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Drayton Manor Park

It's not because of the price of the chassis or the price of any part thankfully. That being said, does it really matter as to the reason why it is going? It failed as a prototype (the post modernist concept and original style of the ride was cool and nicely designed, with the tesla coils and the screens, but there wasn't a whole lot there), and it stuck out like a sore thumb sitting in between Fisherman's Wharf and Action Park. It can now be replaced with a good quality attraction and potentially a boundary between the two themed areas :) Let's see.
re the Map: It's a fantastically designed map, and they are always improved year on year; DMP at their absolute best! Most other UK theme parks don't go as far to show such detail in maps, and only show the essentials, but Drayton still do!

In other news, tis Shockwave's 25th anniversary today. Shockwave was designed in the early/mid 90s which was a very different time in the theme park industry, as many will know, and even to this day it sticks out like an oddball. It has an unusual ride layout, unusual concept, unusual pretty much everything (yes the whole Giovonola/ Intamin thing too, but everyone knows this and gets irritated over it already!) But it does have a charm, and it was built at a time when Drayton were beginning to realize the opportunities of being a theme park over being an amusement park; especially after the success of Pirate Adventure which at the time was being exceptionally received. Action park in 1993/4 was given a nice Wild Western industrial appearance, with lots of weird machines and shack like structures scattered around the star attraction. This wasn't just applied to Shockwave's station, but also to surrounding attractions and buildings in the Action Park area. The Chicken Diner, Black Revolver and the game stands were all tied in together. Overall Shockwave absolutely cemented DMP as a major theme park, and ensured that the park was catering well to the thrill market which they had desperately needed to do for well over a decade beforehand!

This 'very rare until now' image showcases Shockwave at the center of Action Park circa 1996, back when it was still very new. As you can see, the branding/signage/appearance for the ride and surrounding stuctures was very different back then. Darker more industrial looking colors which lasted until 2002 when the entire area was brightened up, the rebranded park logo (1996-2003 logo) fixed on to the straight section of track on a wooden board, and the original color scheme for the ride itself.

Photo courtesy of Space Leisure
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I remember standing on the Shockwave platform as a kid back in 1994, not riding it myself as I was too small and too scared, but waiting for a family member to ride. Such was the park back in those days that if you knew someone working on one of the rides, you could walk up the exit for a pretty much guaranteed ride without queuing. I remember doing the same for Storm Force 10 back in its opening year of 1999, but with myself riding.

Living and growing up in Tamworth, ment that you always have known multiple people working at the park, sometimes using it to your advantage. This is one of the advantages or disadvantages (whichever way you look at it) of the lack of corporate structure in a family owned park.

A massive advantage of a family owned park such as Drayton though is that they have always heavily supported local businesses when it is possible, unless they are purchasing ride hardware, it has almost always been possible. They were supporting the local economy way before it became trendy for big business to do it, so that they could use it as an advertising point. Which became something of a trend in the 2000's.
 
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Shockwave stopped today on lift hill and forced an evacuation.

Daily Mail as usual reporting with horror

'Many people evacuated and nobody from Drayton Manor would comment,' said Taylor.

Another visitor to Drayton Manor posted on Twitter that other rides weren't working at the theme park.

'Shocking day,' said Robin Hendon.

'Shockwave broke down with first load on, Maelstrom off, Pirate Ship off, Air Race off, not got on a ride yet.'

William Bryan, Managing Director of Drayton Manor Park said Shockwave stopped working at 10.35 am today due to a 'temporary stoppage' on the lift.

'At no point was guest safety compromised,' he said.

'A number of other rides were also temporarily closed but these are now all back up and running.

'We sincerely apologise to our visitors for any inconvenience caused and stress that the safety of our guests is our priority.'

The Shockwave is one of the only stand up rollercoasters in Europe. Guests are shot along at speeds of up to 53mph as the ride bends through twisting corkscrews and loops.

On the theme park's website, it is described as the 'ultimate for speed-demons and adrenaline junkies'.

'Shockwave powers you through twisting corkscrews, loops and bends – so brace yourself and wait for the green light to experience the ride of your life!'

This follows the death of an 11-year-old girl on a water rapids ride when she was on a school trip.

Police decided not to press criminal charges against the park for corporate manslaughter or gross negligence earlier this month over the tragic death of Evha Jannath on the Splash Canyon water ride on May 9, 2017.

