[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

[Smiley]

I wouldn't expect this rollback to be caused by the unreliability, but it isn't impossible (although on a new ride I wouldn't expect it) for instance seat sensors playing up, seat electronics playing up

????? The train is on live track. Nothing sensors or anything else can do.

 

[Smiley]

Nope, it's fairly unusual (especially within Merlin) to have more trains than you can physically run at once.

Sensible for maintenance etc. yes, but economically not viable.

Parts, swap-outs, train valleyed - I'd definitely have ordered one on a £20m investment with a 20+ year lifetime. How many coasters are now canniballising parts to keep working. You can't spend £20m on a coaster if you don't have a long-term plan....

 

[flyingguitar]

????? The train is on live track. Nothing sensors or anything else can do.

not just sensors, trains are complex things for instance if a bearing is over packed with grease it could increase the drag leading to a stall.

 

[Secret Weapon]

To clarify: this was the message that I referenced (from a few months ago), which suggested that there may be a difference between the two trains:-

Visited last Friday and went to Hyperia straight away. Was surprised at how much rattle there was for a new Mack and makes you wonder what it’s going to be like in a few years!

On opening day I got on it twice, first time was smooth but second rough so wondering if anyone has noticed a difference between the trains (I didn’t spot the train numbers when I was there to know if that might be a cause).

https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/2024-thorpe-park-hyperia-mack-hypercoaster.6037/post-480375

 

[Poisson]

Maybe they could switch them on....? Seriously if that's the answer then they really are FUBARed. Perhaps they can put "Fred Flintstone" accelerators in the seats and ask everyone to pedal. I can see a £3m re-design of parts of track on the cards...

Or maybe they could make it a bit higher, rather than the 1ft above BPB's TBO.

It's already 23ft taller than PMBO, not 1ft.

That redesign cost is a number plucked from nothing, not that it matters as it'll be on Mack not Merlin to sort this if they push it.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Parts, swap-outs, train valleyed - I'd definitely have ordered one on a £20m investment with a 20+ year lifetime. How many coasters are now canniballising parts to keep working. You can't spend £20m on a coaster if you don't have a long-term plan....

Rather good job then that they've purchased from a reputable manufacturer, with a great track record of keeping rides going for decades after first installation. No need to resort to cannibalism when you can buy spare parts, or ask for more to be made in a bit of a push.

 

[George W]

Do we think they'll be needing those trim brakes they installed in case it was running too fast?

 

[Skyscraper]

Do we think they'll be needing those trim brakes they installed in case it was running too fast?

The trim brakes were never installed, just the brackets for them.

 

[RIPCorky]

Temperature dropped and it stalled fully laden? That is quite clearly a bad design issue.

 

[Secret Weapon]

Temperature dropped and it stalled fully laden? That is quite clearly a bad design issue.

I'm surprised, as Germany is around the same temperature as England and so I would have expected Mack Rides to have gained enough experience of designing rides for colder climates at Europa Park?

 

[George W]

The trim brakes were never installed, just the brackets for them.

Yea that's true I was more just mocking it as they're having the opposite issue and yea this is all quite shocking from Mack you really would have thought they'd be experienced enough to know better.

 

[RIPCorky]

I'm surprised, as Germany is around the same temperature as England and so I would have expected Mack Rides to have gained enough experience of designing rides for colder climates at Europa Park?

It's highly possible someone got their calculations incorrect and expected the train to either gain more momentum or not lose as much up to and around that element

 

[Connor98]

A little off topic but I recall a conversation quoted by John Wardley regarding Walter Bolliger saying B&M coasters don’t stall during the initial testing of Nemesis, does anyone know of a B&M coaster ever stalling?

As far as Hyperia goes, this is a hindernace for Thorpe park at the very least. 3 times now Hyperia has had rather significant issues (stalling and lift hill issues after opening). Mack rides really have made some miscalculations here, at the very least they have designed a coaster with an unworkable running speed for the uk winter climate. I worry for this thing over scarefest. I’m no physicist or engineer so I could be talking out my rear end, but it seem pretty plain to see.

 

[dazza4783]

A little off topic but I recall a conversation quoted by John Wardley regarding Walter Bolliger saying B&M coasters don’t stall during the initial testing of Nemesis, does anyone know of a B&M coaster ever stalling?

There is a video of Gatekeeper valleying here.

From: https://www.reddit.com/r/rollercoasters/comments/bzzzik/looks_like_gatekeeper_valleyed_video_from_zero/


There are others that have stalled too.

 

[Secret Weapon]

On a sidenote, I feel a bit sorry for John Burton in all of this; I don't know him personally, but I got the feeling that he wanted Hyperia to be one of his crowning achievements (similar to John Wardley and Nemesis) - especially as he has been front-and-centre in much of the marketing (including the video screens in the queue line).

Granted, he is getting paid to do a job that many rollercoaster enthusiasts would probably love to do, and the ride's problems aren't his fault (and may not even prove to be that significant in the grand scheme of things), and so some might say that he doesn't need pity - but it dampened the launch a bit, and it probably isn't easy to build a career in the shadow of John Wardley, who oversaw some of the biggest innovations in recent history (e.g. inverted coasters, dive coasters, flying coasters, hydraulic launches, et cetera), and - from what I hear - is still consulted by Merlin on their latest developments (even post-retirement).

(It reminds me a bit of sons who take over businesses from successful fathers)

 

[tayspru]

It’s karma, Merlin should never have signed off on the ride being built over a swamp and a sea of poo brown metal sheet work

 

[Tim]

On the subject of spare trains that is actually an incredibly rare thing for any park to order. The only time I can actually recall a park buying more trains than they can run was Thorpe Park when Stealth opened. And ironically it didn't help downtime at all because it was the launch mechanism that caused all the reliability issues. And as a result the spare just became a parts donor for the others. Better to just order enough spares to be able to fix any issues quickly.

Even a ride like Blue Fire that has an incredible 5 trains for its size can actually run all 5 trains.

 

[Benzin]

Parts, swap-outs, train valleyed - I'd definitely have ordered one on a £20m investment with a 20+ year lifetime. How many coasters are now canniballising parts to keep working. You can't spend £20m on a coaster if you don't have a long-term plan....

No industry anywhere purchases more spare parts than it actually needs.

Especially if said spare part adds another few million onto the final bill and you need to justify to the bean counters that you actually might possibly need it in case of emergency.

Most of the coasters cannibalising parts are decades old or the manufacturer has usually gone defunct. Not the same thing at all. Or it comes down to maintenance budget in the case of say, Vampire.

 

[djtruefitt]

Might come as now shock, but the app is listing Hyperia as being closed all day today.

It’s their fright nights press night tonight so will be interesting if they try and get it open tonight for that or not.

 

[Mykeprime]

Damn, that's some unlucky timing