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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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Given that the ride has crashed at least twice, I'm guessing that over speed shutdowns are programmed in for a good reason.

Ideally they could find a way of modifying the brakes and control system to allow a return to 3 train op, but I don't think they can actually load the trains quick enough to get much benefit from it (mainly due to speedy pass)
 
PMBO is a 20 year old coaster and the manufacturers don't exist any more, you can't just "edit" rides, it's much more complicated (and expensive) that and it can lead to more problems - take the Grand National's station for example.
 
Didn't they get Kumbak to redo the ride system after the fire?

If so, imagine if someone actually competent had redone it...
 
Benzin said:
Didn't they get Kumbak to redo the ride system after the fire?

If so, imagine if someone actually competent had redone it...
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Yeah, and since then it's done about 400pph on a good day! (Used to be able to reach 3000 years and years ago).
 
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I imagine with ride refurbishments and control systems, like most things in life, you get what you pay for.

I'm sure if you paid a really high quality company a lot of money, they would pour a large amount of time and expertise into 'designing out' many of the problems of either ride, and they would use high quality materials and components to improve the rides greatly.

Or you can pay KumbaK a quarter of that and they'll sort it out with a bodge job.
 
They should have done what BGW have done with Nessie and get B&M to adopt the coaster as one of their own. But this is Blackpool we are talking about so maybe not!

:)
 
Jamie said:
Yeah, and since then it's done about 400pph on a good day! (Used to be able to reach 2000 years and years ago).
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I'd be very interested to know what BPB's throughputs are these days. If Nash is only capable of 400pph, presumably with four trains which is a rarity in itself, then they have some serious problems. Standing in a queue for Nickelodeon Streak is seriously painful as is Infusion on one train. If we were to see actual figures of throughputs today compared to the same rides 20 years ago when everything was pay per ride I think we would get a really nasty shock. It's actually quite sad to think about really.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I'd be very interested to know what BPB's throughputs are these days. If Nash is only capable of 400pph, presumably with four trains which is a rarity in itself, then they have some serious problems. Standing in a queue for Nickelodeon Streak is seriously painful as is Infusion on one train. If we were to see actual figures of throughputs today compared to the same rides 20 years ago when everything was pay per ride I think we would get a really nasty shock. It's actually quite sad to think about really.
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On four trains I think it might just about reach 500 at a push, but rarely does for one reason or another.
Whilst throughputs aren't as good as they used to be, some coasters (PMBO, Big Dipper, Infusion, Avalanche) are still pretty good at shifting queues when they are on two trains, which is usually the case once the park gets into the main season and it's busy.

I won't defend Nickelodeon Streak at all, it needs sorting out ASAP with a better station setup and the ability to run two trains (which it used to do perfectly well). Considering that it's the park's most popular wooden coaster since the rebrand, it's nothing short of a farce on busy days.
 
Nash was getting around 330/hr when we were there (2 trains). Clearly it won't do double that on 4 due to the amount of time the trains are waiting around in the station.

Dipper and Infusion should both get around 700-800 on 2, PMBO can get over 1000 in theory but probably won't due to speedy pass. I think avalanche is more like 600, again speedy pass slows things down. None of these throughputs are particularly impressive but as most of the queue lines are narrow and/or short it's rarely a major issue.
 
Dipper definitely gets more than Infusion. There's more seats and it doesn't stack, plus the queue definitely moves quicker.
 
It's especially as shame, as even in the early years of the wristband era, BPB/PBB prided themselves on their capacity and ability to handle large crowds compared to Alton Towers. It doesn't help that the park has actually dramatically reduced capacity in the past ten years. I remember back int day, when the tills would keep ringing until 1AM when the park was busy enough. They'd even get a small fine for running certain coasters past a curfew, but make enough money to justify it.
 
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I don't know the exact figures, but Dipper feels like it currently has the highest attained throughput on park. I'm sure it did the other week, probably by a margin of several hundred.
 
An observation from the meet that's relevant to current discussion. Big Dipper now has a countdown in the station starting at 60 seconds when the train parks at onload. Once reaching zero a second timer underneath starts counting up in ominous red numbers. It's an interesting idea, but rather pointless as when it's running 2 trains they don't dispatch until the previous train is onto the return leg, by which point the count up has reached at least 20 seconds.

With that in mind, Dipper's throughput will in fact be quite a bit less than I'd estimated earlier. I reckon there must be nearly 2 1/2 minutes between trains even at full capacity, which is only around 600/hr - but still more than anything else was getting when we were there!
 
Rupert said:
Can someone please explain what Kumbak were meant to do with Nash, and what actually transpired?
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They were called in after the fire in order to make the system up-to-date and modern, with all new breaking systems, trains, etc...

Of course, being Kumbak, they added it to their growing list of wooden coasters that they've ruined over the years...
 
I'm actually really shocked to learn how poor BPBs throughputs are. For a once great park which was the busiest in the UK to have descended to the level it's at now is very poor indeed. It's almost like the management have given up and know that they're never going to be as busy as they once were. That in itself is quite sad.
 
The park have already taken your money on the admission gate compared to when they needed to draw it from you on the pay to ride basis.

JR put it perfectly in 1997: "queues don't make money". The efforts put in to restore a ride to an operational state were mammoth, as was the will to get as many people through the ride as possible. It's quite saddening really to see that bit of Pleasure Beach magic lost.
 
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I agree. You would think that old habits would die hard. Clearly not at Pleasure Beach though. Grand National is now in its tenth season running the new braking system, just think how much money they'd be losing at busy periods if that was still pay per ride. Also when you look at how little queue space there is for each ride (PMBO being the exception) and think about how high capacities used to be, it's clear that in the 90s BPB never got queues of anything more than about 15 mins cause the rides swallowed the crowds. This is literally the stark opposite of what we see at the park now. I really do t see why when capacities are so low anyway that they feel the need to reduce them further by only adding second trains when they absolutely have to. I know that Thorpe park get criticism for this but if say that Pleasure Beach are actually a lot worse.
 
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