She plunged from the six seater ride and was swept away at the Staffordshire attraction.
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I was there with my family today. Shockwave did indeed break down on the lift hill (blue train). It was a standard evacuation and the ride was going around the track later in the day (sadly I was unable to ride as I had the littlies).

If I was visiting as a thrill seeker today though I wouldn't be impressed! Bounty, Apocalypse off all day & I heard a lot of unhappy guests talking about G-Force.

We had a great day though. Don't visit as a thrill rider, DMP isn't for you!
 
Apocalypse is receiving a new floor in the station as well as new queue railings and will be back open for the Easter holidays. Sodor Cars is receiving new sensors to improve throughput and safety and hopefully will also be back open soon.
 
Splash Canyon (currently SBNO) was an absolutely fantastic rapids ride in its heyday. Sadly, many forget this as due to lack of maintenance, most of the effects on the ride ceased to work in to the early to mid 2000s, which really was the bulk of what made the ride unique. It was opened in 1993 by Noel Edmonds as part of a 2 year double project, and was designed deliberately to interact with the layout of Shockwave; with both rides receiving the industrial wild west action park theme style (as described before). The water for the ride is sourced from a reservoir hidden behind trees in the middle of the ride layout area, quite a distance from the station itself; which is rather hidden under the Shockwave station building. The queue line featured a bridge going over the final lifthill of the ride, and in the ceiling above the queue there were old looking tungsten lamps (which still exist, as far as I'm aware?). Theming and general design of the ride was contracted to Space Leisure, whilst the ride system itself was manufactured by Intamin.

The basic idea of the ride was flowing down a canyon full of mining sites and old styled industrial buildings. The beginning of the ride is simply a meander underneath the Shockwave lift hill, with a couple of rustic looking steam hammers and large drills dotted here and there. The first of these buildings was the pumping station. Two levers (which I would assume were hydraulic powered) would rise and lower, and a number of animatronic workmen (pneumatic animatroncs of an almost identical model and type to those inside of the Pirate Adventure dark ride) would be seen pulling levers and turning wheels inside a large pumping station building. This is the area where the wave machine exists, and where boats often get stuck which is a cool and amusing effect to have. After this section, the ride took a corner to the left and rapids and waves started to appear. The boats then entered a large fog tunnel (a fog machine used to exist right above the entrance concealing the inside of the building). Inside it was very dark and there were 'leaking pipes' that used to spray on riders, and after leaving the tunnel the boats went under a large leaking canister held on a crane which used to drop water on unsuspecting riders. The canister still exists, although it stopped working well over a decade ago, and was turned around behind one of Shockwave's supports, which was a shame. After a number of turns around sections with waves and rapids, the finale of the ride featured a huge blasting pipe. It was fed by a tap in the ride, but its flow could literally be controlled by a ride op, and the pipe itself was able to move back and forth. As a child, I remember standing in the queue and watching the pipe be turned off to extremely low levels, and as boats went under, it would be put on full blast and absolutely drench riders beneath who had no idea it was coming :p . Here's a picture showing the blasting pipe in all of its glory. As you can see, it really could drench you....
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The building that the blasting pipe was attached to was clearly meant to be some sort of sludge factory/mining site. I loved the old Wild Western graphics on the side of the building which are sadly now completely worn away, so I attempted to mimic them on Adobe! Any other suggestions would be appreciated!
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Obviously the very last section of the ride featured a huge wave followed by a slow move back to the station on a lift hill. The ride may not have had the waterfall effects that existed in the original Grand Canyon rapids at Alton Towers going all the way back in to the 80s, but it did have a lot more effects and buildings that interacted with the layout of the ride and added to the uncertainty of getting wet that makes rapids so brilliant.
Splash Canyon in the 90s/early 2000s was truly a great ride :)
 
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I always thought that Alton had the better rapids ride to be fair, mainly due to its length, but Draytons are pretty good also, especially with the theming like you say. But overall, Congo at Alton is a far better ride experience, that is to be expected though with Alton being the bigger park!

I remember climbing up the lift hill of Splash Canyon a few times back in the early 2000's, literally on my hands and knees and before H&S became petty. We were doing a full ride inspection before the lake got filled up. There is actually two lakes the ride draws its water from, one by the tunnel and the other (main one) right at the end of the ride next to the station, lift and pumps. The main reservoir for the ride, the one by the station and just before the lift hill is connected via an underground pipe to the parks main lake, this pipe can be opened or closed. If they wanted to completely drain the rapids so there isn't a build up of water around the end of the ride near the lift and in the reservoir as is such when the pumps turn off for the day, they would close this pipe and use a big portable diesel pump to pump the water from the reservoir to the main lake. I think the pipe is permanently closed these days so they rely on a diesel pump, it isn't an issue because usually they would only need to pump water in and out of the reservoir once or twice a year. As the water sits in the ride for the season, same with Alton's rapids too. Only a major mechanical fault part way through the season would warrant them needing too fully drain the ride. As where the water sits at the end of the day after pump turn off, also happens to be where most of the rides major mechanical parts live.

