Dorney Park Rollercoasters: Iron Menace dimensions, speed, and features revealed amid latest announcement

The Dorney Park amusement park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, made an announcement on its upcoming rollercoaster, Iron Menace, on August 10. The ride will be the park’s first roller coaster built since Hydra, which opened in 2005.

The new dive rollercoaster will be 160 feet tall, and the steel track will be 2169 feet long. There will be three autumn-red trains with a ridership of seven in each of them. The roller coaster will take a three-second pause after reaching the top and will allow riders to look around and enjoy the view before speeding downward. This feature is called “hold and dive”.

After that, the ride will take riders “beyond vertical”, diving down a 95-degree drop, moving at a speed of 64 mph with twists and turns. There will be four inversions, including an Immelmann inversion in the ride. The run on Iron Menace will bring about a zero-gravity roll, leading to dispensing a 360-degree corkscrew spin where riders will feel weightless.

Jessica Naderman, a Dorney Park spokesperson, said that Iron Menace will be the first dive rollercoaster on the East Coast of the United States. Other similar rollercoasters are installed in Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Texas, and California.

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Inspirations behind Dorney Park's upcoming Iron Menace ride

On their website, Dorney Park wrote about the story behind building the Iron Menace rollercoaster. Its creators were inspired by the history of the Lehigh Valley’s steel industry. The backstory of the rollercoaster centers around a greedy Scottish businessman named Hiram S. McTavish.

In the early 1900s, Hiram opened McTavish Steel Mill, which was a direct competitor of Bethlehem Steel Company. Hiram’s greed dictated his every move, and he prioritized his own profits above people.

The 95-degree drop (Image via dorneypark.com)

He demanded maximum output from the mill workers and created a massive carrier vehicle named “Iron Menace”. It was a device that was first seen in the steel industry. The hauler moved ore and workers at dizzying speeds and in record volumes.

But Hiram S. McTavish suddenly disappeared one day, and nobody knew where. Shortly after his disappearance, McTavish Steel Mill was closed. Today, the only remains of the mill are its decrepit shell and rusty relics. There are also wild stories about Hiram’s whereabouts.

The span of the Iron Menace rollercoaster. (Image via dorneypark.com)

The official website of the park has also uploaded photos simulating how the Iron Menace ride will look when it is ready. Ryan Eldredge, the Public Relations Manager of Dorney Park, spoke about their inspirations for the Iron Menace and said:

"We took a lot of our leads, our inspiration, from the ruins in Bethlehem. It's going to look and feel more like a steel mill. As you get onto the ride, you're going to have all those dips and dives and inversions that will make you feel like you're on a car maneuvering your way through a steel mill."

Construction for the Iron Menace began this week, as the park plans to have the mind-bending ride ready for riders by next year. It will be the eighth rollercoaster at the amusement park and the largest one since the opening of Steel Force in 1997. Dorney Park said that Iron Menace is one of its largest investments.