Today, Wednesday 19th June, during Hyperia’s daily testing prior to its scheduled opening at 10am, Hyperia stalled while going over the huge outer banked turn causing the train to rollback and valley mid course resulting in Hyperia’s closure for the day and potentially longer.

So, what went wrong? And what happens next?

Valleying can be common in rollercoasters across the world and generally happens when a train does not carry enough speed to make it through an element, causing the train to rollback and sit in a section of the track. This is known as valleying. Fortunately, at the time when Hyperia valleyed, there were no riders on board meaning there we no guests to evactuate from the stranded train.

It’s important to remeber that valleying is safe, although not ideal, and also that Hyperia is NOT broken. The train will safely sit in the section of track until it can safely be removed. Rollercoasters can valley from a number of reasons, this can be due to poor weather conditions, lack of weight on the train, or many other factors.

What happens now? Thorpe Park engineers will now need to remove the wheels from Hyperia’s trains and each section of train craned off of the track and returned to the maintence shed to be refitted. We are unsure how long this will take, especially as this is the first time that Hyperia has valleyed, but we hope to see Hyperia return and find her fearless once again very soon.

What about the future? Will we see Mack Rides and Thorpe Park look to install a method to prevent Hyperia valleying again in this section of the layout? Perhaps install tyre drives to the start of the outer bank? What are your predictions?

While you’re waiting for Hyperia to reopen, why not check-out our Feature all about how rollercoasters operate and the safety behind them all, here!