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Monorail Refurbishment

The monorail is a disgrace at present. The whole experience is miserable: being held back to wait for one of two trains to arrive, sitting in a mouldy, filthy train, squinting through the microwave holes filled with filth, and making out the silhouettes of the theme park behind.

When we stayed, we did the monorail once. We were lucky to be staying in the hotels, so the FV entrance/exit was of good use.

I think people forget just how long the walk from the park entrance to the hotels/main car parks is. It's a heck of a distance. If the monorail goes, they need something else in place.
 
A picture says 1000 words. That's the long term decline of Alton Towers for all to see right there.

A futuristic Monorail installed in a time when there were ambitious hopes for the future. A time before the hotels, and before some the best and most innovative attractions were installed. Carrying millions of visitors over the years with joy in their hearts from the car parks to a grand entrance via a tour above some the amazing attractions they were about to experience.

Now looking and operating like this. Limping on in this state, waiting to be closed and replaced with something significantly crappier.
 
The sad truth is that a monorail, in the vein of the current Alton one anyway, is an expensive thing to build and run for a park of Alton Towers’ calibre.

They are expensive pieces of kit; as much as people can talk about it “only” costing £40m to build a replacement monorail or do a hefty refurbishment, that is a lot of money when you’re not Disney or Universal for something that will provide you with little to no return on investment. I know that not every penny spent in a theme park will provide a return on investment if you want to provide a good experience, but £40m for something that won’t provide a return on investment and isn’t even as marketable as, say, Nemesis Reborn is just not financially viable for Alton Towers. There are other gaps that the park could plug to a significantly greater extent with £40m that would provide significantly greater returns.

I know people rubbish things like buses and land trains in here, but if the monorail needs any kind of major work doing to it, I dare say it’s the only financially viable option if the park wants transportation to the entrance. They’ve put buses on at February Half Term in the past, so it can be done. I dare say the park maybe spent over its means a bit building the monorail in the first place (they couldn’t even afford a brand new one), so with that in mind, I do wonder if any kind of major refurbishment is unrealistic to expect from a park with Alton Towers’ financial situation.

It’s not what people want to hear, but I ultimately feel that it’s the truth. Building some new, extravagant monorail or equivalent is simply not worthwhile or affordable for Alton Towers, from where I’m standing.
 
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Matt N said:
The sad truth is that a monorail, in the vein of the current Alton one anyway, is an expensive thing to build and run for a park of Alton Towers’ calibre.

They are expensive pieces of kit; as much as people can talk about it “only” costing £40m to build a replacement monorail or do a hefty refurbishment, that is a lot of money when you’re not Disney or Universal for something that will provide you with little to no return on investment. I know that not every penny spent in a theme park will provide a return on investment if you want to provide a good experience, but £40m for something that won’t provide a return on investment and isn’t even as marketable as, say, Nemesis Reborn is just not financially viable for Alton Towers. There are other gaps that the park could plug to a significantly greater extent with £40m that would provide significantly greater returns.

I know people rubbish things like buses and land trains in here, but if the monorail needs any kind of major work doing to it, I dare say it’s the only financially viable option if the park wants transportation to the entrance. They’ve put buses on at February Half Term in the past, so it can be done. I dare say the park maybe spent over its means a bit building the monorail in the first place (they couldn’t even afford a brand new one), so with that in mind, I do wonder if any kind of major refurbishment is unrealistic to expect from a park with Alton Towers’ financial situation.

It’s not what people want to hear, but I ultimately feel that it’s the truth. Building some new, extravagant monorail equivalent is simply not worthwhile or affordable for Alton Towers, from where I’m standing.
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You're right, it isn't. The decline of the monorail is indicative of the story of the place over many years. Where it once saw itself heading, where it used to be, what it became, and with the latest grot, rot and pending (presumed) closure being typical of where it's going.
 
I’m not sure they could substantiate such a high parking fee if there’s no method to efficiently move people to the main entrance.

I’m also still not sure where people are obtaining operating and repair costs for the monorail. Surely the operating costs are not substantially different to any other park ride on a per person basis. And do we even know what repairs are required? I’m guessing new trains would be the obvious expense but then what does a monorail train cost and how many do they need to replace (in lieu of refurbishing existing)?

Any replacement cost is clearly only as a result of the chronic underinvestment, cannibalism and seeming neglect of the current system. As with most things Alton Towers, that operating model is now coming home to roost.
 
