"Engine On!"

fennparks
May 31, 2021
2 min read

Updated: Sep 18, 2022

𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 ... The Siroco was the first roller coaster launched in Europe?

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐨 ...When fire, the train consumes seven megawatts of power, which is one and a half times the total power consumption of the entire park?

Other attractions were not allowed to be disturbed by the electricity peak of Psyké, so special equipment, unique for Belgium, was purchased

𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲.

Psyké Underground (previously Sirocco and Turbine) is a Shuttle Loop indoor shuttle roller coaster launched in the Belgian amusement park Walibi Belgium. The Sirocco was built in 1982 by Anton Schwarzkopf.

The Sirocco was built for a Japanese amusement park but was never delivered. Eddy Meeùs, the founder of Walibi Belgium, got the job for BEF 75,000,000 (€18,592,000,-) (BEF Belgian Francs currency)

offered with the claim that the track would attract an additional 300,000 visitors. After an advance of BEF 45,000,000 (€ 11,155,200)

the rest of the amount would be paid if the park attracted 300,000 extra visitors. Since the park failed to attract 300,000 extra visitors, the remaining BEF 30,000,000 (€74,368,000) did not have to be paid.

In 1997, an incident caused the train to hang upside down for 1 hour and 40 minutes. This was because the flywheel from the launch mechanism did not have enough speed. As a result, the train was still looping forwards, but not backward. Visitors sat upside down on the train for more than an hour and a half. This accident was immediately world news and even featured on the American news channel CNN. There were no injuries.

𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞.

For the 2013 season the "flywheel launch" was replaced with a linear motor launch by Gerstlauer Amusement Rides GmbH,

Munsterhausen, Bavaria, Germany.

𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐬.

A track length of 220.1 m, a height of 42.0 m, a speed of 85.3 km/h, 1 Inversion. Vertical Angle of 70.0° ride time 0:35 and a LIM Launch. (Formerly; Flywheel launch)