ICON

ICON is located at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in Lancashire. The £16m Thrill Ride is the first multi-launch roller coaster in the United Kingdom. ICON is potentially the best roller coaster in the UK, although it faces tough competition from The Wicker Man at Alton Towers Resort.

ICON at Blackpool Pleasure Beach

ICON was manufactured by Mack Rides of Germany, the UK’s first double-launch roller coaster uses Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM) to propel the train along the track, it accelerates from 0-80kph in 2.25 seconds before reaching heights of 88ft at speeds of up to 85kph. The £16m roller coaster interacts closely with other rides and attractions 15 times during its high-speed journey, giving it the title of the world’s most interactive ride.

ICON Statistics

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Top Speed – 85km/h 52mph
Original Cost – £16m
Est Cost Today – £17m
Length – 3750ft 1140m
Height – 88ft 25m
Manufacturer – Mack Rides
Type – Steel Launched
Lift/Launch – LSM-launch (x2)
Inversions – 1
G-Force – 4.3
Trains – 3
Passengers per Train – 16
Ride Duration – 2m 41s
Theme Park – Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Year Opened – 2018

Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Blackpool Pleasure Beach Official Website

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A new Twist for the 2022 Season

Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s will be making changes to the popular ICON roller coaster in 2022. Details have not been confirmed by Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s yet but based on the information provided so far we can speculate the following.

The teaser videos released by Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s feature a spinning disc and the words Ensō – “Icon with a twist”.
Ensō originates from East Asian Buddhism loosely translating to “circular form”. Based on this information we believe that Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s will be adding a spinning car to the rear of the ICON train similar to that in the video below.

Ensō – “Icon with a twist”

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Multi-launch Roller Coaster

ICON is the first multi-launch roller coaster in the United Kingdom. It uses Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM) to propel the train along the track, it accelerates from 0-80kph in 2.25 seconds before reaching heights of 88ft at speeds of up to 85kph.

ICON – A complex engineering feat

ICON took over 150,000 hours to design and build, it interacts closely with other rides and attractions 15 times during its high-speed journey across the Blackpool Pleasure Beach park, making it the world’s most interactive. Riders experience the same levels of G-force as felt by the driver of a Formula 1 car as ICON launches you on an exhilarating journey. The thrilling ride twists and turns at high speed across the theme park with the second launch propelling riders to heights of 88.5ft, with drops of up to 82ft, giving even the bravest of thrill-seekers an unforgettable ride.

The World’s Most Interactive Ride

Blackpool Pleasure Beach is the world’s most ride intensive amusement park so finding room to accommodate ICON was a real challenge. In order to overcome this, ICON was designed to pass above, below and between existing rides like The Big One, Big Dipper, Infusion, and Steeplechase. These ‘interactions’ became a key feature not only of the ride experience but also of the design and construction. It also meant that modifications to other rides, including The Steeplechase, Big Dipper and Avalanche, had to be done.

Central to the experience of the ride are the two electromagnetic launches that deliver rapid acceleration from 0-53mph over a 50m length of track. Blackpool Pleasure Beach wanted these to pass side-by-side in an underground, smoke-obscured passage, which meant creating a cutting around 40m long, 10m wide and 6m deep.

ICON Ride Station

Taking trains out of service normally involves a quick switching of the track but ICON uses a rarely seen process where the entire ride station including the unloading platform and storage lockers slides backwards to meet with the track in the service bay. The short video below gives an insight into hw this works.

BIM 3d Modelling

Due to the complex design of the roller coasters supporting structure, ICON utilised a specialist piece of computer software named BIM (Building Information Modeling). This technology, allowed for accurate virtual models of the ride to be constructed digitally bringing together the separate track, ground structures and ride safety envelope (the clearance area around the ride vehicle), and the structure of the nearby rides with which ICON interacts. Supporting the ride design through its phases, the software allowed for better analysis and control than manual processes. When completed, the computer-generated model contained precise geometry and data needed to support the construction, fabrication, and procurement activities through which the ride was realised.

Multiple piling techniques were used for the foundation of the 1,143m-long track because of difficult access and a legacy of ground obstacles and conditions. Also, the dynamic forces involved in the ride mean that there are higher loads on parts of the rollercoaster much bigger than on a conventional structure, so the design of all the pile caps had to be individually calculated.

UK Roller Coaster Rides

If you enjoyed reading about ICON at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, you may also be interested in these other Roller Coasters located at Theme Parks across the UK.

Millennium

Nickelodeon Streak

Green Dragon

Galactica

Colossus

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