On 31st of August 2021, just shy of the rollercoasters 10 years of service, Buzzsaw at Dreamworld will give riders their final chance to traverse the tallest inversion in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Buzzsaw opened at Dreamworld in 2011 as part of a multi million dollar attraction spend for the parks 30th anniversary, which also included The Shockwave, and the White Lion Lair.
The ride is a Mauer Rides Skyloop XT 150, and is one of 9 copies of the ride situated around the world, for which 5 of them are in China. What made Buzzsaw so unique was its theme. When opening, a compelling backstory was created for the ride, with not only a well themed station building, the ride also featured an immersive queue line, arguably the best themed queue experience at the park during that time.
An impressive media campaign surrounded the ride, with a press release for the ride stating “Unexplainable occurrences recounted by staff working in the area and historic research dating back to the late 1800’s have inspired the ride’s theme and will have guests wondering where fact ends and fiction begins.”
The park ran a promotion where the first public riders got to stay in the park at night, for an exclusive spooky experience.
The addition of Buzzsaw boosted Dreamworlds Big Thrill Ride count to ”7”, and was the last Roller Coaster to be built at the park prior to Steel Taipan, which is currently under construction.
Bob Tan, General Manager of Special Projects at Dreamworld at the time remembers the rides build and procurement quite well. Bob says the ride, which was designed to fit in the space between Thunder River Rapids and the car park, which presented its own challenges to ensure a maintenance and access passage was kept in what was such a tight space.
So why is it being removed? In their announcement, Dreamworld stated the roller coasters retirement is so the park can focus on viable future developments, and its proximity to Steel Taipan, the parks new Triple Launch Roller Coaster, which is being built right next to it. The ride has appeared on the pre owned rides section of the manufacture’s website.
The rides listing on this website means this may not be the end of the line for the ride.
Where will it end up? Like several other ex Dreamworld rides, once their time at Dreamworld has ended, some have found new homes at other parks interstate or overseas (The Stingray ride for example was refurbished and operated at Funfields in Victoria), so the possibilities are endless, and only time will tell. We will keep tabs on the Buzzsaw as it gets removed from Dreamworld and hopefully taken to its new home.
Thanks to Bob, Greg and Paul for their help compiling this article.