A little bad news from Hersheypark as it was confirmed that the park’s Storm Running coaster is officially ‘Closed For The Season”. Storm Running is an Intamin Hydraulic Launch coaster and while Hersheypark has had great fortune with much of their Intamin fleet of coasters, but when the hydraulic launch system on these style coasters does start to fail, they often do so in spectacular fashion. The end result is the park is forced to close the ride for several months even in the best of times, so given the world pandemic problems that would cause even further delays to the shipping of new equipment, this only makes sense. Add in that there could be serious travel complications if they need a tech from Intamin to come from Europe to oversee the installation, the hole only gets deeper for Hersheypark.
Other Intamin coasters with similar launch systems such as Xcelerator, Top Thrill Dragster, Kingda Ka have all suffered from bouts of extended downtime over the years. Intamin themselves are said to have retired this “Accelerator” style launch system, with the last one built being Formula Rossa at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi. Following this, all Intamin launched coasters have returned to using magnetic launch systems instead, even on coaster designs that would have previously used the hydraulic launch system, such as Red Force at Ferrari Land in Spain. It does make me wonder if it could be possible to upgrade older rides like Storm Force to use a magnetic launch system instead, or if the launch distance is just too short.
In other coaster news Hersheypark is also reporting that SooperdooperLooper will also be “temporarily closed” for the start of the season.