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Ride Profile parkworld-online.com ne Train


Vekoma Rides Manufacturing supplied the ride system. "We have a great family rollercoaster," reports Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) project manager Chad Stachnik, "one the whole family can enjoy. Vekoma was asked to recreate the mine train with swinging buckets, and they were a great partner in this project. We continue to do great coasters with them. We partner with many vendors, and this was something they could do well."


Stachnik was also rightly proud of the ride's audio- animatronics. "In the animatronics we take the animation from the movie and bring it to the attraction and do it cleanly. This is the best we've done to transfer the animation you see in the movies into the parks."


Lifelike dwarfs


The Seven Dwarfs story begins as guests cross a stone bridge and walk, towards the attraction entrance, through a forest with the dwarfs’ cottage in the distance. "We start the story in the queue line," Stachnik confirms, "early on in the forest before entering the


mine. We have three interactive digital [game] elements, a jewel washer, a jewel sorter, and barrels of jewels that project characters onto the ceiling as guests spin the barrels." Time spent in our queue line is used to immerse our guests in the story,” contends associate show producer Pam Rawlins. “You don't even have to know the story. There are unbelievably lifelike dwarfs that are working and showing guests what they do – dig dig digging all day long.”


After passing through this interactive pre-show, guests proceed towards the mine train itself. Riders board the mine cars and launch into their journey through the mine. The substantial-looking cars are designed to reflect similar vehicles that appear in the Seven Dwarfs film, as if handmade from wood and shaped by an axe by the dwarfs.


Departing the station, the train rolls through some curves begore climbing the first lift hill. Mining tools are scattered beside the tracks. Riders negotiate some mild twists and drops that cause the cars to swing before slowing to enter the mine.


Entering the mine is alone worth the price of park admission. It's a joyous visit, and the animatronic dwarfs working away in the mine must be seen to be believed. They are a combination of animatronics and projection with life-like precision for cartoon characters. The mine is well-lit and the songs from


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The


attraction is both a rollercoaster and a dark ride. It features an innovative ride system that allows each of the cars to pivot back and forth during the twists, turns, hills and drops


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JUNE 2014


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