Thorpe Park: "SAW" Rollercoaster

Piling & Foundations installed 470 piles to a twelve metre depth at Thorpe Park in Surrey for the new "SAW" Horror rollercoaster.

Using our Vermeer HL1000 and HL1800, each machine installed around 12 - 14 piles a day for park owners Merlin Entertainments Ltd. In this instance priority was on ensuring the completion of works within the given time period as the park had arranged an opening date and 'unveiling' of the attraction. We guaranteed this by supplying near-constant staffing of our workmen in both a day and a night shift. Because of this the deadline was met successfully and piling was completed in August 2008 in the required timeframe.

The ride itself is termed a "beyond vertical" ride; including a drop of 100 degrees from a height of 100 feet making it the steepest freefall drop in the world, and we are proud to have been a part of achieving that record.

The piles required a safe working load of 245kN with a maxmimum deflection of 5mm for ride safety. As you can see from our pile load test results this was easily achieved.