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Galactica: General Discussion

PeteB said:
There's a work around for that, remember on days when only 1 station was open they would feed multiple trains back into the same station. So its possible. They would just need to know which station the current train needs to be in at the end of it's run.
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That's two train mode, it operates same as Nemesis, one train waits on brakes until station is empty. When Air/Galactica is on three trains it goes into opposite station from the one it left as that is how the despatch pattern works out.
If you had one VR train from one side and two non-VR there would be a big gap in despatches to get things to line up, as brake run can't stack two trains so need to get two in stations before third can leave the lift hill.
Easier to make all trains have the VR headsets and it optional on a seat-by-seat basis.
 
I would guess not.
A train can't leave the lift hill until the previous train has cleared the brakes.
So that means you have one train in each station and one on the track or brakes. Or a train on the lift hill, one on the brakes and one station occupied, with the one on the brakes moving into the station before the other leaves the lift hill.

Only way to do four trains would be to have long enough brakes to accommodate two trains and in that case it would be the same method to get three trains on Nemesis.
 
I'm 99% sure the brakes before the station split switch are block brakes so the ride has room for 5 trains but it will stack like mad.
 
I fnd the whole VR thing nothing more than a gimmick when attached to a coaster, and Galactica does seem a long winded overly complex way to avoid painting/theming Airs tunnel.

VR tech would be better suited to a robot arm type ride where any coaster could be easily simulated, from Galactica (air) to some of the now defunct rides, Corkscrew? the new Beast? the flume? the caterpillar ride?, bung in a few fans and a water spray and you could also add in the Staffordshire climate to boot
 
MakoMania said:
As far as I'm aware, all flying coasters with dual stations are designed to run 3 trains.
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The dual station allows a layout with the characteristics of a two train layout (ie, without a mid course block brake), run three trains - due to the increased load times.

That said - it essentially delivers a capacity not too dissimilar to what you would achieve with two more 'standard' trains on the same layout, by keeping the dispatch times where they need to be.

The three Superman flyers are largely the same - however, the original (SFOG) has a dual station and three 7 car trains, with a theoretical capacity quoted at 1500 riders per hour (53 dispatches p/h). The two follow up rides (SFGAm and SFGAd) have a single station with two 8 car trains, with a theoretical capacity quoted at 1100 riders per hour (34 dispatches p/h).
 
Air could have benefited from an extra train, had it been designed to run 4, as there were often long gaps between a train leaving the station and the next arriving. The fourth would have meant there was always a train ready to enter the station and allowed more time for loading.
 
It's more a case of the longest block needs to be occupied nearly all of the time than a long gap between the trains leaving and entering a station, that gap is eaten up by the train in front slowing down on the lift and the train from the other station being dispatched
 
The minimum dispatch interval would still be pretty much the same, the main benefit of having a 4th train would be to allow them to get closer to that minimum interval more often, so they run closer to the theoretical hourly throughput. Typical throughput on 3 was (I believe) around 44 trains per hour, up to about 48 if they pushed a bit harder. With a 4th train, getting 50+ should be more achievable.

All somewhat academic now as 1) Galactica is woefully inefficient compared to Air, and 2) the park is nowhere near busy enough to need to push throughputs from 1300 to 1500 per hour
 
I'm sure i read somewhere that they'll give you the option of riding with or without vr this year... Alton Towers twitter i think

It would be nice to have the option to be honest because i personally think its ridiculous that they haven't sorted it by now
 
yoursilentface said:
I'm sure i read somewhere that they'll give you the option of riding with or without vr this year... Alton Towers twitter i think

It would be nice to have the option to be honest because i personally think its ridiculous that they haven't sorted it by now
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They've always given you that option and always will. And if they don't you can just take the headset off after leaving the station!

Pleased to see that the VR is still not sorted though, with any luck management may have started thinking that VR on a coaster is a bad and more costly idea after all and will give up all hope!

:)
 
I was stood in a que for it for the first time this year on Saturday as its been walk on every visit before then and the reaction of most people was disappointment when they realised it wasn't on

I know most people on here don't care for the generally public's thoughts but that's who keep them parks going and they can't keep letting people down its ridiculous
 
I don't find the lack of VR annoying, as many have said the coaster is better as 'Air'. What does annoy me is AT's attitude towards the lack of VR. They advertise this coaster as 'the world's first VR coaster' however since it opened in April last year it's probably spent more time running without VR, it's USP.

I have seen many guests ask questions on twitter about the VR on Galactica and these questions are always met with a stock response along the lines of "I'm sorry, we do not have that information at this current time". It's blatant lying from AT's customer service team. While I understand that AT can't advise on whether the VR will be up and running next month (for instance) they can certainly clarify that the VR won't be working tomorrow. But they won't. You can look back at the twitter feed as far back as March and these questions are met with the same answers. It's a clever ploy by the AT customer service team, they don't want to announce that their newest ride's USP is going to be down for definite, as they don't want to deflect any potential visitors to the park. It's a massive kick up the backside to people who don't get the opportunity to visit AT as much as the likes of myself do.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
Poisson said:
Figment were playing with it yesterday at closing time
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They've been messing about with it / testing it after ride close for at least a couple of weeks, sometimes in the day as well. Certainly seems to be far more trouble than it's worth.
 
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