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Monorail Refurbishment

rob666 said:
That's great if you have good mobility...disabled people, families with small children and babies...not as easy.
You are on it for three or four minutes, but is saves an hours walking over what is already a long walking day.
Get there earlier...easy if you live close, not so easy for the majority.
It was an excellent efficient transport system that has suffered death by a thousand cuts, typical of the Merlin ethos of build the new stuff, neglect the old stuff.
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Fair enough on everything except the bit I've highlighted, there's no real excuse for not leaving your house early enough to get there for when the gates open.
 
Depends where you live though with peak hour traffic.
A two hour journey from my front door to the Towers can easily be converted into a four hour journey if I set off at seven and take the most direct motorway route.
The "better" alternative is the M6 south for a couple of hours...if you are lucky in the rush hour.
Personally, if going for a dirty solo visit, I like to set off in the middle of the night to avoid all the traffic, then have an early wander on the railway line or around the village over breakfast.
 
If you are north of Manchester, or south of Brum, the morning traffic can make getting to Alton for opening tricky, unless you set off to beat the rush hour, which means being an hour or so early.
If I set off at half eight, I can be there in two hours on a good day.
If I set off at half six, it can, and has, taken me four hours.
Back on the monorail, it was great when it ran properly, constant shuffling forward up the ramps, a train always coming into the station as one left.
Dodgy hips sent me to express parking long ago...about the same time as paid parking, the monorail service started to slide.
Edit...sorry double post...whip the naughtie enthusiast.
 
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RIPCorky said:
I'm probably in the minority here and maybe it's because I usually walk instead. But I really don't see the point in upgrading the monorail. You're on it for about three or four minutes, it gets you from the carpark to the entrance and that's that. Moan about the queues? Get there earlier
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That’s fair enough for you if usually walk.

As a guest the word shoddy comes to mind with the monorail in its current state. I’m visiting a theme park and the first experience of the day can only be described as a morning commute on a 1972 stock Bakerloo line running on a reduced service at rush hour.

Guest experience and all of that..
 
I miss the days when you could be trusted to stand on the platform behind a line and it was assumed you were extremely unlikely to jump in front of a slow moving train. A bit like how Network Rail and TFL trust millions of people every day to stand on a platform waiting for an often faster moving, heavier duty train in an often less heavily supervised station.
 
Towers have known that the monorail is on borrowed time for years (think at least 15 years) and have done nothing about it. OK, they have tarted the trains up a little with new seating & covered the windows - but look closely at the trains, they are covered in algae on the rubber connectors between each car.
 
RIPCorky said:
Fair enough on everything except the bit I've highlighted, there's no real excuse for not leaving your house early enough to get there for when the gates open.
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Depending on where you live, that can be easier said than done.

For those living in Staffordshire or another fairly immediate locale, getting there early is probably not that difficult.

If you live further away, though, getting to Alton Towers early varies between difficult and nigh on impossible. I, for instance, live in Gloucestershire, less than 10 miles from the South Wales border. It takes us 2.5 hours to drive to Alton Towers on a good run and sometimes 2h 45m-3h on a bad one. Our routine get-up time for a trip to Alton Towers is 6am, and the car usually doesn't even enter Alton Towers' property until at least 9:30-9:45, with us not arriving at the park entrance itself until gone 10am. For us, arriving at the gates for 9:30 or whatever is impossible unless we stay on site or in the local area.

For people living in more extreme parts of the UK than I do (extreme probably isn't the best word for it, but think of places that are far north, far south, far east or far west), getting to Alton Towers for opening time would probably mean rising at the crack of dawn or possibly even leaving the night before.

As for the monorail itself, I very rarely take it to the park these days. If we arrive as early as possible (which we normally do), then it's usually already got a huge queue. I personally find the walk to the park perfectly fine.

With that being said, I do speak as a fully-grown adult who walks around 2-2.5 miles per day to get to and from university (My walk from Cheltenham Spa train station to the University of Gloucestershire comes out at a bit over 1 mile in each direction on Google Maps). I can certainly imagine that folks who struggle with mobility, or folks with young children, would struggle more with it. According to Google Maps, the walk from "Theme Park Car Park" (a locational marker pretty close to the start of the pedestrian path through the woods) to "Corkscrew Track" is 15 minutes, or 0.7 miles. If you're walking from a car park further back, this walk can hit 1 mile.
John said:
A lot of resort guests don't use the monorail as they can use the Galactica entrance, though admittedly that's a long walk from the back of enchanted village. Day guests only use the monorail if they're in the main car parks (including J). Before EV and the sheds were built there was also a lot of grass parking beyond the hotels that would have used the monorail but now anyone using overflow parking will walk.

Capacity is probably around 1200/hr these days. On a medium-busy Saturday (say 12k people on park) I'd expect around 2/3 of guests will walk in. The monorail could probably carry twice as many people with more trains and faster boarding (either with gates or just relaxed rules)
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Wow, is the throughput really only 1,200pph these days? That surprises me given that the theoretical is 4,100pph... did the ride ever get this figure?

