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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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You'll still be able to see it from the top of the towers and Oblivion.

Certain news outlets would be only too happy to get a picture of the scene and splash it across the front pages, but it would be straightforward to construct a semi-permanent canvas/vinyl enclosure to obstruct viewing from the side and above.
 
I fully agree. In that respect the park has handled the situation quite poorly, the park should have known that they would not be open until next week at the earliest before today.

It's not really fair on people who have planned trips / holidays around a visit to the park.

My trip to AT next Wednesday has been planned for months and I'm now past the point where I can cancel my hotel booking and still get a refund, while it'll be disappointing as this trip is for my birthday there's going to be plenty of other dates I can use the tickets for this year.
 
Out of interest, is X still running at Thorpe Park? It's a UK ride with multiple cars similar to Rattlesnake, Dragon's Fury etc so shouldn't it be closed as well? I wonder if other theme parks in the UK with Gerstlauer roller-coasters (like Oakwood and Paulton's Park) have contacted Merlin/the HSE for advice or information...

In fact, I'd be really interested to know how much involvement Gerstlauer have had with the investigation so far. Presumably the HSE would need a representative to adequately investigate the circumstances/ride system but they haven't issued anything like a statement yet.
 
UPDATE (approx 15mins ago):

a statement from Alton Towers

In terms of Alton Towers theme park re-opening, at present we have no confirmed date but we are closed today and will remain closed tomorrow.
We are working towards re-opening the theme park over the next few days but only once we have completed a thorough appraisal of all our safety processes which is ongoing.

[it is understood] that the Health and Safety Executive expect to be on- site all weekend.
 
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Out of interest, is X still running at Thorpe Park? It's a UK ride with multiple cars similar to Rattlesnake, Dragon's Fury etc so shouldn't it be closed as well? I wonder if other theme parks in the UK with Gerstlauer roller-coasters (like Oakwood and Paulton's Park) have contacted Merlin/the HSE for advice or information...

In fact, I'd be really interested to know how much involvement Gerstlauer have had with the investigation so far. Presumably the HSE would need a representative to adequately investigate the circumstances/ride system but they haven't issued anything like a statement yet.
I think that the only reason those rides are shut is because they require extra training. I have been stuck in the station of both rattlesnake and dragons fury. Rattlesnake was not too bad but they had to stand under the Dragon fury cars to try and unlock the lap bars, from my view (I couldn't really see because I was in the car they were under) it didn't look safe.don't think x will need it because saw, Dragons fury and rattlesnake are all small cars ( df and rattlesnake 4 people) with big trains it's probably different.
 
We don't know what the park are doing internally each day or what they deem as the right time to reopen. It's not something you can easily call a timeframe for.
I don't expect them to announce when they are reopening if they aren't sure, but surely they knew on day one that they wouldn't just be closed for that day. As I said before, they could have said they 'won't be open before X at the earliest', and to check back for further updates. Taking it day by day just seems silly, like they are turning up at AT each day and thinking, "Oh, hang on, we forgot we need to ___, we'll need to be closed tomorrow." They must have had some sort of plan for what needed doing and how many days they would need to close for as a minimum - and then extend that as necessary.
 
I don't expect them to announce when they are reopening if they aren't sure, but surely they knew on day one that they wouldn't just be closed for that day. As I said before, they could have said they 'won't be open before X at the earliest', and to check back for further updates. Taking it day by day just seems silly, like they are turning up at AT each day and thinking, "Oh, hang on, we forgot we need to ___, we'll need to be closed tomorrow." They must have had some sort of plan for what needed doing and how many days they would need to close for as a minimum - and then extend that as necessary.
My point is that there wouldn't have been a plan of 'we need to close for X amount of days'. The park could probably have opened the next day had they wanted to but they've done the right thing and taken a prolonged closure to sort things behind closed doors.

Who knows what they're doing but it almost certainly could not be planned in advance. Equally if they did say 'we won't be open until X day' and then the day before that announce they will be closed longer it could risk irritating people more than taking it gradually and day by day.
 
Just looking on Alton towers website and all mentions of the big 6 challenge are gone. Not suprising
 
My point is that there wouldn't have been a plan of 'we need to close for X amount of days'. The park could probably have opened the next day had they wanted to but they've done the right thing and taken a prolonged closure to sort things behind closed doors.

Who knows what they're doing but it almost certainly could not be planned in advance. Equally if they did say 'we won't be open until X day' and then the day before that announce they will be closed longer it could risk irritating people more than taking it gradually and day by day.
I can understand your point, but I disagree. There must have been some sort of plan - e.g. get an understanding of what happened, update procedures and policies, train staff, arrange counselling for any staff who required it, ensure HSE are able to do what they need to do and retrieve the cars etc... that's not all going to happen in one day. You can come up with a rough plan in a matter of minutes - I don't expect them to have had it figured out before the accident even happened.

