Thunderhead
Specific Type: Wooden
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A park named Dollywood opened in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee in 1986 and the rustic theme park added a duo of family-style coasters over the years that followed with the Blazing Fury enclosed coaster, and Thunder Express mine train (now defunct). In 1999, the Great Smoky Mountains-based park got its first major steel coaster, the Tennessee Tornado, and in 2004, another storm will strike as the first wood track rumbles into Dollywood with the introduction of Thunderhead. Built by Great Coasters International and designed by Micheal Boodley, the Thunderhead will be composed of 3,230 feet of rails swooping over nearly five acres of wooded terrain set between two mountains. With the largest drop of any Great Coasters ride to date, at 100 feet, riders will roar and rumble down the natural topography, flying past trees and down hillsides to reach a top speed of 55 miles per hour. Along with steep banks, tight turns, twisting drops, and hills, the coaster will feature one of the few 'fly-through station' elements ever to be designed into a ride, in which trains are sent careening right through the saw-mill-themed loading station at some 40 MPH. Themed to a runaway logging train, riders will speed along a fast and ferocious out-of-control course twisting through a terrain course with smoothly-executed twists and turns courtesy of Thunderhead's Great Coasters-designed 'Millennium Flyer'-type trains.
Adventure-seekers at Dollywood make their way back to Thunderhead Gap, the newest section of the theme park, home of the Thunderhead. Guests draw close to the Thunderhead Gap Sawmill, the centerpiece of what was once a Smoky Mountains logging and railway town, and learn the story behind the Thunderhead. In the mill, thrill seekers hop aboard a rail line twisting into the mountainous topography used to fetch loads of timber. The train moves out of the mill and makes its way to the long climb up the mountainside. Ascending the incline, passengers on board the cars pass by the lush beauty of the new growth of trees on the slope. With the top of the hill in sight, the train begins its journey back down to the sawmill. But just then, the loaded train slips from all control and races down a steep, twisting plunge down the mountain as the ground 100 feet below rushes up at riders. The course swerves around in the opposite direction to narrowly miss the trees that have sprung up in the path. Suddenly, riders take a wrong turn and head straight towards the mill, blasting through the building and speeding out the other side at 40 miles per hour! Out the other side, the track takes a banked turn to head back up into the mountainous terrain, curving and diving again into a sharp twist in the other direction. After winding through a banked curve to the right, the train heads back around and sends passengers riding onto a final straightaway to brake and gliding safely back into the sawmill. |
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