I know 1,200pph is a very respectable throughput (it's roughly what Nemesis achieves on full capacity), but given a theoretical of 4,100pph, as well as the sheer demand that the monorail gets, that does seem quite low.
 
I made that number up as I have no idea what it actually gets but I guessed at a train every 5 minutes when running 3 (which is not uncommon). On 5 they could probably push it up to around 2000 (~3 minute dispatch intervals) but current loading procedures mean it won't get much more.
 
John said:
I made that number up as I have no idea what it actually gets but I guessed at a train every 5 minutes when running 3 (which is not uncommon). On 5 they could probably push it up to around 2000 (~3 minute dispatch intervals) but current loading procedures mean it won't get much more.
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I'll measure it when I get back up to Towers in April!
 
Matt N said:
Depending on where you live, that can be easier said than done.

Our routine get-up time for a trip to Alton Towers is 6am, and the car usually doesn't even enter Alton Towers' property until at least 9:30-9:45, with us not arriving at the park entrance itself until gone 10am. For us, arriving at the gates for 9:30 or whatever is impossible unless we stay on site or in the local area.
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It's not impossible. You just get up an hour earlier. At 5 a.m for example. Many people get up at 5 in the morning just to go to work almost every day. People should be able to manage it for a special day out. It's in no way impossible.
 
BarryZola said:
It's not impossible. You just get up an hour earlier. At 5 a.m for example. Many people get up at 5 in the morning just to go to work almost every day. People should be able to manage it for a special day out. It's in no way impossible.
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Would they want to attempt it with people like small children, though? Small children need more sleep than adults, so I’d imagine that getting them up at 5am for a theme park visit would not be ideal.
 
Ideal and impossible are two totally different things. Life's about compromise. You do some things that aren't ideal to get benefits elsewhere. For example, maybe giving up a small percentage of your sleep (unless you go to bed earlier) to give you a more pleasurable experience on the journey & when you actually arrive at the destination.
 
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Matt N said:
Would they want to attempt it with people like small children, though? Small children need more sleep than adults, so I’d imagine that getting them up at 5am for a theme park visit would not be ideal.
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I wish I could keep my children in bed past 5am.

Regardless, while I'm in the camp that anyone can set their alarm for whatever time is necessary to reach the park in time for opening, that's beside the point for me. When I think back to my earliest memories of Towers, the monorail was integral to the magic. It made a statement (back when you could see out of the windows), it said "you've arrived, and here's a peek at the wonders that lie ahead". The monorail helped set towers apart from the rest and made it feel a more premium experience. Unfortunately it's now a shadow of its former self and now offers a peek into the rot that lies ahead and the wonders that used to be.
Perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but it's a pretty naff first impression.
The transport problem can be solved in a myriad of ways; shuttle buses, parking lot trams, a series of travelators, staff with wheelbarrows, second gate, but I think the first impression issue is more pressing while the monorail is still operational in it's current state.
 
jon81uk said:
But it’s also chicken and egg. The queue is long because they aren’t running efficiently so why get all the trains in working order. But not all the trains work well so why fix the platform issue.
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James said:
It serves more of a purpose for resort guests staying in the hotels/Enchanted Village.

If/when the monorail goes, I think there still needs to be some form of transportation system available, even if it’s limited to resort guests, and those visiting for the day walk. Towers could perhaps create some nicer/wider paths that lead along/past the car parks towards the entrance plaza.
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There needs to be something at the park for disabled guests or guests with prams etc. It’s been at the park for most of the time Alton Towers has been a theme park since the 80’s, so it’s the Towers we know. They didn’t make car parks that far away for no reason.

I never have the issue of parking and catching the monorail. My trips always involve me staying at the fabulous local Chained Oak Farm, and I walk up the road to the park entrance. I usually arrive in Alton late afternoon the day before my full day in the park.
 
Jb85 said:
We do it regularly. And have 4 kids. If you wanna do something you've gotta make the effort.
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Yep, like I said before I'm not buying the excuse that you can't get to the park for when they open the gate. Kids can sleep in the car on the way there and back. Get your arses out of bed and hit the road and you won't be queueing for the monorail then.
 
We don't all have your enthusiasm for getting up in the middle of the night, and making what is going to be a very long and tiring day even longer and more tiring.
You get up in the middle of the night, drive for three hours, have a full day on the park...and then drive for another three hours after an exhausting twelve hours?
The kids can have a kip in the car...but is the driver still fully alert after such a long day?
I prefer my theme park trips to be fun days out, not endurance marathons.
There are large numbers of people who find it very difficult to get to the Towers for opening.
Simple fact, you don't need to "buy an excuse".
We all have different priorities, my wife simply wouldn't get out of bed in the middle of the night to ride coasters a bit sooner, it isn't worth the effort, and peak morning weekday traffic means express parking every time, to avoid the crap monorail with crap operations, that used to be so nice and efficient.
 
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