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Monorail Refurbishment

Yes there were monorails around the uk, however they are getting less and less. So i think the one at towers should be refurbished as a unique way of getting to the park entrance.

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an aspect of the monorail that not many people consider is that if you're not fussed about going into the park, you can just ride the monorail all day for free. Granted you have to pay for parking but if you fill a people carrier with 7 people, and employ the usual money saving tactics of hot dogs in flask etc, you can get 7-8 hours of rides for £1 each. Granted it's the same ride but it's still good value for money.
 
an aspect of the monorail that not many people consider is that if you're not fussed about going into the park, you can just ride the monorail all day for free. Granted you have to pay for parking but if you fill a people carrier with 7 people, and employ the usual money saving tactics of hot dogs in flask etc, you can get 7-8 hours of rides for £1 each. Granted it's the same ride but it's still good value for money.

Coach Drivers quite often do this!


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At Easter weekend, certain people used to sit on the monorail all day and try to flog fake tickets and 2-for-1 vouchers. I guess that got stopped in the end.
 
an aspect of the monorail that not many people consider is that if you're not fussed about going into the park, you can just ride the monorail all day for free. Granted you have to pay for parking but if you fill a people carrier with 7 people, and employ the usual money saving tactics of hot dogs in flask etc, you can get 7-8 hours of rides for £1 each. Granted it's the same ride but it's still good value for money.

lol - I suppose you could do that yes. Maybe take a board game or two with you and set up a BBQ in the car park?

have you thought about a giant log flume transporting people?
 
WARNING: Slighty tipsy rant incoming.
Having visited the House of Mouse last year (sadly just weeks before the Skyliner opened, but it was testing) I clicked on this topic to see what the current thinking was around the monorail. It's funny to think that when Pearson bought the park it must have seemed like a genius idea to get around where the entrance was located. Now I'm quite sure Merlin hate the layout of Towers and view the Monorail as being somewhat of a curse. Disney love their monorail, it's plain to see but aren't wedded to it as a mass transit method - you could make plenty of cases for extending the WDW monorail but it's fundamentally not been touched since Epcot was built. People pay good money to stay at hotels on the resort monorail loop and for good reason - it makes park transportation feel simply effortless. They obviously wanted to provide that to a chunk of the middle tier resorts hence the investment in the Skyliner. Lord knows what that would have cost as a Monorail line! However Disney have another mass transit option for guests that's way more appropriate for Towers and I think more inkeeping with the way Merlin run things. The Tram (or what we would call a land train) is only used to ferry people to and from the car park and park entrances, over distances roughly comparable to Towers. They follow pre-defined routes and have drop off and pick up areas clearly marked out.
*Ideally* Towers would run a land train from 9am to 11am, and then starting again from an hour before park close in addition to the monorail. Given I'm not living in cloud cuckoo land I'd even let them upcharge a couple of quid for it, as long as they used the dosh to A) Put air gates in both stations and B) make the monorail driverless. It's a god-damn block system for crying out loud - it should be remotely automated with the station staff pushing buttons to dispatch trains, thus ultimately saving on staffing costs and running the whole thing like something they have more experience in - a rollercoaster.
I'll crawl back under my rock now.
 
I said something similar to this back in November.

I think if they replace the rolling stock they will install driverless automatic system. This would cut the running costs as they would only need station staff and one central controller to oversee the rolling stock operations.

Also automated operations could add capacity to the system. As they could make it a 6 or 8 block system.

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Monorails have been going down. We lost the Blackpool one nearly 8 years back and Safari Skyway back in mid 2015 and I'm just glad to see parks like Europa Park who have two monorails. The Towers monorail could do with a refurbishment in the future, the question is has the pandemic halted any planned refurbishments?
 
The worst thing the monorail has done is convince a lot of people who could do the walk, that they shouldn't have to.

I generally have no issues with the walk, but one year when the monorail was down, we had to walk. No choice. Bearing in mind I can easily for 40,000 steps during a Scarefest outing, and having not done it before, I was not prepared for what was a 20 minute walk. It definitely wasn't what I needed at the start of (well actually four hours into) a 20 hour day.

I'd just like the monorail to be cleaner, have better theming, the ability to look out the windows and to be more efficient.
 
I still maintain that I think WDW-style trams would be a good idea if the monorail does ever close. I think having something in place as transport would be a good idea, as I can imagine the walk is difficult for some, but I don’t necessarily think it needs to be the monorail if it is too much of a drain on resources long-term.

Or failing that, maybe shuttle buses like Universal has to go between the main resort area and Volcano Bay would work? I know the park used to operate buses during February Half Term, so I think they could be up for doing it again if need be!
 
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I still maintain that the Monorail needs good investment and could be a fantatic way to start and finish your day at the park. Full immersion from the moment you leave the car to the moment you return! Clear windows and updated voice overs, at least they still have themed audio even if it does spend most the time upselling.
 
My opinion would be to remove the aweful designs from the windows possably retheme one or two of them like the strawberry and that moover aka(daisy the cow) keep the jelly bean one as its a form of advertising along with the curse of the black train, revamp the stations (i hate to say this but good god who choose that colour scheme wow) i mean purple cream and black and white (ive spent way to long in those places lol) better lighting in there aswell i mean walking through there during scarefest and fireworks is kinda dark
I read above the driverless systems thats Possably the best feature that it could go to in the future
But the big one
There opening the churnet valley railway to alton so extend it to match up with the rail station and increase the capacity of people coming to the park
 
The churnet valley railway has now completed all actions to extend to alton its 90% fund rased all cash needed to extend the line (so hopefully in the next few years thete will be trains running along the line once again,there pushing towards leek and at the rate its giong ityle be reinstated in the next 10 years (what ive read on fb but first things first alton)https://www.churnetvalleyrailway.co.uk/news/1-4-million-for-churnet-valley-railway

url=http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.u...ck-expand/article-3342171-detail/article.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;]http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/ne ... ticle.html[/url]
(Taken from towers times page)
 
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When it opens it'll be the biggest boost of income for them that thay will ever know
And possably towers could open the second entry in x sector
 
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