Luna parks wooden wild mouse future

[REGIE]

I heard Luna park Sydney’s wild mouse has not operated since august but I didn’t really think twice that it wouldn’t open up again. That was until I saw this post on reddit. I had a search around and sure enough there’s a lot of rumours going around that the wood mouse might not ever reopen. The park has said nothing about it but I thought it deserves a topic for it. What do you guys think.

[TBoy]

It will be sad if it closes permanently. It is the 2nd oldest operating coaster in Australia (oldest is Scenic Railway at LPM) and will bring the coaster count to 3. 

[GoGoBoy]

I believe it is heritage listed so it's likely they'd have to keep it as a going concern 

[TomiJ]

I heard they are doing a full retrack but not sure where or sources. 

[REGIE]

I really hope they can keep it. LPS would get into AW class without it. I have not had the opportunity to go to LPS yet but it’s a lot more inviting with the WWM and BD3. I think they are both basically the only of their kind rn so it’s a very unique fleet of coasters. (I know there’s 2 other WWM’s but they are hard to get to) I hope LPS can get it sorted and back operating.  
 

out of curiosity what are Australia’s top 5 oldest still operating coasters? I should just check the rcdb but I can’t be bothered 

[Tricoart]

22 minutes ago, REGIE said:

out of curiosity what are Australia’s top 5 oldest still operating coasters? I should just check the rcdb but I can’t be bothered 

1. Scenic Railway @ Luna Park Melbourne (Scenic Railway, 1912)
2. Sapphire Speed Coaster @ Merimbula's Magic Mountain (Pinfari Zyklon, 1994)
3. Wild Mouse @ Luna Park Sydney (Hopkins & Pearce Wooden Wild Mouse, 1995)
4. Road Runner Roller Coaster @ Movie World (Vekoma Junior Coaster, 2000)
5. Big Dipper/Cyclone/Hot Wheels Sidewinder/Gold Coaster @ Luna Park Sydney/Dreamworld (Arrow Looper, 2001)

Edited February 4, 2023 by Tricoart

[19Michael96]

1 hour ago, Tricoart said:

1. Scenic Railway @ Luna Park Melbourne (Scenic Railway, 1912)
2. Sapphire Speed Coaster @ Merimbula's Magic Mountain (Pinfari Zyklon, 1994)
3. Wild Mouse @ Luna Park Sydney (Hopkins & Pearce Wooden Wild Mouse, 1995)
4. Road Runner Roller Coaster @ Movie World (Vekoma Junior Coaster, 2000)
5. Big Dipper/Cyclone/Hot Wheels Sidewinder/Gold Coaster @ Luna Park Sydney/Dreamworld (Arrow Looper, 2001)

Wild Mouse is 1962. It returned to the park in 1995 but that doesn't mean it had no life before that; it was a staple of the Easter Show through the 70's and 80's after it was replaced by the Wild Cat. And Gold Coaster is 1994/5.

11 hours ago, REGIE said:

I don't believe this for a second. I don't recall any floods at LPS in recent years. Not to mention the ride is high on a platform; it's hard for things to flood at that height. I'd really put it down to it likely being an old ride that will need more and more maintenance as time goes by and is probably due for a massive upgrade, coupled with a time stretched maintenance crew who are busy having to take care of other rides.

[Tricoart]

43 minutes ago, 19Michael96 said:

Wild Mouse is 1962. It returned to the park in 1995 but that doesn't mean it had no life before that; it was a staple of the Easter Show through the 70's and 80's after it was replaced by the Wild Cat. And Gold Coaster is 1994/5.

Weird, RCDB must be bugging out or something 'cause it usually displays all relocations of the same ride under that ride, but for some reason it distinguishes the wooden wild mouse as multiple separate coasters, one as defunct which operated from 1959 to 1970, one that operated at 'Fox Studios Park' 'til 1995, and one as operating from 1995 onwards. And then it also distinguishes Big Dipper & Cyclone as 2 separate coasters, too. Will have to keep that in mind in the future.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Tricoart

[jhunt2]

7 hours ago, Tricoart said:

Weird, RCDB must be bugging out or something 'cause it usually displays all relocations of the same ride under that ride, but for some reason it distinguishes the wooden wild mouse as multiple separate coasters, one as defunct which operated from 1959 to 1970, one that operated at 'Fox Studios Park' 'til 1995, and one as operating from 1995 onwards. And then it also distinguishes Big Dipper & Cyclone as 2 separate coasters, too. Will have to keep that in mind in the future.

