Skyride General Discussion

[Dave]

They practice the abseil every week (used to be a Tuesday morning, you could see them do it if you arrived at 9am as gates opened).

Think they have only ever actually done it once in real life.

I’m fairly sure that only leaves a Galactica lift hill evacuation as the only high complexity one never done with guests.

 

[DistortAMG]

Alteast twice they have had to use the skills of the abseiling team to evac the ride I think.

Once due to the issue I posted a photo of earlier (here's some more photos) where a complete evacuation was needed at Easter time, sometime in the late 1980's.





The second time was the incident I posted the BBC link too, although not a full system evacuation, with guests being stuck already for 3 hours, it very nearly would have been. The jammed gondola was evacuated by abseiling. So I guess you could call this one a partial evac?

 

[Squiggs]

At least three times then, those photos are from an incident involving high winds on 24th March 1989.

And over on TowersStreet we have photos taken during an evacuation on 10th June 1991, which I believe was the result of a ride breakdown.

 

[Poisson]

You can see why they don't want to run it at night at all.

 

[DistortAMG]

At least three times then, those photos are from an incident involving high winds on 24th March 1989.

And over on TowersStreet we have photos taken during an evacuation on 10th June 1991, which I believe was the result of a ride breakdown.

Awesome photos! Never seen those before.

 

[Josh555]

I think there's a difference between not feeling safe on a cable car and not actually being safe. It's a pretty deep valley to cross and you are suspended pretty high up, certainly a challenge for anyone that doesn't like heights. I've been on that section when it has come to a temporary halt before and it does sort of bob up and down on the cable, a couple of our group really didn't like that at all.

But rather like a rollercoaster, how comfortable or otherwise you feel on that ride has absolutely no relation to how safe you are. If anything, after such a substantial refurbishment it should be safer now than it has been in years.

I didn't suggest it wasn't safe, I said I wouldn't want to ride it, especially so soon after a lengthy closure.

I appreciate that the absolute worst case scenario is being stuck for a long time and having to abseil down and that's only happened on 3 occasions. I have a personal fear on these things, when they stop over a massive chasm I hate it, mainly because it starts swinging and you have no idea why it's stopped (which I appreciate is usually due to loading/unloading procedures).

If I was on it right after a lengthy closure and it stopped the unrational part of my brain would kick in.

As I say I never do the Dark Forest/Forbidden Valley Sky Ride for that reason, I don't mind the other one because it's no where near as high, I again appreciate that isn't particularly rational either.

 

[Blackrock]

Abseiling sounds like fun, more bang for your buck and if Alton could charge for it no doubt they would