In an update released on the park’s website, Oakwood Theme Park have provided an update on its famous wooden coaster, Megafobia.
The rollercoaster ride has been thrilling visitors for more than 20 years, with theme park enthusiasts from around the world visiting, specifically to ride the wooden coaster. Over the years it has won many awards, including recently picking up the Bronze Award for Best Wooden Coaster, presented by the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain at the UK Theme Park Awards.
In 2022, the ride closed as part of a $2M (approx. £1.6m) programme to replace sections of track. Oakwood has appointed American rollercoaster design and construction company ‘The Gravity Group’ to undertake the work and the latest pictures show it’s well underway.
Work started offsite in September, at the Gravity Group factory in Cincinnati, Ohio and in recent weeks the team have arrived onsite in Pembrokeshire to commence the next phase of the project.
This exciting project will see work carried out on approximately 40% of the coaster, including the first and second drops, where a complete retrack of these areas will see Gravity Group’s award winning Vertical Engineered Track installed in both locations. Both drops will also be reprofiled, with the first drop being made steeper as part of this ambitious project.
Elsewhere on the ride, removal of track steels and laminates is taking place, with the tightest bend on the ride now stripped in preparation for the laying of replacement track in the coming weeks, along with the notorious penultimate bend which will also be reprofiled to add to the exciting and improved design of our much loved coaster.
Oakwood Theme Park hope to have the replacement works completed by the spring. However, they remain cautious due to the delivery of materials from both Europe and the USA, which is being both shipped and flown into the UK.
Since the pandemic, companies around the world have seen the costs of global shipping costs soar, including major delays to delivery. So, it’s not surprisingly that the park doesn’t want to promise a reopening date of the ride just yet.
Oakwood has said they will continue to share updates including photos and videos on their website and social media channels over the coming weeks and months.