RCDB has a tough time with the Wild Mouse because of the fact that it was a travelling coaster and also a permanent fixture of LPS and Fox Studios almost simultaneously. It's a pretty unique situation. From memory there even is a footnote at the bottom of the current listing saying that the situation is unique and that the simplest way to do it was to create multiple listings as it technically was relocated, sort of like BuzzSaw and Project Zero have two separate pages.

As for the Wild Mouse, as previously mentioned, I believe the situation is very complex because of the heritage listing of the ride. Obviously on the one hand, it's an amusement ride, and needs to meet modern safety standards to operate. But its heritage listing means the park probably has to jump through a lot of hoops to tear it down if it's beyond repair. So it might be caught in a limbo state of standing there until the park can afford/work out how to maintain it in its current condition, whatever the problem may be.

[Tricoart]

18 minutes ago, jhunt2 said:

So it might be caught in a limbo state of standing there until the park can afford/work out how to maintain it in its current condition, whatever the problem may be.

Sounds like a certain transport ride on the Gold Coast. Hope this doesn’t become a trend for other aging rides in Aus.

[Dean Barnett]

16 hours ago, GoGoBoy said:

I believe it is heritage listed so it's likely they'd have to keep it as a going concern 

I think that just means they can't rip it down - I don't think there's anything saying that it has to be operating.

[REGIE]

On that same reddit forum I saw more comments saying “no this is fake it’s reopening later this year” so I wouldn’t take it as fact but it is interesting 

1 scenic Railway

2 wild mouse 

3 sapphire speed coaster

4 gold coaster

5 road runner

[Gobbledok]

I dont really think Sydney Harbor is affected by floods. Reddit story sounds like BS - shockingly

[downunder]

Lol I'd be worried if the waters of Sydney harbour had risen to the point they flooded the wild mouse, or were they saying it flooded from the base of the structure.

They refurbished it earlier in 2022 (which was lengthy), it was open for a while than closed for maintenance in August as noted earlier in this thread. I asked the operations manager when I was doing the VIP thing at Halloscream and didn't get any detail other than it's under maintenance, which is fair enough, I wouldn't expect to hear about any issues.

It would a shame to see it go, but it's been closed for so long now. Can we start speculating about the replacement lol. A groovy little Eurofighter; or a Maurer Spinning coaster (like at Seabreeze and Santa Cruz) would be fun. 

 

[jjuttp]

22 hours ago, Gobbledok said:

I dont really think Sydney Harbor is affected by floods. Reddit story sounds like BS - shockingly

I decided to prod the guy on reddit, and he said:

Quote

"Floods" were the reason we were given. Apparently, torrential rains caused the Parramatta river's flow to increase sufficiently to undermine the pilings that support the mouse coaster.

 

[Natti_amusements]

40 minutes ago, downunder said:

It would a shame to see it go, but it's been closed for so long now. Can we start speculating about the replacement lol. A groovy little Eurofighter; or a Maurer Spinning coaster (like at Seabreeze and Santa Cruz) would be fun. 

 

If we did have to see it close, and I’m not the person to say how likely that would be, we would ABSOLUTELY have to see the replacement ride pay tribute to it. And tbh w the multiple coasters they’ve named Big Dipper I don’t think that should be a problem.

On another crazy note, do you think RMC could do a hybrid/timber track wild mouse style coaster. It wouldn’t have to be a traditional wild mouse, but a family style RMC that pays nod to the original w a wooden support structure would be a killer replacement imo.

[TBoy]

7 minutes ago, Natti_amusements said:

On another crazy note, do you think RMC could do a hybrid/timber track wild mouse style coaster

Yes please. It could also pave the way for other old wild mouses to be converted, as well as ground up hybrid mouses.

