Leaderboard

They are! Appearing daily during the Christmas School Holidays, Movie World will feature not one, but TWO trains on Superman, DC Rivals and Green Lantern!

I don’t think @red dragin said he supported not running the Perry, was just explaining the reality of the situation. As for other theme parks and how they handle steam engines, well I can’t answer that as I don’t have a like for like comparison park…. if you can find another theme park with an operational steam train - that’s located on an island nation, a minimum 6-8 hour flight away for international tourists, has been devoid of said international tourists (and domestic ones) for a large part of 2 years, coupled with having only just begun to recover from killing 4 people through malpractices leading to low consumer confidence and resulting attendance, and then throw in owners who are notoriously tight-assed - then we can probably do a case study on how they can make it work when DW can’t/won’t…

Our position on this remains. This forum is not for policing, witch-hunts or politics. Assume people are capable of doing the right thing. Assume local authorities are ensuring people are doing the right thing within their community. It's really not hard. Take your frustrations about government or society elsewhere because if you post it here it will be removed.

@Brad2912 was right, just explaining the costs and effort involved in operating a steam locomotive. Not defending why they don't run it, or support their decision. Just providing some facts. The Ginger Factory one is a former cane loco, much like what dreamworld has/had. But it has a diesel engine and gearbox in the tender that actually powers it.

6 hours is an insanely short operating day for a park like Movie World on the weekends.

I’m going to assume that Dreamworld’s “Best summer ever” is their 40 yrs celebration?

@taronga the same could be said for Australia Zoo. They have got plenty of animals that aren’t Australian

🤣 "An Authentic Aussie Farm Experience" 🤣 With Marmoset Monkeys (not Australian 🤦🏻‍♂️) and Lemurs (not Australian 🤦‍♂️). Sounds like it's turning into a zoo 🤷‍♂️.

I suspect they got burnt on Hurray due to the lockdowns and won’t look to do something similar until there’s more certainty around attendance.

I think you’re right about farm animals returning, but I’d say they’ll just use the facilities they already have. Why waste money building something when you already have it.

Don't worry about it. I'm sure if it gets busy, MW will be equitable and run 2 trains..😂

And VRTP have quietly extended their reduced trade until September Holidays. Don’t blame them in general but feel they should have done normal hours on the weekend as DW has.

Actually now you mention it i'm not sure they have a steam train. It sure looks the part though.

Do we think there's room for a 'Hurray For Hollywood' style event themed to Halloween that could run leading up to Halloween? It could operate similar to Disney's Magic Kingdom event where there's no mazes or anything, but a big Halloween party. Take the regular parade, have it at night and feature 'zombified' characters or something similar with additional fire dancers, scare performers and have trick-or-treat stations. It could be a more adult parallel to spooky nights with drinks and cocktails, and then run the rides at night. It would have significantly less overhead and I feel wouldn't be a huge financial strain.

So it seems you can polish a turd. Neat!

The thing is, Dreamworld have to pay a qualified people to operate the steam loco. Plus the specialised maintenance personnel and tools required to maintain it. You've got several hundred litres of water at 180psi of pressure, sitting at around 190 degrees. The fire (it burns oil) needs to be started several hours before trips start, as well as shut down procedures. The boiler requires independent inspections (yearly I think), these are in the thousands of dollars and there are very few people in the country who do them now. You can't train a couple of ride attendants to run that and get a truck mechanic in to change the oil. Progress on the Perry continues, but covid has slowed it further. Even without labour costs, these are expensive things to bring back to operational standards.

Not sure why anyone would be surprised RE a projected Boxing Day opening of Big Dipper. The coaster was always slated to open in December and all press material relating to the Dipper has pointed to this date. Its an easy extrapolation to surmise that 26th December Boxing Day would be the likely opening date. Even if they are well ahead of the construction curve, I cannot see them opening any earlier as we have a little thing called COVID to contend with. The park will want to make sure that it can open in confidence and they will want to maximise the publicity of opening such a ride in order to put more people through the turnstiles. Fingers crossed that by the time December rolls around, the park will be in a position to make a positive call on opening Big Dipper by the current time line. If not, and COVID is still a maor issue in the Greater Sydney area , then there is a real possibility that Luna Park will be faced with a Iron Gwazi/Icebreaker situation where we have the new ride complete but not the optimum conditions to open.

Remind me to never walk under Superman again if this is happening.

Based off what’s been built so far, it definitely seems like a memorial space. And I think it makes sense based off where it’s located too. It’s in a quieter area of the park, some what hidden so it isn’t super obvious and on display to everyone. It isn’t too close to the incident area (because otherwise it could be seen as, this happened here but now we’ve got a massive coaster), but also not too far away that it doesn’t make sense

Some of the latest progress from Big Dipper, Not really that much left but testing is starting really soon! Credit: (Madejector_air)

There are a lot of slide pieces at the back ready for install. Obviously there isn’t a way to tell, but I’d say most (if not all) the pieces have arrived. Concrete continues to be poured for the footings. Work is also being done on the toilet block at the back left

Well it’s official. There will be no events industry left soon.