UK’s tallest rollercoaster gets retracked

In time for Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s reopening last Monday (April 12), Taziker Industrial has retracked additional sections of the Big One rollercoaster after successfully retracking four sections last year.

In February 2020, Taziker completed the retracking of 45m in four sections after working on the project during the off-season. 

Due to the success of this, Taziker was commissioned to fabricate a further 75m of track for the Big One, as part of the amusement park’s programme of continuous maintenance and development.

During the 2020/21 off-season, which started earlier than planned due to the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, Taziker began the refurbishment at their Heywood facility in Greater Manchester. 

Taziker performed 3D scanning using Trimble SX10 point cloud data so that key components could be modelled before the existing track was removed from the park. 

The completed tracks were transported to Blackpool Pleasure Beach for fitting in March 2021 in preparation for its 125^th season.

Jarrod Hulme, Taziker’s Managing Director for Engineering Solutions said, “This was again a challenging project, but we were confident of matching our success of the first retracking. 

“We have invested heavily in the latest add-on software to increase our solution skills even further, as well as up-skilling innovative people in the team. The level of planning is paramount to the success of this project and we collaborated closely with the Pleasure Beach engineering department.”

When the Big One opened to the public in 1994, it was the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the world. Reaching a maximum height of 71m, it still holds the record for tallest rollercoaster in the UK.