[downunder]

I think with a bit of imagination and possibly not a huge amount of capex, LPS could do something really cool in that space.

[Jobe]

3 hours ago, downunder said:

Lol I'd be worried if the waters of Sydney harbour had risen to the point they flooded the wild mouse, or were they saying it flooded from the base of the structure.

They refurbished it earlier in 2022 (which was lengthy), it was open for a while than closed for maintenance in August as noted earlier in this thread. I asked the operations manager when I was doing the VIP thing at Halloscream and didn't get any detail other than it's under maintenance, which is fair enough, I wouldn't expect to hear about any issues.

It would a shame to see it go, but it's been closed for so long now. Can we start speculating about the replacement lol. A groovy little Eurofighter; or a Maurer Spinning coaster (like at Seabreeze and Santa Cruz) would be fun. 

 

Ok lets put this misinformation and speculation to bed.

 

Wild Mouse at LPS has a heritage order placed on it. It can not be altered and must be maintained as part of the operations of the site. Even if they WANTED to do something on that site, they simply cannot. ( But why would they? The park knows the value of such an historical attraction and its uniqueness given its long and varied history)

There may be some issues that may require some new fabrication of parts ( of course given its age and its rarity, these parts are not simply ordered online and there the next day)

It is one of only three wooden wild mouse left in the world. The heritage order alone makes this a signifcant historical ride and LPS knows this.

If you believe REDDIT posts that state its being removed due to flooding ( if you even know anything about the ride how does that even happen??) then I am sorry, if you cannot dimiss that sort of blarney immediately, then more fool you.

It is definitely Australia's 2nd oldest Roller coaster and only one of 3 wooden coasters left in the country.

Simply put , Wild Mouse is not going anywhere and to even suggest that it is should be met with increduilty. 

All of the above information can be easily verified through simple Google searches.

On 04/02/2023 at 11:38 PM, 19Michael96 said:

Wild Mouse is 1962. It returned to the park in 1995 but that doesn't mean it had no life before that; it was a staple of the Easter Show through the 70's and 80's after it was replaced by the Wild Cat. And Gold Coaster is 1994/5.

I don't believe this for a second. I don't recall any floods at LPS in recent years. Not to mention the ride is high on a platform; it's hard for things to flood at that height. I'd really put it down to it likely being an old ride that will need more and more maintenance as time goes by and is probably due for a massive upgrade, coupled with a time stretched maintenance crew who are busy having to take care of other rides.

100% this. 

[Baconjack]

Wild Mouse is heritage listed. Its for sure not going anywhere.

I know the park has invested quite a bit of money into retracking over the past year. Given the uniqueness of the ride all of this new track has to be custom made. I believe a few of the timber supports are getting reinforced too, and I think the trains have gotten updated restraints in recent years.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Baconjack

[downunder]

I'd hope so, it's unique and a cool ride.

Understand about the heritage listing, it's good to debunk here that the structure is beyond the point of no return. I had concerns because of the length of the downtime. Hopefully it'll be running again soon.

[New display name]

2 hours ago, Jobe said:

Ok lets put this misinformation and speculation to bed.

 

Wild Mouse at LPS has a heritage order placed on it. It can not be altered and must be maintained as part of the operations of the site. Even if they WANTED to do something on that site, they simply cannot. 

You may be getting a bit over excited with this.   The whole park is heritage listed and LP just had its biggest expansion.

[Dean Barnett]

6 minutes ago, New display name said:

You may be getting a bit over excited with this.   The whole park is heritage listed and LP just had its biggest expansion.

I highly doubt the big slab of concrete out the back (where most of the expansion happened) is heritage listed 

[New display name]

You're right.  This entrance is new. /s

23 minutes ago, Dean Barnett said:

I highly doubt the big slab of concrete out the back (where most of the expansion happened) is heritage listed 

The whole park is/was heritage listed.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Many elements are heritage listed, but - for example - the Rotor has been relocated to different spots within the park's footprint. It is still protected under the orders, but one could relocate transportable \ portable attractions to different spaces within the park, whilst still maintaining the heritage and amenity of the area (recognising of course that there isn't really anywhere else the mouse could go within the park's current footprints)