The Parkz Update: Roller coaster construction continues at Movie World

Work continues at Warner Bros. Movie World, with the placement of footings starting to give a rough indication of the anticipated roller coaster's layout.

Image: Parkz. The exciting world of roller coaster foundations.

Update By Richard Wilson
4 October 2016

In addition to the cylindrical footings of various sizes, the construction site also features several of these particularly large rectangular footings.

Some of these rectangular footings are about the size of a car.

The bulk of the footings are round, with varying numbers of bolts protruding. The black box suspended in the middle of the each exists to leave room in the concrete for a rectangular protrusion at the bottom of the support columns. It's a fairly unique feature of Mack coasters that you won't find on roller coasters built by other manufacturers like Intamin, B&M or S&S... or Vekoma.

As a general rule, the more bolts, the larger the support column.

Plastic pipes stacked up to be used as moulds for forming the neat cylindrical footings.

The yellow coloured rebar needs to be very accurately placed as this is what the precisely engineered supports for the ride will attach to. It's hard to jimmy hundreds of tonnes of steel into place if you're a bit off...

Dust flies as earthworks continue for the ride. These eight-bolt support columns will be fairly sizeable, either supporting heavy forces or spanning large heights

This photo shows the basic three basic components of roller coaster foundations. The slab at the base, known as a "pile cap", is heavily reinforced and connects with "piles" that extend many metres below the surface. The yellow rebar fixture on the right will be placed within the rebar that extends from the pile cap and the entire column filled with concrete. All but this column will then be covered over with dirt.

The four yellow bars protruding from the concrete are what the coaster's supports are bolted to. With the ride being prefabricated in Germany it's crucial that these bars are placed absolutely perfectly on the site.

The orange caps simply ensure that the relatively sharp rebar ends are clearly visibly and unable to cause injuries to construction workers.

The black square jig is precisely manufactured to ensure that the bars are bars are perfectly spaced from one another. They will be removed and discarded later in the process to allow supports to be lowered and bolted in place.

A large rectangular footing and a smaller cylindrical footing. Mack roller coasters, including Sea World's Storm Coaster, typically feature all square and rectangular footings; it's somewhat unusual to see these cylinders being used by this manufacturer.

Foundation work continues well off into the distance towards Wet'n'Wild and Australian Outback Spectacular.

Piles of dirt. If you thought that roller coaster foundations were simply the cylindrical or square footings you see on completed rides, this should tell you otherwise.

Circular rebar towards the front used for the cylindrical columns, and large rectangular rebar used for the larger rectangular footings. The longer L sections are likely for the piles while the shorter L sections for the cylindrical columns.

Have we lost you yet?

A large cluster of columns coming from the one large pile cap.

That same cluster.

Excavators keeping one step ahead of the crews placing the rebar, who are staying one step ahead of the teams laying concrete.

The ride's course looks to follow the drive into Movie World, then turn so that it's parallel with Entertainment Road and the Pacific Motorway.

There's two fairly separate rows of footings; roughly parallel with each other. One either side of the bobcat stirring up all the dust.

Recent aerial footage posted in our Forums shows these two rows of footings.

Forum photo by DaptoFunlandGuy

And if you thought we were getting close to seeing the sheer extent of this coaster, think again: there is an army of footings yet to be placed.

This fenced off area likely won't be part of the ride but rather exists for crew parking or equipment/part storage.

The logos are gone so it must not be a Mack coaster. As for what these ~~Mack Rides~~ crates likely contained, the answer is simply the thousands of sections of prefabricated rebar, bolts and framework that had to be assembled on-site before installation. It's really just one big IKEA project...