was intense back in 2005. When me and my family had both went; I wasn't too interested in riding it because I thought it was like a Disney kids ride. Well, it was a major shocked after the scarab beetle encounter. The launch hill was a lot more aggressive back in that year. There was a FAST LAUNCH up the hill; not a slow one. I'm not sure why Universal changed it or never revived it. Because 5 years later I went back and the launch was similar to old granny walking up the steps. This could be for a number of reasons. Most of us assumed, the park wanted grandma and grandpa to ride it. Other speculation was to make the ride a little easier on the breaks for the fire room. Back in 2005, the train rocketed through the course so much, that it came to a hard stop in the fire room. This may have been uncomfortable to riders.

Overall, the technology is there to make a psychological thrill ride. But as I mentioned; the profit return is not there. Theme parks and tourist destinations are geared towards families. In theory; Verbolten could have been something similar to a Missing 411 narrative; but that's a bit more along the lines of psychological thrills. It involves intense animatronic encounters and possibly realistic sound with loud thunder cracks. Things like this, are a bit scary for kids. You'd experience more kids clinching to mom and dad, and that's not what theme parks want.

Just imagine hearing something this loud in Verbolten's event building.

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Fun Fact! They didn't change it but you probably had a lighter train that time. The ride's control system doesn't launch to the same speed each ride. If you get in a nearly empty train it will yeet you over the top. Try riding near close sometime to test it out!

 

[warfelg]

Fun Fact! They didn't change it but you probably had a lighter train that time. The ride's control system doesn't launch to the same speed each ride. If you get in a nearly empty train it will yeet you over the top. Try riding near close sometime to test it out!

Have done both. Can confirm that light trains go faster.

 

[MikeLovesKD]

.... You realize Verbolten was specifically built to be "Baby's first real coaster," right?

Ignoring all of these (totally anecdotal and unsubstantiated) Mummy claims, a desire to make Verbolten—already considered by many to be on the intense side of the scale for its target audience—more intense, makes less than zero sense to me. Verbolten is so popular because it is so accessible. Even if you could magically speed up a coaster with a complete and utter disregard for the physics of doing so, messing with success is absurd.

I enjoy crazy, radical concepts as much as the next guy, but normally there should be at least some dash of reality in a discussion like this. Maybe the idea is super expensive and something the park would never do but there could a good business reason for doing so. Maybe the concept is something riders would really, really enjoy but the execution is particularly difficult. Ideas like those have a strong driving force behind their discussions even if they're highly unlikely to occur.

"Make Verbolten more intense" doesn't satisfy the attraction's riders, is physically unrealistic, would require enormous, incredibly expensive modifications, doesn't make sense in BGW's lineup, would likely increase downtime, would likely decrease ridership, would likely increase maintenance costs, etc. I just don't understand the reason behind this idea or this discussion as a whole at all.

Just so you know; I had withdrawn the idea a long time ago. Even I understood why theme parks don't do this.

 

[Coolguy15]

because it creates the perfect balance of adults feel it was fun enough to re ride, while kids are slightly scared but one ride makes them want to go again

Can confirm, my little cousin and I went to BGW a couple weeks ago, poor guy didn't wanna go, we eventually convinced him, we rode, and he loved it. Wanted to go again. Kids can have trouble differentiating between real and fiction. Me, a fifteen-year-old, it's obviously easier for me to differentiate. But for him, it was terrifying.

 

[GrantLee123]

What I don’t get is how Verbolten always has the longest lines, yet they never seem to be running both stations and 4/5 trains. Especially today when the park is packed

 

[Jonesta6]

What I don’t get is how Verbolten always has the longest lines, yet they never seem to be running both stations and 4/5 trains. Especially today when the park is packed

Probably staffing

 

[ControlsEE]

What I don’t get is how Verbolten always has the longest lines, yet they never seem to be running both stations and 4/5 trains. Especially today when the park is packed

Staffing is decided on projected/actual attendance. From my recollection, attendance over 18k is full 5 train staffing. That said, if they don't have enough people to fill those positions, they can't run the extra trains.

 

[mikes]

Is it not possible for the ride to unload at one station then load at the next? I was in line on Labor day, semi early in in the day and while they were running 3 trains, they could have only had 1 with the load rate. Typically all 3 were at the station at the same time. I just don't get it, this ride should chew through people

 

[Jonesta6]

Is it not possible for the ride to unload at one station then load at the next? I was in line on Labor day, semi early in in the day and while they were running 3 trains, they could have only had 1 with the load rate. Typically all 3 were at the station at the same time. I just don't get it, this ride should chew through people

I stand to be corrected, but pretty sure the block zones are configured as such that they won't move trains until all guests are off the platforms thus it wouldn't save any time for them to unload in a different location than dispatch - of course, that's mostly based on ElToroRyan's Maverick and MF videos so given that those are Intamin rides in a different chain's park, I could be wrong.

