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Park News - (4/14/08) Canada’s Wonderland has posted the new 2008 park map to the website, confirming various ride name changes for the season. Top Gun is now Flight Deck, Tomb Raider is now Time Warp, Italian Job is now Backlot Stunt Coaster, Cliffhanger is now Riptide and Drop Zone is now Drop Tower.
(2/19/08) A reader pointed out an extra name change I missed the other day… the former Cliffhanger (a Mondial made Topspin variant I believe) is now being called Riptide, apparently borrowing the name from Valleyfair and Knott’s Berry Farm. It should be pointed out that this is not a “Paramount” issue since the ride was not themed to the film which is actually owned by TriStar/Columbia/Sony.
 2008 - Behemoth - (4/29/08) You can find more coverage from Behemoth’s media day event posted to RCPro.
(4/28/08) I’ve heard a couple of quick reviews about Behemoth since it opened and so far everyone is full of praise for the ride. According to one reader who has been on every B&M Hyper with the exception of Hollywood Dream in Japan and SFOG’s Goliath, Behemoth is their best one yet.
(4/25/08) Photos and a POV video of Behemoth from yesterday’s Media Day have been posted to Theme Park Review.
(4/24/08 - UPDATED) Apparently the ‘valley’ of Behemoth on Tuesday either wasn’t serious at all or was a planned test-run of the procedures in place
in case it ever did valley for real. In either case, I’ve heard that the ride’s media day did take place as scheduled today.
Previously park fans became worried that it may not open on time for the preview runs when onlookers spotted a train valleyed somewhere between the 3rd and 4th hills late on Tuesday… all before the midcourse brake. Local sources have reported that the park had been doing extensive test runs on the coaster for several days before-hand where they noticed they were actually bringing the train to a complete stop on the mid-course before letting it crawl back to the station. A reader even sent in a picture taken as they were removing the cars from the track in order to haul them back to the station on the back of a flatbed.
(4/9/08) Canada’s Wonderland is holding a charity auction for the first 64 seats on Behemoth on April 25th, 2008. All proceeds will go to The Children’s Aid Foundation of York Region. The bidding starts at $100 a seat however and so far there are only six bids, so your chances of winning are quite good. Winners will also get a special dinner, a gift from the park, admission for themselves as well as a guest to come and watch.
(3/18/08) Behemoth is now testing it seems as seen in these video clips below as well as some close up still photos posted to Theme Park Review showing off those weird looking trains. If you thought they looked weird in the animated artwork months ago, take a look at the finished product loaded with water dummies… they just look wrong somehow to me, and out of place on B&M track. It’s like some evil demonic offspring between a normally beautiful B&M train design and those odd Vekoma Déjà Vu trains. I’m sure they’ll ride just fine but every time I look at that second row I keep wondering why they didn’t try to put a middle seat in there. Maybe even a… dare I say it… a backwards facing seat.
(1/25/08) According to photos at NewsPlusNotes and the official website, Behemoth track’s layout looks to have been finished this week.
(1/15/08) A few new Behemoth construction pictures have been added to the CWMania forum.
(1/8/08) A newer picture of Behemoth showing off the complete out and back run portion can be found at RCDB.
(1/7/08) Looks like construction on Behemoth has slowed down for the cold winter, though the latest construction photos posted in early December show that they had made it out to the far turnaround.
(11/14/07) A reader has sent in three new construction photos of Behemoth as they put up the second big hill.
(11/8/07) We’ve got some great new construction photos of Behemoth. But as you can see now that the first drop is finished, the rumors claiming that the park lied about the coaster having an 85º drop were true. A little quick playing with Photoshop (try it yourself) using the third photo shows that the first drop is really about 75º.
(10/29/07) Bethmoth has been topped off and you can see photos of it posted to CWMania.
(10/2/07) A reader has sent in some great construction shots (below) of Behemoth at Canada’s Wonderland. The huge coaster is already going up very quickly with the station and brake run in place, and track on site to begin building the lift hill and first drop.
(8/27/07) Canada’s Wonderland has announced Behemoth, the biggest, fastest and tallest roller coaster in Canada. Planed to open in May 2008, Behemoth will climb to a height of 230 feet before plunging riders down an 85º first drop, gathering up speed for an incredible run through 5,318 feet of track featuring twists, dives, double banked helixes and a series of eight extreme drops. Bethmoth will cost an estimated $26 million and serve as the park’s 15th roller coaster.
While this is a B&M Hypercoaster, this will be a design like no other as you can see from the renderings of the new unique train design  which seems to be a rather odd departure from the old B&M design has that worked so well for so long. If anything, it kind of reminds me a lot of the rather odd seating arrangement used on Vekoma’s Déjà Vu coasters, which apparently cause quite a bit of confusion in the loading process and slow things down a bit while people figure out who is sitting by themselves in the outer two single seats. The seats look to be the standard B&M Hypercoaster seats, along with an “interlocking seat belt”. The prototype trains will also only be 8 cars long, so capacity will be cut back to 32 riders per train instead of the standard 36 riders (9 rows) trains seen on other B&M Hypercoasters. Behemoth does look to have a fantastic layout however, as if it were a twisted offspring of Apollo’s Chariot and Nitro. Be sure to check out the great video renderings here. |
