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Monorail Refurbishment

One thing is for sure, if they ploughed the incredible and practically overhead free income from parking directly back into the car parks and monorail they'd certainly be able to maintain and refurbish both properly.
 
jon81uk said:
But why are gates needed at all, that was my point, every other train platform in the country manages without gates.
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Not quite true there - newer stations on the Tube (i.e. Jubilee Line Extension ones) have platform protection doors - they have also been retro-fitted at some other Tube stations too. I also think the Elizabeth Line will have them - when it finally opens.

But that said, I do agree that something like 99% of UK train stations manage with platform protection doors. It's just a case of Merlin / Towers treading on egg-shells given what happened on The Smiler. As soon as anything happens again at Towers that could have been "reasonably" prevented, the parks reputation is trashed.

Clearly Merlin / Towers see the risk of standing in a loading bay on the monorail [more than likely with friends] who are unlikely to push you in front of a train is too much of a risk - despite the system having worked for 31 years or so.

It's probably fair to say that most theme park operators have had guest fatalities at some point. The issue Towers have is the serious injuries that happened in The Smiler incident were directly attributed to the Park / their operating procedures. They admitted the same in Court as Merlin were handed their fine.

If some numpty jumps a fence [that was suitably high to act as a deterrent] and enters a ride area, the park has a defence - hence why there are warning signs everywhere at Towers on ride areas now. Ride area warning signs are very cheap & doubtless provided by Leek Signs. Airgates in the monorail stations ain't cheap.
 
rob666 said:
I think it comes down to a single complaint from a parent, whose child dropped down off the platform.
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Why wasn't the parent stood at the front of the loading bay?

Similar to that the Disney steam train has open ended benches and insists an adult sits at the open end to ensure no-one falls out. Sometimes people need to take responsibility for children under their care. Ensuring a child stands behind the yellow line on a train platform is a pretty standard thing.
 
jon81uk said:
Why wasn't the parent stood at the front of the loading bay?

Similar to that the Disney steam train has open ended benches and insists an adult sits at the open end to ensure no-one falls out. Sometimes people need to take responsibility for children under their care. Ensuring a child stands behind the yellow line on a train platform is a pretty standard thing.
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The parent was stood in front, the kid ran off to another empty bay and fell from there.


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ReneBlade Master said:
The parent was stood in front, the kid ran off to another empty bay and fell from there.


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So if that happened on the platform at Birmingham New Street station would the parent expect the process to be changed and all passengers held in the concourse for longer? Teach your children not to run around on train platforms!
 
jon81uk said:
So if that happened on the platform at Birmingham New Street station would the parent expect the process to be changed and all passengers held in the concourse for longer? Teach your children not to run around on train platforms!
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But, it’s not a train, it’s a Theme Park ride.

It doesn’t matter what it actually is, in it’s location, it’s not treated as public transport, and children and parents won’t treat it the same as a “real” railway.


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I understand they want gates, and won't argue whether it's actually necessary.

However, does it need to be expensive air gates or automatic doors.

Could it not be simple push bar gates like saw exit?
 
The fact that the loading procedure was changed does not prove in anyway that it was because the parent of said child demanded so.

The incident will have been logged and reported as per standard procedure and Merlin then decided that the best course of action was to change the loading process.

Put yourselves in Merlin’s shoes - media scrutiny was huge in the first couple of years after the Smiler incident. Imagine another incident had occurred on the monorail and it came out that a child had fallen before but they didn’t do anything about it? That is pure tabloid emotional BS material right there.

However that is where my sympathy for Merlin ends. Change the process under those circumstances, fair enough. But cough up the necessary funds to install air gates, don’t just decimate throughput and give guests a worse experience.
 
I think you also have to remember that a drop off a railway platform is about 4 foot onto relatively flat ground. The drop off the monorail platform is at least 7 foot and you have a massive beam in the middle to hit against as you fall, as well as live electrical contacts. Plus for some reason people don’t treat theme park rides as seriously as they do things like train lines, people switch their brains off in theme parks.

It’s not quite like for like.
 
Another advantage of the land train idea is that there would be no potential drop risk while waiting for it; I suppose there is the possibility of collision with the train itself, but the chances of this occurring seem comparatively low compared to, say, someone falling between the monorail platforms is at present.

I think that the monorail is perfectly fine as it is, personally; they did some nice TLC work on the car parks station a couple of years back, and if you time it right, the queue often isn't too bad for the monorail leaving the park!

I'm only suggesting ideas in case it ever gets to a point where the monorail needs replacement.
 
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Towers used land trains in the 80s before the monorail was added. Here is a not so clear photo of one in the entrance plaza before the monorail station existed.

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Whilst I see the advantages of using these to help with transporting guests from the overflow car parks and accommodation, the monorail is by far a more unique and grand way of transporting guests. I hope it stays.
 
One of the main reasons train platforms can not have platform screen doors, like bits of the underground, is that the platforms have to accommodate different types of rolling stock.
You can only do it on systems with a single type of vehicle, so the doors can be aligned.
Presumably the parts of the Elizabeth line outside the central section won"t have doors for that reason.

AT could just use a manual sliding fence if they want to do it on the cheap, and send a cast member down the line, pushing the sections open. Not as slick as proper air gates, but better than the current fence on the ramp.
 
TheBolt said:
One of the main reasons train platforms can not have platform screen doors, like bits of the underground, is that the platforms have to accommodate different types of rolling stock.
You can only do it on systems with a single type of vehicle, so the doors can be aligned.
Presumably the parts of the Elizabeth line outside the central section won"t have doors for that reason.

AT could just use a manual sliding fence if they want to do it on the cheap, and send a cast member down the line, pushing the sections open. Not as slick as proper air gates, but better than the current fence on the ramp.
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Or have the fences attached to a lever that the staff member pulls to open the gates and pushes to close them.
 
I think the air gates thing isn’t that they can’t afford to do it, it’s more they don’t want to spend any money until they know what they are doing with the monorail full stop.

If they decide to fully refurb the system and not move the park entrance then it will likely get airgates.
 
TheBolt said:
AT could just use a manual sliding fence if they want to do it on the cheap, and send a cast member down the line, pushing the sections open. Not as slick as proper air gates, but better than the current fence on the ramp.
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This is the DisneyWorld monorail platform system and it looked a faff. But their monorails are higher capacity (probably 20+ in each carriage), As the bays at AT hold six people then gates like a rollercoaster train would be more suited.
 
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