 

[ControlsEE]

Is it not possible for the ride to unload at one station then load at the next? I was in line on Labor day, semi early in in the day and while they were running 3 trains, they could have only had 1 with the load rate. Typically all 3 were at the station at the same time. I just don't get it, this ride should chew through people

It would make sense, but you would still have to have at least 1 if not 2 operators at unload and BGW is in a staffing crisis right now, so that's not going to happen, even if they hired Zierer to reprogram the station for that setup.

 

[mikes]

It would make sense, but you would still have to have at least 1 if not 2 operators at unload and BGW is in a staffing crisis right now, so that's not going to happen, even if they hired Zierer to reprogram the station for that setup.

If only people could "unload" themselves. This should be a 1 person job

 

[ControlsEE]

If only people could "unload" themselves. This should be a 1 person job

It's not really if people can, but rather a safety issue of having eyes on moving equipment to make sure it's clear. Controls has one perspective, there would need to be at least one other for redundancy.

 

[mikes]

It's not really if people can, but rather a safety issue of having eyes on moving equipment to make sure it's clear. Controls has one perspective, there would need to be at least one other for redundancy.

I agree, 1 person. I wasn't saying that controls would be responsible

 

[ControlsEE]

I agree, 1 person. I wasn't saying that controls would be responsible

Ok, I misunderstood. If they had thought ahead, they should have a mode to unload at station 2, load at station 1 with 3 trains, but I'm guessing they figured on running 5 trains whenever possible and did not think we'd have a worldwide pandemic back in 2012...

 

[MikeLovesKD]

Hey, someone take a look at this video. I've watched a number of Verbolten videos. But something about this one stands out more. Maybe it's just the video; but it appears as if the train is moving a bit faster. The video appears to have been uploaded in 2019. Did anyone visit the park during 2019 to ride Verbolten enough to notice whether or not the ride launched faster inside the building? In another video I saw a back row POV of the ride looking backwards. As we know; the LSM stators don't extend all the way up the first launch. However, there is a small gap at the end of LSM strip, before another small strip is seen. I remember discussing this after my first visit to Bush Gardens this season in over a decade. When Verbolten gets to the top of the first launch hill; it appears as if something slows it down, before going down the verse dip. If you look at the second video; you can clearly see the gap between the first LSM strip and the second small strip. Does this gap cause the ride to slow down? I always felt the first launch was lacking something and I think this is what it is. Maybe the park felt it would be too intense launching into the Black Forest at 60 mph, before taking a hard dip into the course, followed by sharp left.

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[SLC Headache]

The first launch not being all the way is for the better. I have the feeling Zierer wanted to deliver a ride that punched harder than Flight of Fear before they were reined in. SMH at anyone who wanted the ride to be more intense, it needed to be a family coaster (I still think it's on the upper end of intensity there), we'll have Pantheon as our ass-kicking blitz coaster.

 

[MikeLovesKD]

The first launch not being all the way is for the better. I have the feeling Zierer wanted to deliver a ride that punched harder than Flight of Fear before they were reined in. SMH at anyone who wanted the ride to be more intense, it needed to be a family coaster (I still think it's on the upper end of intensity there), we'll have Pantheon as our ass-kicking blitz coaster.

How is it for the better? But I'm still thinking that the gap between the LSM strips is to slow the ride down or give it an extra boost for whatever reason. If the ride truly had full momentum without the extra strips, then they wouldn't have installed them. My guess is that the first launch has the capability of being faster if they wanted it to. What would this feel like? It would probably feel like the The Mummy in Orlando back in 2005. No matter the front of the back, you got yanked up the hill. If Verbolten's extra LSM strips gave it a speed boost, it would feel similar.

 

[ControlsEE]

How is it for the better? But I'm still thinking that the gap between the LSM strips is to slow the ride down or give it an extra boost for whatever reason. If the ride truly had full momentum without the extra strips, then they wouldn't have installed them. My guess is that the first launch has the capability of being faster if they wanted it to. What would this feel like? It would probably feel like the The Mummy in Orlando back in 2005. No matter the front of the back, you got yanked up the hill. If Verbolten's extra LSM strips gave it a speed boost, it would feel similar.

Keep in mind that LSM's are not going to be all or nothing devices. They can be throttled just like any other AC motor, using a variable frequency drive. Gaps in the stators are most likely because they didn't need them. With everything, horsepower (or kW) is going to determine the max acceleration of the ride vehicle. I don't know what HP the stators are rated for, but I'm sure they designed it with some headroom in case the train wasn't accelerating fast enough. That said, as the ride has aged, they probably have made changes to how hard the ride launches for whatever reason. Also, LSM's act as magnetic brakes when off. They may be there to stop the train in an emergency and only are used to maintain speed during normal operation.