If the Towers monorail ends up getting removed, I wonder if a second skyride between the car park and the entrance would be a cheaper and more viable option than building a whole new monorail. From what I can tell a cable car is only about 10-20% of the cost of a monorail per kilometre, only concern would be going around corners. Doubt it would happen but I just had the thought.
 
If they remove it they should just replace it with airport style bendy buses like you have to get if you go to eg a Spanish airport with a remote stand.

In my head it would increase staffing costs but then I guess the monorail has drivers and station staff so probably wouldn’t necessarily. Disney seems to manage fine with shuttle buses so it’s perfectly doable if they shuffled the car park layout round a bit to give them their own dedicated lane.
 
Changing to a permanent shuttle would require a hell of a lot of infrastructure work that I don't think they'd do. A considerable amount of the car parks would need shifting, as well as new spaces and possibly a different exit barrier; the route would need paving and widening; express parking would need to move (if it even can) for the terminal.
 
Not much infrastructure work, in my humble opinion.
Why would the car parks need moving at all?
We already have the drop off point by the entrance.
Why would you have issues with express?
More disabled and express parking could be added, at the cost of a few signs and white lines, near to the galactica gate.
Add one minor entrance shed, and scanner.
Extra money for little effort, very Merlin.
 
rob666 said:
Not much infrastructure work, in my humble opinion.
Why would the car parks need moving at all?
We already have the drop off point by the entrance.
Why would you have issues with express?
More disabled and express parking could be added, at the cost of a few signs and white lines, near to the galactica gate.
Add one minor entrance shed, and scanner.
Extra money for little effort, very Merlin.
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What they could do if they wanted even more money is upcharge for using the Galactica gate. You know a whole bunch of people would pay £10 extra for the privilege of being first in the nemesis queue based on how fast they leg it through the 9am turnstile opening
 
Again though, whichever way you look at it, all the alternative options for the Monorail are a shittier permanent downgrade.

Typical Merlin tactics are at play here. They've run the monorail into the ground so much, and the experience has become so bad, that die hard loyalists (who blame Alton's woes on things like the weather and a pandemic) will stop at nothing but to defend it's closure, citing that it was a grotty attraction that fewer and fewer people rode anyway.

I always find it baffling that there are those that still see sunlit uplands amidst all the current depravity, yet accept the reality that a functioning Monorail system is far too good for a resort like Towers in its current state, and should be replaced by a rickety bus or a seaside land train.

Even after everything they've done already, the removal of the Monorail will still be the biggest single swoop downgrade in Alton Towers history as a theme park. The fact that we've all mostly been accepting the inevitable for a number of years, and are now debating which alternative would be less worse, speaks volumes of how much of a low point the resort has now hit.

This thread was only created a mere 7 years ago. 2017, a year in which I thought the resort couldn't sink any lower until the last 2 seasons occurred. Yet the very title of this thread is now extremely dated. A Monorail "Refurbishment" now seems laughably optimistic to even the most pink and fluffy "yay, everyone's a winner" happy clappers among us.
 
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It seems inevitable the system will be abandoned for most likely a land train system.

This could use the roadways alongside Nemesis/directly behind the TCAAM then turning left onto the coach parks using that as a main route to the entrance. Avoiding main drive for vehicle traffic.

Allowing normal traffic to arrive onto the top and bottom car parks via their normal routes.

This would then also allow future expansion onto the meadows as those people will also need to be picked up with no easy alternative and finally the lodges and hotels which are a walk to the monorail themselves.

It would need a decent amount of reconfiguring and space for storing the vehicles. But it would allow future expansion, flexibility and seems better than nothing. I’d like the monorail fixed and expanded but it just isn’t happening.

If the park actually had a long term plan, it could consider all this. Meadows car parks, second entrance, multi story car parks, second gates, new accommodation, park expansion etc. It has the space to do so but just hasn’t since the mid 00s.
 
I remember one visit in 2012 I believe where the monorail had decided to derail itself the day before. Towers put on some buses from car parks - I remember being on one that had a CCL wrap on the outside of it.
So buses have been done and I don’t think it would be that much of an infrastructure issue.

I think the monorail is always more popular at the end of the day when people are tired and have done a lot of walking (especially now that the Skyride is off). Looking at trip advisor I don’t think people realise before visiting how much walking a trip to towers entails- very different to Thorpe park. Having no offer of transportation would be a kicker for the average guest.

Something definitely needs doing but can’t see it been done in the next 2 years, especially with all the money being pumped into fixing the Skyride.
 
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