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Downtime 2012

Scott

Scott

Former TS Team Member
Favourite Ride
Nemesis
Seeing the Rita thread about it being down today got me thinking... Are we experiencing more downtime than usual for rides this year? It does seem to be happening more regularly after all. Sub-Terra seems to be generally okay now but that can be excused as all new rides take some 'bedding in', however Rita and Blivvy have been experiencing some semi-regular downtime while Hex was down for a few weeks at the start of the season... Even Nemmy has seemed to experience more hiccups than usual! Do we think the park is having more problems than usual this year or is it all just in our heads?

Also, if you experience downtime at the park - post about it here stating on what ride, for how long and what the problem was (if you know) so that for the rest of the season we can keep a list of how often rides have been going down (cheeky ;))!

Downtime list (from 05/07/2012):

Duel:
11/06 - Closed 11-3
24/06 - Closed for around an hour @ midday.

Nemesis:
06/07 - Closed from 2.30 due to 'critical water levels'

Oblivion:
09/06 - Full day closure
10/07 & 11/07 - Closed - Due to needing a new lift hill motor.

Rita:
05/07 - Closed all morning. Reduced capacity in the late afternoon.
06/07 - One train operation all day.

Th13teen:
02/07 - Large downtime. Possibly due to flooded tunnel.
 
Duel - 24/06/2012 - Ride was closed for 1 hour around mid day, Then broke down while I was on it for 10 minutes!
 
In my opinion, no we are not having any more downtime than usual. Of the 15 or so times I have been this season downtime has been very limited. I have seen Sub-Terra down a number of times but this can be expected as it is new ride. Apart from that though, and Hex having problems towards the start of the season, I've seen next to no downtime. I don't think I've seen Thirteen go down once yet this season which is great and the same can be said about Nemmy and Air. I don't know of Blivvy having much downtime this season however it has tended to break down for small amounts of times on my visits over the last few years, nothing major though.

:)
 
Rob said:
I don't know of Blivvy having much downtime this season however it has tended to break down for small amounts of times on my visits over the last few years, nothing major though.

:)
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It was having a wee phase a few weeks back of going down for large periods of time at once. Somebody said it was either something to do with the lift hill, break run or both. However, it's probably running fine again now.
 
Th13teen was down for a sizable time on 2-7-12. We were told it was because it got flooded it the crypt and tunnel. :-\
 
Duel was closed from 11 til 3 on 11th June 2012 for unknown reasons. But I was the last on the ride before it was closed.
 
I havnt had that much luck this year on some of my visits. Last month after a 45 minute queue for TH13TEEN we all got told to leave the queue, and the same has also happened on Sub Terra (but got free fast track because of it :p).

Oblivion has been down quite a bit this year on my visits, but not that recently. And surprisingly I have seen Nemesis go down on a few occasions this year.
 
Nemesis closed today from 2:30pm to park close because of "critical water levels" according to the engineer. Was one train away from the front row queue as well! Already ridden it twice though on back left so wasn't much of a disappointment.
 
Is it me or is a "downtime" topic just the ultimate in sadness geekiness? :D

I think we should also have a topic about when the toilet rolls are changed and at what times in the Resorts toilets. :p
 
Spike said:
I think we should also have a topic about when the toilet rolls are changed and at what times in the Resorts toilets. :p
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I'm fairly sure we already do :)

The question is... is downtime higher this year or are people just noticing it more?
 
Dave said:
The question is... is downtime higher this year or are people just noticing it more?
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Well I get regular (unwanted) updates about the Dark Forests' teething problems. I know Rita has been sick this past day, but Th13teen hasn't been too bad.

We expect Air to have a tantrum and have grown accustomed to it over the years. Th13teen seems to have reduced it's issues from what I gather and Rita is always spitting her dummy out. Apart from that I'd say people are running out of things to talk about lol
 
I know Rides are due to brackdown at some point but I think Alton towers need to step up there maintance so these problems don't arise as often
 
josht said:
I know Rides are due to brackdown at some point but I think Alton towers need to step up there maintance so these problems don't arise as often
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All parks suffer downtime, we're talking about complex ride systems & equipment. Thorpe has the worst reputation for this. Could be worse, the rides could be de-railing or killing people. ???
 
Spike said:
josht said:
I know Rides are due to brackdown at some point but I think Alton towers need to step up there maintance so these problems don't arise as often
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All parks suffer downtime, we're talking about complex ride systems & equipment. Thorpe has the worst reputation for this. Could be worse, the rides could be de-railing or killing people. ???
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Yeah wouldn't be to good ah but I think these problems can be prevent by just simply maintance before the ride opens I'm not against the down time machinery breaks all the time
 
josht said:
Yeah wouldn't be to good ah but I think these problems can be prevent by just simply maintance before the ride opens I'm not against the down time machinery breaks all the time
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Maintenance teams start work at 6am and finish work around 10pm (two teams). The teams are fantastic at their job and probably suffer the same "budget" issues the rest of the Alton Towers Amusement Park is suffering.
 
I certainly don't feel like there's been more downtime than usual this season, aside from obvious issues like Blivvy's various problems and the horrific weather conditions causing issues such as Nemesis's water levels (and its famous icicle!)

As well as being a new first-of-its-kind ride system, you also have to take into account that Sub-Terra will also e-stop for the same reason that TOTT does, if an actor has an issue, so this naturally adds to the list of things which can affect, and is again out of the hands of the (consistently awesome) maintenance department :)
 
Looking though the list of downtime, I do wonder how much is down to outside influences that don't jump out as such.

when I worked in industrial maintenance. we would have machines fail after heavy driving rain, as the sensors would fault. it would be interesting to know what the weather was like when the downtime happened.
 
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