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Oblivion: General Discussion

Sambiasso said:

Alton Towers visitors forced to climb down from Oblivion as ride stops before 180ft drop​

People were photographed being led down after a stoppage on the world's first vertical drop rollercoaster

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People were photographed being led down from Oblivion in Alton Towers just before a huge drop



Alton Towers visitors have been evacuated from Oblivion after the rollercoaster stopped just before the 180ft drop. Park-goers were photographed being led down from the world's first vertical rollercoaster as temperatures soared to 37c at the Staffordshire theme park.
A Twitter user named Dean shared photos of the incident, Liverpool Echo reports. He said: "An Oblivion shuttle has stopped at the top, I’m sure the magical bottles of water will be straight out in this heat.

"The magic bottles of water have made it up to the guests on board". Dean provided live commentary of the evacuation process as he confirmed the passengers were safely led down from the rollercoaster.
He added: "Guests are now being evacuated from the top, they have remained safe throughout the evacuation, with bottled water provided, and a harness to walk back down to the ground!"
A spokesperson for Alton Towers described the process as a "routine stoppage". They added: "The ride performed exactly as it is designed to do.




"In line with our well-rehearsed procedures, guests were assisted from the ride and were immediately given water, food, hats and all left happy to continue on with their day at the park. At no point was safety compromised.

Wouldn't fancy doing that yesterday, not sure if I would class it as routine. :weary:
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And this kind of press reporting is why the waterfalls are off on the rapids…
 
One thing I’ve noticed on my past few rides on Oblivion (other than operations being pretty diabolical!) is that they don’t seem to be filling the last seat on any row or shuttle.

The other week I thought it might had been due to being short staffed, as the batcher was also having to go and press the dispatch button, making load times so slow.

But I went on it the other day, it had loads of staff, was running two stations (although they were only filling one and then sending the second shuttle empty) but they still wernt filling the last seat. With it having its seatbelt on.
 
I noticed this on my last visit as well. Maybe they’re having some sort of issues with the edge seats at the moment or something?

I didn’t see “diabolical” ops on my last visit, though; they were absolutely smashing it, with my last visit being the first time I’ve ever seen Oblivion exceed 1,000pph, and this was even with the ride on only 5 shuttles (Albeit it only narrowly exceeded 1,000pph; I think the reading was something like 1,006pph)! There was practically no stacking, which is almost unheard of on Oblivion!
 
If there's a problem with a seat then it gets roped off so it can't be used. It's not just a case of staff remembering not to load it.
 
rob666 said:
Maybe some tall gangly idiots have been leaning out of the end seats, again.
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Surely it isn’t possible to touch anything, though? Even if you are tall, I’d imagine the clearance envelope on Oblivion is huge.

And if this were the case, wouldn’t both end seats in each row be shut?
 
Was at AT this weekend and can confirm on both days rear left (as you sit on it) end 2-3 seats left empty on every single shuttle.

Also saw a shuttle wouldn’t leave station (I was sitting in the shuttle behind) because of some sort of error and the ride hosts asked 4 people to swap seats. It was two adults and two teenagers so can only guess this was to do with weights on the train or something.

This weekend there were a lot of Oblivion shuttles going only half full or so despite there being a fairly lengthy queue so it looks like they are managing some kind of issue.
 
You would think it would be easy to count to 8 (or 7 for some reason now) but when I did it the other day you would have thought covid was still a thing at the park with the amount of empty seats. It was almost as if the batcher just wasn’t even trying to fill shuttles or anything.

It’s definitely got some kind of issues at the moment, and it also seems to be badly operated on my recent visits, even when it’s not got much of a queue you wait ages for it.
 
This is a stark contrast on the two times I have visited this year. First was mid April, second was 4 or so weeks ago, Both times Oblivion was running like I have not witnessed it operating in over a decade. It could not be operated any faster. Both stations loading, all bays with trains ready to dispatch just before the pre lift block is ready. I guess this potentially highlights inconsistencies in their operations though based on what has been said. As I do not doubt operations have also been dire.

One thing I have seen clearly on both visits though is quite a noticeable difference in how long trains slow and hold over the drop, some trains hold longer, others much shorter as it looks pretty apparent the mechanism struggles to hold certain trains. Sit and watch, you will see a difference between trains. This is potentially a reason I can see them loading trains lighter, with the warmer weather on top, trains are probably completing the circuit faster. Anything outside the a very small milli to a few second (depending on the coaster type) plus or minus window will instantly trip a ride. The type of trip Alton Towers are not allowed to reset without an evacuation. I suspect this is probably a cause.

I suspect potentially, the inability for the drop clutch to hold trains as well as it used to be able to, is potentially causing issues with the rides cycle time. Lighter trains give the trains more chance of holding on for longer. Thus being within the cycle time.

Purely just a theory on my opinion :)
 
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geo4chg said:
Was at AT this weekend and can confirm on both days rear left (as you sit on it) end 2-3 seats left empty on every single shuttle.

Also saw a shuttle wouldn’t leave station (I was sitting in the shuttle behind) because of some sort of error and the ride hosts asked 4 people to swap seats. It was two adults and two teenagers so can only guess this was to do with weights on the train or something.

This weekend there were a lot of Oblivion shuttles going only half full or so despite there being a fairly lengthy queue so it looks like they are managing some kind of issue.
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Funnily enough I saw something similar on Saturday, two people sat at the front next to the closed off seat on the left had to swap seats. Seems the trains are quite sensitive to weight at the moment, I wonder what the issue is.
 
DistortAMG said:
One thing I have seen clearly on both visits though is quite a noticeable difference in how long trains slow and hold over the drop, some trains hold longer, others much shorter as it looks pretty apparent the mechanism struggles to hold certain trains. Sit and watch, you will see a difference between trains. This is potentially a reason I can see them loading trains lighter, with the warmer weather on top, trains are probably completing the circuit faster. Anything outside the a very small milli to a few second (depending on the coaster type) plus or minus window will instantly trip a ride.
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I'm not sure this is the case. Going back to when it opened, Oblivion shuttles would hold on the drop for a few seconds, but even then it was not unheard of for a shuttle to not engage and just drop without any delay at all. It wasn't common but it did happen. This didn't result in any downtime like you suggest.

The block timings you speak of are presumably taken after the holding chain, i.e. when the top conveyor block becomes empty.
 
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