When they actually installed the rapids in 1993. Giovanola / Intamin put all the footers for Shockwave in at the same time.

It used to be great fun soaking riders with that pipe, you could also launch boats on Stormforce 10 that were timed just right so that the boats splash wave would soak riders on the reverse turntable for the end of the backwards drop, literally giving them a second soaking, as they would have literally just been down the soaker of a backwards drop, Great fun.

I have shown this picture before, but worth showing again. From Space Leisures website. It is nice seeing it new, I have literally walked across, under, over and around every square inch of Splash Canyon. The same with most rides at Drayton, infact.



I remember back in 2002/3 ish, management experimenting and trying to build a dam / sluice gate that could be closed and would contain all the water in the trough from the picture above all the way back to the station, for some reason.

The dam / sluice gate was placed immediately after the picture I have posted above just as the trough goes narrow again after the wave pool lake, remnants of it can still be seen today. I do not know what the exact purpose of it was, but it was quite clear to most of us at the time, that it would not work due to the flowing nature of the water and gradient in the channel.

It was experimented with unofficially and it was a quick a dirty piece of engineering done by the park itself, the sluice winch was powered by an old Ford Mondeo engine. When they tested it, exactly what most of us thought would happen, happened. That is the water overflowed the channel and around the sluice, it was abandoned not long after this. As it did not work.

You can see one of the steel girders which would guide the sluice gate in the picture below, another girder was positioned the other side of the channel.



Finally, most rapids, Splash Canyon included, use axial flow submersible pumps sat inside a discharge tube. Pumps like these rude bwois pictured below. The pump sits inside a discharge tube as wide as the pump itself. These pumps pump the water upwards.



On most rapids when going over the lift hill, you can usually just see the wires at the top of the pump which you can see here too, just sticking out the top of the tube. That gives an idea of size and scale. If you haven't noticed, next time you go on Altons rapids have a look at the switched off pump at the end, you will see the wires. These pumps come in all sorts of sizes, but rapids used big models, as they need to pump lots of water.
 
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Themeparksandy1981 said:
What is Drayton Manor playing at. They trying to get visitors to buy the annual pass as the parking gone up again to £5.
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Pure business decision, they need people returning so why not encourage them to get an AP which includes free parking, they are more likely to spend more with return visits in order to get as much value out of the pass.
 
Yet the park has been incredibly quiet so far this year, even during half term. It has had busy days, but on the whole....

The strategy does not seem to be working....

This is not good news, as judging by companies house they have been struggling for a while. Who knows what this could mean in the long term, though.
 
Closure hopefully. Best to do the right thing and end it now rather than let it die a slow, painful death.
 
Danny said:
Closure hopefully. Best to do the right thing and end it now rather than let it die a slow, painful death.
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They won't close the park. They've had a bit of a tough start to the season with many ride closures but everything is now re-open. The park will do well in summer.
 
If the park carried on losing money they would have absolutely no choice to either sell or close. The park would sell before they closed. They had busy periods last summer too and the park did do well in the summer. It was very busy a few times I went. They still lost multi millions though.
 
Blackpool has £23million of debt, yet there is no chance of seeing that being sold anytime soon.

It’s normal for businesses to operate with debt.
 
Most businesses have debt. Problems arise when it’s unmanageable. Persistent losses for too many years and the place will some bang shit the doors.

If it wasn’t for Thomas Land, we’d have never gone there.
 
AGL said:
Most businesses have debt. Problems arise when it’s unmanageable. Persistent losses for too many years and the place will some bang **** the doors.

If it wasn’t for Thomas Land, we’d have never gone there.
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Thomas land was what turned the park around actually. The park was in dire straights up until Thomas Land, far worse position than what they are in now. Thomas Land saw visitor numbers jump by 41%.

I used to work at the park around that time and remember things first hand through internal management meetings.
Here is an interview with Colin Bryan the then MD. Which confirms what I said above.

http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/west...n-and-andrew-clayton-drayton-manor-theme-park

Unless you meant it the other way around, not sure from the wording of your post.
 
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