I'm sure this will start the speculation train again.

As reported on Towers Street




Is this just general checking to make sure everything is ok, or is something else going on?

I'd like to think that they're working on opening the ride.

I'd like to think that too, but there's been activity on that site several times over the last few years and nothings ever come of it. With the seemingly reduced budget reopening doesn't seem likely cos Sub Terra was known to be expensive to run for what it was. Alternatively, maybe the reduced budget in other areas is to free up money to get this ride up and running again, who can say!

I think it would be safe to assume that whatever is going on is not to reopen the attraction.

Something for Scarefest is far more likely given that Terror of The Towers is probably not going to return.

Adz wrote:

I think it would be safe to assume that whatever is going on is not to reopen the attraction.

Something for Scarefest is far more likely given that Terror of The Towers is probably not going to return.

Terror of The Towers is going?

Ha. Terror or The Towers will be here. As it always is. Every year, everyone says it's time for it to go. It never does.

Robert.W wrote:

Ha. Terror or The Towers will be here. As it always is. Every year, everyone says it's time for it to go. It never does.

Maybe this year will be the year it finally departs?

Anyway, back to the future of Nemesis: Sub-Terra

Robert.W wrote:

Ha. Terror or The Towers will be here. As it always is. Every year, everyone says it's time for it to go. It never does.

Aside from the fact that as of yet there’s no indication of it returning? All the other mazes have visible signs of construction and ToTT has nothing.

I’d love to be wrong as I actually really like it, but it looks like it’s finally the year for it to go.

To be fair, whilst I personally don't have a clue what stage they are at with setting up the mazes for this year (they shouldn't actually have started tbh), I thought I'd heard someone say that Terror of The Towers was already being worked on. I think it will return, or at least, hope it'll return!

Anyway, Sub Terra. Yes, I think that having it open in its original form for a limited time during Scarefest is pretty likely, they could also maybe do something slightly different with it perhaps? After all, that yellow tent today can't have been for nothing, which means they must be looking at finally doing something with it. I'd like to think so anyway!

I highly doubt that it's there just for some annual event. I mean the ride isn't that bad that it could be removed. If they were to remove it, they would've by now. Besides, if they knew from the get go they couldn't handle live actors on a ride, costs & what not, why make this ride? 

It would have cost Merlin more money to remove the ride, so that's why it's still here. Abandoned. As for why the ride initialy opened – Merlin probably didn't foresee the staffing costs (or take them seriously), and so when unexpected costs occur (due to restraint issues), it just prompts them to give up with it. The Smiler crash was the final nail in the coffin. They simply didn't have the money or motivation at that time to sort Sub Terra out, so it was just left abandoned.

Now they are in a position where they can reopen it (technically they have been for a while...), and it finally looks like they are at least giving is future some consideration, wether that is as a limited time Scarefest attraction (be it in it's original form, or with some alterations), if they decide to reopen it fully at some point, or even close it completely and remove the ride system for use in The Alton Towers Dungeon... at least they seem to be at that point of deciding what exactly to do with it.

Something just doesn't add up here for me. The park has been given minimal budget this year, with operations cut and presumably the seasonal event budget cut, as we're seeing scare maze preparations starting really early. But at the same time we have rumours of CCL makeover, Dungeon addition and Sub-Terra work, all with possible 2019 opening.

I never rode Sub-Terra, but are there any theming elements they could extract from it to use in other scare mazes? Or have any of the other Merlin drop towers been having reliability issues recently?

Salvaging for parts to me seems to sadly be the most likely thing here.

The restraint issue thing seems to be more rumour & hearsay. I haven't found any evidence to that backs that rumour up. But I doubt they'll get rid of it, it's not just one of those crappy attractions that travels from park to park. 2019 seems plausible, but I'm hoping whatever it is they'll doing is going to open it up again, hopefully this year if we're lucky. 

Salvaging parts seems about as likely as them closing the ride indefinitely. Neither which have had no confirmation. Like I said it's simply not one of those attractions they can just throw away given the connection it has to Nemesis.

Its probably just a routine check on the ride system and building for a report on all standing rides in the park. Ehixh I know isn't exciting but thats my guess.

KoasterKing 205 wrote:

The restraint issue thing seems to be more rumour & hearsay. I haven't found any evidence to that backs that rumour up.

I can assure you the restraint issues on Nemesis: Sub-Terra are not rumour and hearsay. I witnessed them myself on a couple of occasions on the ride's last day in operation.

There were 4 members of staff in the ride section checking the restraints, as opposed to the usual 2. It also took significantly longer than normal for the ride system to give the all clear that the restraints were locked, due to the changes implemented to reduce the risk of guests climbing out.

Even more activity can be seen outside of Sub Terra today.




Credit to Connor Lloyd for posting this in the Merlin Annual Passholders Group on Facebook

Well those are some temporary looking additions. Scarefest preparations?

With all the discussion of whether Sub-Terra would reopen, I would laugh if this became a scare attraction, and that when you get inside you find that the drop tower was removed long ago!

Dan wrote:

KoasterKing 205 wrote:

The restraint issue thing seems to be more rumour & hearsay. I haven't found any evidence to that backs that rumour up.

I can assure you the restraint issues on Nemesis: Sub-Terra are not rumour and hearsay. I witnessed them myself on a couple of occasions on the ride's last day in operation.

There were 4 members of staff in the ride section checking the restraints, as opposed to the usual 2. It also took significantly longer than normal for the ride system to give the all clear that the restraints were locked, due to the changes implemented to reduce the risk of guests climbing out.

Well I can tell you that without so much as a hint of evidence that it is. I can't see anything which suggests that it happened at all, let alone that it had anything to do with the closure of the ride itself. You're claiming it but anyone can do that. That's what I mean, I personally never seen or heard of it happening on the ride. I would've thought pages like Wikipedia (although not solid evidence) at the very least would've had something like that mentioned.

Swarm Chris wrote:

Well those are some temporary looking additions. Scarefest preparations?  :-k

With all the discussion of whether Sub-Terra would reopen, I would laugh if this became a scare attraction, and that when you get inside you find that the drop tower was removed long ago!

Well that would be crap. But then again they'd surly say something if that were to be the case. Like anything else. They wouldn't pull the rug out from under our feet like that....!

KoasterKing 205 wrote:

Well I can tell you that without so much as a hint of evidence that it is. I can't see anything which suggests that it happened at all, let alone that it had anything to do with the closure of the ride itself. You're claiming it but anyone can do that. That's what I mean, I personally never seen or heard of it happening on the ride. I would've thought pages like Wikipedia (although not solid evidence) at the very least would've had something like that mentioned.

Shortly before the ride closed, it was temporarily closed for a “design update”, which was confirmed by Alton Towers themselves via their Facebook page. When it reopened, it had new thigh restraints and a lower locking lap bar, and because of the new thigh restraints large numbers of guests could no longer ride it.

It’s well documented across various other enthusiast forums that N:ST had restraint issues in the weeks leading up to its closure.

Just a quick Google search for Nemesis Sub Terra restraint brings up three topics on enthusiast sites which discussed the issue around the time the ride closed, including this very topic, where discussion around the restraints began on page 5.

What Dan says is accurate. I was there too, on the same ride. I believe it closed straight after and never reopened