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Alton Power

There's a poster on another thread who says this is true, and it was the same at Drayton when he worked there. Interesting. I'm tempeted to believe it, Rides are very power consuming with the motors and themeing. More so than some of the classic rides of old.
 
Surely a ride don't take up that much power. I would have thought that most rides will run on 12v to 24v with low amps for safety?

How do the pleasure beaches manage, with rides stopping and starting all the time, the must be a time where they all coincidentally start up all at the same time from time to time.

What about the hotels? Everyone boiling a kettle all at the same time and the restaurant cooking breakfast in the mornings must also create a power surge too.

The fact that they fail to even get the rides open on time despite the staggered opening times tells me that they just don't have the staff to get all the rides signed off on time.
 
RoyJess said:
Surely a ride don't take up that much power. I would have thought that most rides will run on 12v to 24v with low amps for safety?

How do the pleasure beaches manage, with rides stopping and starting all the time, the must be a time where they all coincidentally start up all at the same time from time to time.

What about the hotels? Everyone boiling a kettle all at the same time and the restaurant cooking breakfast in the mornings must also create a power surge too.

The fact that they fail to even get the rides open on time despite the staggered opening times tells me that they just don't have the staff to get all the rides signed off on time.
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48v isn't uncommon for industrial automation but that's more the logic side of things, motors will have to be high amps.

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All the flats and SBNO rides in CCL area are classified as low to medium power use.

Inverter driven motors are the way things are going as they take less power. (Austin towers explains them above.) Galactica has them for station and the variable speed lift hill.
The pusher motors on nemesis brake run are still direct fed, as it jolts the car when pushing into the station.
I can see them being standard on newer rides just for the saving in running costs.




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After having a look at various websites, it seems around 20-40 kW is common for motor power, though I would imagine B&M trains are heavier and would require more power.

What I haven't found information on yet is power surge created when turning on motors. I guess it must just be motors used in rapids and lift hill motors we are concerned about, since I am pretty sure drive tire motors turn off and on
 
speedy said:
I guess it must just be motors used in rapids and lift hill motors we are concerned about, since I am pretty sure drive tire motors turn off and on
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I don't think the lifts actually stop during normal operation. If you watch the chain when the block is empty, it still runs albeit very slowly, so less power is needed to get it up to full speed than a cold start.
 
Mikw said:
At our work place, if there's a power failure, we have to power up in a certain sequence, otherwise it trips out again.
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That will be load balancing start up draw. I bet you don't wait an hour for each reset :D


Croftybaby said:
I can't believe we are all talking about the stats of power consumption.
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I am a maintenance electrician by trade, and enjoy electrical stuff.
 
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If its so sensitive that it needs to be started up over hours then Alton have a health and safety issue. The local power distribution company is not doing its job properly and rides such as the cable car shoukd not be operated for h&s. I really want the power distribution company to take alton on over this bs.
 
Forget KVa and substations, the only calculation you need for this is:

Merlin + Excuses = Lies

The reason they don’t open all the rides for 10am has nothing to do with power consumption. The reason they don’t is the same reason they have closed innumerable rides over the last few years and run less monorail trains and closed baggage holds and closed restaurants and understaff the drinks units and shortened opening hours and stopped running shows and curtailed ERT and have more ride breakdowns and outsourced housekeeping and closed hotels and oversell fastrack and don’t maintain ride effects. All for the same single reason: money.

Let’s not entertain any other excuse.
 
Mikw said:
There's a poster on another thread who says this is true, and it was the same at Drayton when he worked there. Interesting. I'm tempeted to believe it, Rides are very power consuming with the motors and themeing. More so than some of the classic rides of old.
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That person said they had to stage startup of rides over the course of 10 minutes, presumably to avoid tripping out their own safety system by drawing too much (much like how turning everything on in your house at the same time will trip your RCD, rather than if you switched everything on one after another - which wouldn't result in your RCD tripping).

That is completely different to the Alton excuse of having to to stage ride startup over the course of four hours, in order to not put too much strain on the local electricity supplier, that is utter horseshit pure and simple, it's just another excuse dreamed up to justify cuts and to give you a shit service.
 
On another thread. DistortAMG posted

DistortAMG said:
most of the rides (but not all) starting and stopping in the day is not the same as morning start up. Especially the coasters and their lift hills, which are in an always on state in the day. They just slow down when not in use, but remain in an always on and powered up state. This helps even out the load and power spikes on the substations.
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And it takes away the mechanic stress of running up from a standing start.

This issue is more widespread than people realise. Ripsaw, for example. Could only ever run on very tame settings when the Skyride was in operation, due to power issues. It used to be insane when the Skyride was closed. But with both in operation, their simply wasnt enough power to use the ride to its full potential.
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I have not heard about that issue. As you have knowledge of such thing. Do you know where the on site substations are.

Also i wonder if this is correct, ripsaw was removed to free up power for rollercoaster restaurant?


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I am not believing anything the park says. I question this.

This thread was started to dispels the myths and use science to question the claim.



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delta79 said:
On another thread. DistortAMG posted



And it takes away the mechanic stress of running up from a standing start.



I have not heard about that issue. As you have knowledge of such thing. Do you know where the on site substations are.

Also i wonder if this is correct, ripsaw was removed to free up power for rollercoaster restaurant?


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There's some electrical equipment near magic hq (labelled Alton towers magic hq)

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