The tour consisted of a number of attractions including Duel, Hex, Air, Oblivion and the old Black hole site. One part of the tour I was looking forward to seeing was Rita the hydraulic launched coaster from Intamin which was introduced to the park in April 2005.

The tour consisted of a look round the maintenance areas, a look into the hydraulic room and the ride control room.

Rita is located in the Ugland area of the park. Here’s some stats courtesy of http://www.rcdb.com

Length 2099ft

Height 68ft 11

Max speed 61.1mph

Duration 0:25 seconds

My collection of photographs taken during the tour.

I’ll start in the maintenance area.

From the entrance to where the trains come in.

Looking back to where the above picture was taken from.

Spare wheels.

More spares, this time for the brake fins.

Recently removed wheels.

Outside the maintenance area under the ride platform are the test dummies Intamin use in the trains, these are normally filled with water when testing.

From outside the maintenance area looking up to the ride platform.

A deserted station following one of the many test launches before the attraction is open to the public.

From behind the barriers near the control box.

Another unmanned test launch.

Tests finished the staff turn up and clean the trains ready to open.

We were lucky and managed to have two rides on Rita before the park opened to the public.

Control box.

As you would expect they use a number of computers to operate Rita, here’s a couple of pictures of the main one in the control box.

And finally from the control box looking at the launch area of the ride.

The Hydraulic room.

You can just make out in the above picture, at the end of the launch area the building directly in front is the hydraulic room for Rita. All the hydraulics and cable drum are behind reinforced glass and the area is secure enough to ensure nobody is allowed in the room when a launch is taking place.

Because of the reinforced glass trying a take a picture of the hydraulics is almost impossible, heres my attempt.

Also in this building is another computer than monitors the launches etc, the engineers told me Intamin can dial into this should any problems occur. Im a bit worried it runs XP

Related Posts.

Behind the scenes of Air.

Behind the scenes of Duel including some ride history.

This is an excellent tour if you get the chance its well worth doing, im our group nobody come away disappointed. I would like to thank Wayne, James and the engineering staff at Alton Towers for a great day.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.