It’s the eleventh hour—the park is making their announcement on Saturday—and we know you all are chomping at the bit, anticipating the unveiling of Busch Gardens’s Project 2017. Though we don’t know everything the park is planning to reveal on the 19th, hopefully we can relieve a little bit of that intense suspense tonight. It’s time to leak BGW’s new Great Coasters International woodie. That’s right, after 41 years, Busch Gardens Williamsburg is finally adding their first wooden roller coaster.
In the past we have always tried our best to meticulously analyze site plans, before we release them. Unfortunately, due to extreme time constraints, we won’t be able to provide the detailed assessments we historically have. That said, hopefully the augmented documents below (when combined with the original round of blueprints, which we did evaluate in depth) give you all a fairly good idea of what we can look forward to in 2017.
Site Plans Part Deux
Below you will find two never before seen Project 2017 site plans. The first is of the station area and the second is of the coaster’s layout.
We know these aren’t the highest quality blueprints you’ve seen from BGWFans, but for now, they are what we have to work with.
The most notable thing about the plans above is the fact that you can clearly see small circular footers bordering each side of the track’s path. This seems to back up our earlier claim that this is a wooden coaster project from GCI.
First, here is a color coded overview of the station area. (Key below)
Dark Blue: Station building
Light Blue: Maintenance building
Light Green: Queue
Yellow: Exit ramp
Pink: New Project 2017 entry plaza
Red: Covered locker area
Brown: Photo booth
Second, in the following image, we have traced out the roller coaster track and colored in the areas that won’t be cleared.
Finally, lets do some comparisons with the documents Busch Gardens Williamsburg filed with the James City County Planning Department back in February.
The station area site plans are significantly different than the ones we saw from the initial round of documents. Nearly everything has been altered in one way or another. Notable changes include the relocation of the lockers and ride photo building, a complete redesign of the queue, large changes to the station and maintenance bay, and more.
We have also juxtaposed the old clearing plans (which should have given a good idea of the theoretical layout) with the new coaster layout. The only really major change, as you can see below, is right near the end of the coaster: they have replaced a series of curves with a singe helix.
Possible Names
If you were around for our previous project leaks (Verbolten, Tempesto, etc.), you’ll know that Busch Gardens Williamsburg has a long history of giving all of their new attractions code names or working names. In the past we have always leaked those placeholders alongside the plans for the attraction (Elementum for Verbolten, Diavolo for Tempesto, etc). We are not yet able, however, to share a working title for Project 2017. That said, we think we may have something better.
I want to caveat this information very explicitly: We believe the source is shaky—I certainly would not bet money on this information—but if one of these options turns out to be the name announced on Saturday, we’d be left hitting ourselves for not revealing what we have heard. So, what are these possible names? SilverStrike and StrikeWinder.
Another reason we feel these two possibilities could be legitimate is that both fit the New France theme and, in the case of StrikeWinder, reflect the twisted nature of the coaster. Of these two possibilities, we find ourselves leaning towards SilverStrike. Why? The implied mining theme would work beautifully in the hamlet—especially with the recent refurbishment of the gem panning “flume.”
We will be covering Pass Member Preview Day via live blog on BGWFans.com, and sharing all of the park’s announcements there and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Be sure to check back here for more updates on Project 2017 and everything else happening at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.