I do agree with your point that being closed for a while is good, but I'd have thought that from the beginning - and they probably did too. If I had booked a trip there I'd be more grateful if they had said "We expect to be closed until the weekend at the earliest" so that I could make new plans and have some chance of getting refunds on travel costs or whatever.
 
My point is that there wouldn't have been a plan of 'we need to close for X amount of days'. The park could probably have opened the next day had they wanted to but they've done the right thing and taken a prolonged closure to sort things behind closed doors.

Who knows what they're doing but it almost certainly could not be planned in advance. Equally if they did say 'we won't be open until X day' and then the day before that announce they will be closed longer it could risk irritating people more than taking it gradually and day by day.

Well we know that HSE have said that they can re-open the park whenever they want as the investigation is limited to just The Smiler, so it is just a case of Alton Towers getting all their new procedures in place and training all staff on those new procedures and getting the park itself ready. I assume there will be a lot of signs and posters to be removed and added also, and I would think they will want to open on a weekday to ease staff into these new procedures rather than a busy weekend. So I would guess it will be back open on Monday or Tuesday.
 
I think that the only reason those rides are shut is because they require extra training. I have been stuck in the station of both rattlesnake and dragons fury. Rattlesnake was not too bad but they had to stand under the Dragon fury cars to try and unlock the lap bars, from my view (I couldn't really see because I was in the car they were under) it didn't look safe.don't think x will need it because saw, Dragons fury and rattlesnake are all small cars ( df and rattlesnake 4 people) with big trains it's probably different.

Obviously we're only speculating but surely train size can't be the reason considering the Smiler had this incident and that has trains which seat 16 people - much much than on X (although I must admit, I cannot remember exactly how many). What I guess I'm wondering about is that if these new safety procedures and training are being given on the closed Merlin rides, why aren't they needed on X. I wonder if X is deemed safe already because the safety procedures being placed on Rattlesnake etc are already present on X. Does X do something differently to other block brake based rides that the Smiler etc don't?
 
I was wondering what's going on with these ride closures though, Multiple sources have said they are rides with multi-trains going at once but oblivion isn't closed is it?
 
I guess it should be soon, can they not just paint over the blood for now and then sort it later? The fast erthey open the better really, it means they wont be able to be hit by as much negative media
 
This closure could be as much about reputation management as anything else. For example, if the accident scene is a horrific mess with blood stains everywhere, damaged track, and workers carrying out inspections, then I'm pretty sure they don't want people getting anywhere near with cameras and fuelling further speculation on the internet (or in the press).

Sure they could just close X Sector entirely but the park has too many vantage points and would be difficult to manage, especially with so many enthusiasts knowing the secrets of the park.

I think the park will only open once HSE are done inspecting The Smiler and once any signs of an accident have been cleared away.
 
I don't know whether it would make a difference, but at the TS South meet last weekend we got X out of the way first because someone or other in the group said that they believed it's only running two trains at the moment. If that's correct and likely to remain the case then the additional procedures may well not be necessary with probably only one train out on track at any one time (I don't recall hearing or seeing any others while riding). The ride duration is a lot shorter now that trains don't stop on all the block brakes, and it's not one of the park's more popular rides so I can't imagine there's any real need to run any more trains, especially as in 2013 the bag store faff was resulting in trains being sent half empty.
 
This closure could be as much about reputation management as anything else. For example, if the accident scene is a horrific mess with blood stains everywhere, damaged track, and workers carrying out inspections, then I'm pretty sure they don't want people getting anywhere near with cameras and fuelling further speculation on the internet (or in the press).

Sure they could just close X Sector entirely but the park has too many vantage points and would be difficult to manage, especially with so many enthusiasts knowing the secrets of the park.

I think the park will only open once HSE are done inspecting The Smiler and once any signs of an accident have been cleared away.

I think you can see x-sector from:

  • Sonic spinball
  • Twirling toadstool?
  • Sky ride?
  • The towers
I think these are right but no sure
 
Friends, don't waste your time with silly petitions. That news presenter is going nowhere. This is the world we live in and the media companies are proud of themselves for selling false information to you, the public, to keep you scared, to sell news papers, and keep TV ratings up. Reporting truth doesn't matter to these people as you can see by how she was desperately trying to twist and distort the story.

Just remember over the coming days, weeks, months - when you're watching the news and hearing about other world events, that most of it is total boll0cks. Most of it is untrue. You have this Alton Towers story as a reference point to prove it.

Further to the above, and despite the outrage across the internet at Kay Burley, Sky news have just posted this on their Facebook page an hour ago:

"The boss of the park has told Sky News safety measures "weren't adequate" at the attraction."

Liars! Blatant Liars!
 
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