B&M vs Intamin

Am I reading too much into it having watched Sky Travel over the weekend it struck me that the fierce rivalry between the top coasters company is stronger than ever. Alton has 3 B&M coasters in the park 2 in the same area Air and Nemesis. Intamin have just one so far Rita in UG Land. Intamin seem to be very much driving what the Tussards Group are doing at the moment. Could it be that maybe UG Land could see another Intamin Coaster in the near future to go along side Rita. It would then be UG Land is Intamins territory and Forbiden Valleys B&M'S domain.

> Am I reading too much into it having watched Sky Travel
> over the weekend it struck me that the fierce rivalry
> between the top coasters company is stronger than ever.
> Alton has 3 B&M coasters in the park 2 in the same area Air
> and Nemesis. Intamin have just one so far Rita in UG Land.
> Intamin seem to be very much driving what the Tussards
> Group are doing at the moment. Could it be that maybe UG
> Land could see another Intamin Coaster in the near future
> to go along side Rita. It would then be UG Land is Intamins
> territory and Forbiden Valleys B&M'S domain.

I think you can't compare them and it shouldn't be the subject to count the coasters of a manufacturer in a park. B&M and Intamin have both their segments with strong performances: B&M is more in the classic multi-looper area (Sitdown, Floorless, Inverter) while Intamin is more an allrounder with just launched and Hyper coasters which are very popular these days and a lot of other attractions besides coasters like water rides, observation towers or simulators...

> Intamin seem to be very much driving what the Tussards
> Group are doing at the moment.

Personally, I just think Intamin have been able to deliver the concepts Tussauds wanted. John Wardley said a few years ago that the two main technological developments he was interested in were:

a) prefabricated wooden coaster track
b) hydraulic launches

And sure enough, we get two hydraulic launched coasters and an application for a woodie with what was sure to be prefabricated track. For that reason, I think it's very likely that the next coaster at Alton will be an Intamin woodie, as that's just the concept they're interested in doing next.

Unfortunately for me, they never seem to have been interested in making a Kumba, Medusa or Wildfire (I use these as examples as they all have different trains, and were each the first to use their trains).

The good news is Rita doesn't have inversions, so by the time they get round to replacing Corkscrew, we might get something really good (ie. a B&M), although I think the best chance of a new B&M we have at the moment is a 2008 flying coaster at Thorpe.

I think using Intamin for Rita and a woodie makes sense (although the restraints are an issue now). The grey area, for me, was Colossus at Thorpe Park. They knew they had to grab attention, so they went with who could deliver 10 inversions under 100ft. They could almost certainly have had a better coaster if they went for, say, a 7-looping B&M. Would it have attracted as many people? Unfortunately, we'll never know. Colossus was certainly a success for them.

But regarding the issue of Intamin vs B&M (away from Alton Towers), Intamin make decent rides but given the choice of coasters they can both do, I'd always rather have a B&M, even with hypercoasters as it's very important to me to have my legs free. I feel really cramped in an Intamin car. (And 4-across is better too.)