Alton Beast in Talbot Street
New Beast in Thunder Valley
In 1988 Alton Towers installed The Alton Beast in an area of the
park which was located behind Talbot Street. The Alton Beast stayed
there for 4 years, the track painted green.
The journey for 12 people began with a 14 metre spiral upwards, once
at the top riders only had a few seconds to look around before they
dropped down the steep hill, the first corner at the bottom of the
drop put a massive 4G on riders, the same as Nemesis does, this
means they felt 4 times heavier than they actually were. The car
then proceeded around the rest of the 560 metre track, through many
corners, turns an helixes. The actual ride was a Schwarzkopf Jetstar
III and at one time was said to have the steepest drop in
Britain.
In 1992 the ride was painted red an renamed The New Beast. It was
also moved to Thunder Valley, where it stood
there until the end of the 1997 season when it was removed to make
space for Alton's next big rollercoaster which eventually arrived in
2002: Air.
Frequently Asked Questions
Were the Beast and
the Black Hole the same ride?
The simply answer is
no.
This
misunderstanding comes from the fact the two rides are very
similar in design, and at a casual glance it would be fair to
assume they are identical, though they are not. The similarities
came about because the two rides come from the same series of
rides from Schwarzkopf, the Jetstar series.
The Black Hole, the
older of the two was also the smaller of the two models,
being a Jetstar II. The Beast on the other hand was a Jetstar III,
the main difference being a extra tier on the spiral lift hill,
which made the ride taller then the earlier model and also allowed
for an extra drop in the ride.
As the rides were
similar models they shared many similar parts, such as the coaster
trains, which were near identical. When the Beast arrived at Alton
Towers it was second hand and came with no trains. It's arrival
also coincided with the upgrade of the Black Hole for 1988, and
because of this the park decided to run the old Black Hole cars on
the Beast and purchase brand new trains for the more high profile
Black Hole.
If more proof were
needed that the two rides were not the same the footprint taken up
by the Beast was significantly larger then that of the Black Hole.
This, combined with the addition height means that it would be
impossible for the Beast to fit into the tent which contained the
Black Hole for the duration of its life in the park and still
exists today.
Was the Alton
Beast the same ride as the New Beast?
Yes.
There is a popular
story that when the Alton Beast went back to the manufacturer to
be refurbished into the New Beast it was in fact traded for
another Jetstar III, which the factory had recently finished
refurbishing.
Alton Towers staff
who worked on both the Alton Beast and the New Beast know this not
to be the case, as weld marks added to the Alton Beast during
maintenance of the ride at the Towers were still present on the
New Beast when it returned to the park in 1992.
The main changes to
the ride was that it had received new trains as well as receiving
a new much brighter paint job.
