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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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Poopoohead said:
Where does it stall at under such circumstances?
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You know when someone says 'it depends which way the wind is blowing' - that's not a metaphor in this case.

Star Hill, end tunnel or rise into mid course are favourites. I think I've seen it stopped at the base of every hill post turnaround.
 
Pretty much every low point on the ride has an evacuation platform with the exception of the bottom of the first drop* - the sandbags are used for a reason! The platforms either side of the hill over south entrance are wooden ones built in house rather than part of the original design.

As for operations, on Saturday they never got up to 2 full trains as the queue didn't really got long enough to need it once they'd got 3/5 of the 2nd train open. Opening up a train 1 car at a time is a slow enough process without having to add it on to the system in the first place - the last time I saw that happen was a couple of years ago, and the process involved cutting off then reattaching a cable tie to each of the stub track sections at the ends of the transfer track. Mid way down the ramp is pretty tedious on 1 though, that's well into "don't bother" territory for me.

Regarding track replacement, they'll probably carry on replacing bits here and there as they've done the entire life of the ride. I can't see any more major changes akin to the total redesign of the first drop and Grand National bend (the company that designed the support structure apparently told Arrow they'd got the first drop wrong, but were ignored).

Running 2 trains in the wind could happen if they had 2 fast trains, though if they then wanted to use both of them on calm days they'd probably need to make some modifications as overspeed could become an issue. Given the ride's history of crashing when it ran 3 medium speed trains it's probably not a good idea to run it faster than designed.

*getting onto the track to inspect the first drop is difficult, as it turns out.
 
@John I think there is a finite life to those rides, but time will tell. Perhaps the rolling stock will become a problem before the track does.

Also, the ride was running two trains both times it crashed, no?
 
No idea - all 3rd, 4th and 5th hand reports I've seen on various forums implied 3 trains were on and that was why it was permanently reduced to 2. Rather moot now as on a busy day with speedy pass slowing things down the ride will stack when running two anyway.

Nothing lasts forever, least of all PMBO track seemingly given the amount they've replaced - but that's always been managed by dealing with the affected sections as necessary. I don't know much about the trains really, I don't have access to mechanical inspection reports
 
Does anybody know how a Season Pass holder can buy visit supplement items (car park, food and drink, photos or games tokens) through their website nowadays? You used to be able to do that without having a wrtistband or pass in the basket but now the website doesn't allow that? I contacted BPB via their contact form few times about this but never received a response (very poor). Are all these items available for the same price on-park on the day?
 
John said:
Running 2 trains in the wind could happen if they had 2 fast trains, though if they then wanted to use both of them on calm days they'd probably need to make some modifications as overspeed could become an issue.
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Seeing as they only ever have one train going round at once I don't really see why that would be an issue.



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Rick said:
The computer will e-stop if the cycle time is too short (ie - the train is travelling quicker than designed).
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But won't it do that whether they are running one fast train or two? Or do they have 3 different speeds of trains so they have no fast train on when there isn't any wind?

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They have 3 trains, so with 2 fast ones they could still have a slow one available for calm days - in recent years it's been the other way round with 2 slow and 1 fast, in the early days it was 3 medium.

Nowadays it's open more reliably, but liable to be on low capacity due to wind.
 
If I would be able to ask a random BPB-related question, was anything ever discovered about The Bigger One? Or was it just a fan theory?
 
Matt N said:
If I would be able to ask a random BPB-related question, was anything ever discovered about The Bigger One? Or was it just a fan theory?
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At one point the "Bigger One" was going to cross the promenade onto a pier. That's all I heard, I doubt it was anything but an idea dreamt up by enthusiasts. If anyone here knows anything please share!

Also has anyone seen the recovery of a valleyed train? I guess they get a crane and some cable and pull it, but am not sure how they could get enough height?
 
There's a "Bigger One" model in the education centre but no idea if it was built because of the rumours or if it was an actual potential project. Looks a bit like Stealth.
 
I seem to remember the Blackpool Gazette running a story on the Bigger One probably around 2003/4. Although I can find no evidence of it online now. Even had concept art of a huge yellow framed coaster on a steel pier, which in all honestly, looked quite hideous. Shame I can’t find anything and I’m relying on unreliable human memory.

I have no doubt in my mind that had it been built, it would’ve been closed more often than not and would’ve taken BPB to a dangerously high level of debt.
 
I heard a few times that it was nothing more than a bunch of rumours following the redevelopment of the promenade frontage to the sea.
Three circle patterns appeared in the prom footpath brickwork, and some bright spark(s) decided that was the marker points for the big hill footers.
Turns out they were just circles of block paving.
 
The ride was indeed running 2 trains both times it crashed. It baffles me that they allow themselves to dispatch the ride (and even more on the Nash) so slowly. If a brake was to fail and the second train was already some distance up the lift the worse thing that happens is a lift evac. However if the train is still sat in the station when it happens certainly on the Nash, the consequences would be horrible.

The Bigger One was indeed more than a dream, you are both correct, the model exists as did the news report, I will see if I can locate it and add it to the BPB historic page for those who are on FB. The circles on the prom are and were nothing to do with it, for a start they are in the wrong configuration for the top hat structure (unless it's launching towards BPB for Ireland!)

I believe Icon to be a much better project than that would have been.
 
As others have said, the Bigger One was definitely more than a rumour. The circles which appeared on the Prom were a happy coincidence - they never really lined up correctly with where a possible route could go.

If I recall there was talk about it breaking the height record again, which at the time would be 420ft of Top Thrill Dragster. It would have launched from BPB, across the street and onto the beach, before diving down slightly towards the sea and then pulling into a vertical climb, reaching a top hat and then returning to BPB with an airtime hill. The manufacturer would have been S&S with a seat layout similar to a 4D coaster/wing rider. This seat layout meant the ride would launch out and come back as a full circuit but along the same line, the return track essentially being above the launch.

There were quotes at the time from the Council and RCCGB, which although did not confirm the ride type, did effectively confirm that there was a large scale ride being planned. There was quite a bit of excitement at the time and a genuine belief if anyone would try anything like this it would have been good old Geoffrey.

Tragically his death probably also saw off the concept, although there were always doubts about how viable the scheme would be.

Personally I think it could have gone either way. If the technology was reliable enough to deal with the weather, it could have been one of, if not the most unique coasters in the world still to this day. On the other hand it could have been a massive white elephant if it didn’t work.
 
speedy said:
Also has anyone seen the recovery of a valleyed train? I guess they get a crane and some cable and pull it, but am not sure how they could get enough height?
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Only once, the big one stopped on the RCBR and they had to evac the train from there. Later on in the day they released it to roll through to the station (something they'll usually do during morning testing) and the train didn't quite have enough momentum so it was only half way into the first set of breaks. Looked like they had a winch to pull the train the rest of the way up.

I've seen 'The Bigger One' model in the education centre but as amazing as it could've looked I imagine the downtime would've been horrendous with the wind, plus the damage the sea air would do to the supports as well. Plus the reliability issues Top Thrill Dragster has nowadays it could've been a financial millstone around the park.
 
Before I joined enthusiast forums I had no idea how complicated operations on PMBO could be; fast & slow trains, valleying out if not enough people on the trains, etc.

Last weekend my brother stayed in Big Blue hotel and saw a PMBO testing train stop on the MCBR. The staff member on board sat there for 5 mins and then simply disembarked and climbed down the stairs. Is this a normal part of testing as I’ve never witnessed or heard of it happening before
 
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