Closing a coaster for a year would be a terrible idea from a guest experience perspective - one less coaster to ride, which would also mean longer queues on the existing coasters.
I do get your point, but these wooden coasters have been running since the 1920s/30s/50s (depending on which one), historically it proves that there is no need to close them for a year. They are at times closed when maintenance is required, but closing them for a year to carry out work would be too costly as well as damaging to the park's ride lineup.
Running into the main season by a few weeks and closing a ride for a year are two different things, the former would be understandable however closing a ride for a year (which was the initial point made) is not really an option.
With capacity and ride operations the way they are at the moment, one coaster down would cause the queues on the others to be horrendously bad, leading to a bad reputation for the park a worse overall customer experience.
You worry too much and you are too far past the 'public' thing to remember what it's actually like to visit the park 'normally'. The public will visit once or twice a year. If a ride is closed on the day they visit, it's a bummer - sure, but it could quite easily be closed all day anyway for tech reasons. The fact that it's closed for 90 days is irrelevant because most people will only visit one out of the 90.
The car sat at the bottom of the wheel while the wheel went around, the car undulated slightly but it was essentially an elaborate way to change the scenery on a static ride.
I don't doubt that The Big One has been repaired several times over, probably due to a combination of the battering the ride gets from both the sea salt and the wind as well as the build quality - but I think the majority of the problems come from the salt. With that said, I doubt the ride would be allowed to operate if it was "dropping to bits."
People complain when a ride is closed, and having a major ride closed for a year would not go without people noticing.
Out of interest, what work are you suggesting on the wooden coasters during this closure? Retracking an entire coaster at once (as some people have suggested) would be pointless as newer sections do not need retracking yet - it would also be a huge financial outlay for the park with little return, as well as the negative impact on the park as already mentioned.
The turnaround (and first drop) were profiled badly by Arrow initially, but that was rectified. This has been the case with lots of rides over the years, even much newer ones which have required tinkering over the years (Smiler's track not lining up during construction comes to mind as an example).
I disagree that the ride lineup has remained the same. Over the past few years, BPB has opened Nickelodeon Land (£10 million investment) which included 6 new rides, Wallace and Gromit (regardless of your opinion on it, it was a new/heavily refurbished attraction) and Skyforce. Whilst this isn't what everyone wanted to see at the park, it is investment nevertheless.
The classic rides are fantastic examples of the rides that paved the way towards the rides you see being built today. They are unique assets to the park and set it apart from anywhere in the UK if not the world - removing them would be taking out the very thing that makes BPB special. Not to mention the fact that they are very fun coasters, but of course they split opinions as any coaster does - if you don't like them, that's fair enough - personally I don't like Rita at Alton, but I'm not calling out for it to be torn down as plenty of people do enjoy it!
The track is not separating from the supports because of the salt. It's separating because it's built on a beach and badly built at that.
Good point. You only have to look at old photos of the park to see that once upon a time, it really was on the beach! I've seen an aerial photo that shows it was nothing but sand under the whole park, right up to the railway. I wonder how deep the foundations of PMBO had to go to hit rock?
