Oblivion: General Discussion

[Skyscraper]

.They've always worn them since it opened. Oblivion has a steep lift hill and so it's necessary to wear a fall arrest harness when climbing.

I'm not sure about other rides like The Smiler though. I think the lift has anchor points for one but I don't recall staff wearing them routinely.

Think it's also because due to the length and number of shuttles, there will always be at least one on the lift or top section. Makes sense really as it saves time.

 

[Rob F]

In terms of harnesses, rides that have open side stairs where you can fall between stairs and track/train normally have harnessed staff members.
nemesis inferno as an example doesn't require a harness to climb the lift hill.

 

[Ethan]

In terms of harnesses, rides that have open side stairs where you can fall between stairs and track/train normally have harnessed staff members.
nemesis inferno as an example doesn't require a harness to climb the lift hill.

It really surprises me that there isn't netting or something for Oblivion. That just seems like a lack of health and safety

 

[jon81uk]

It really surprises me that there isn't netting or something for Oblivion. That just seems like a lack of health and safety

Thats what the harness is for. Netting is rarely there to catch people, its more often to catch items, as people are heavy.
Guests are restrained by an over the shoulder restraint on the ride, that restraint only releases when they can be safely guided to the ground. I'm not sure about Oblivion, but I know Colossus requires guests to be put into a harness if the train stops past a certain point on the lift hill before they are allowed to walk down.

 

[Ethan]

Thats what the harness is for. Netting is rarely there to catch people, its more often to catch items, as people are heavy.
Guests are restrained by an over the shoulder restraint on the ride, that restraint only releases when they can be safely guided to the ground. I'm not sure about Oblivion, but I know Colossus requires guests to be put into a harness if the train stops past a certain point on the lift hill before they are allowed to walk down.

Surely some flooring or something is safer than a harness. If you fall down and are hanging by a harness, that's surely not comfortable

 

[Skyscraper]

Thats what the harness is for. Netting is rarely there to catch people, its more often to catch items, as people are heavy.
Guests are restrained by an over the shoulder restraint on the ride, that restraint only releases when they can be safely guided to the ground. I'm not sure about Oblivion, but I know Colossus requires guests to be put into a harness if the train stops past a certain point on the lift hill before they are allowed to walk down.

Oblivion does require guests to be harnessed up in an evac. Smiler doesn't apart from the very end seat as there are drop bars.

 

[jon81uk]

Surely some flooring or something is safer than a harness. If you fall down and are hanging by a harness, that's surely not comfortable

Depends in which direction you fall. If you fall down the steps then there is "flooring" the whole way, but doesn't stop you tumbling all the way down the stairs. But a harness connected to a fall arrest system will stop you.

 

[Matt N]

*digs out throughput graph*

So on two stations there was an extra 40+ seconds of faff per dispatch. There's no reason why it should take that much longer.

Wouldn’t the extra seconds come from the fact that there’s an extra car to check? Or does the ride have more staff on dual station operation?

I’ll admit it did always surprise me that Oblivion was supposed to attain 1,900pph, as I’m struggling to see how the staff can work any faster than they do now, yet the ride was only attaining 885pph when I timed it in dual station operation! What differed back in the ride’s early years?

 

[AT86]

Restraints were being checked twice today. This happened on no other ride, and I've never seen it on Oblivion before, as far as I can remember.

Generally this means that the staff member checking the restraints the first time is still in training, and someone then follows them to recheck.

 

[Alsty]

Wouldn’t the extra seconds come from the fact that there’s an extra car to check? Or does the ride have more staff on dual station operation?

The latter. That's the reason why they run it on single shuttle dispatch during off peak times... it requires less staff. Only two hosts are required, one on the onload platform and one on the offload platform. For dual shuttle dispatch it requires an additional two hosts for the rear shuttle.

In theory the two shuttles will therefore be checked in parallel so it should not take any longer.

 

[Matt N]

The latter. That's the reason why they run it on single shuttle dispatch during off peak times... it requires less staff. Only two hosts are required, one on the onload platform and one on the offload platform. For dual shuttle dispatch it requires an additional two hosts for the rear shuttle.

In theory the two shuttles will therefore be checked in parallel so it should not take any longer.

So had the ride been running both stations yesterday, it might have been getting somewhere around 1,266pph, in theory? (My single station reading was 633pph)

 

[JAperson]

So had the ride been running both stations yesterday, it might have been getting somewhere around 1,266pph, in theory? (My single station reading was 633pph)

According to RCDB oblivions theoretical throughput is 1,900pph. I would presume it's unlikely its ever reached that however I imagine at it's height it probably did around 1,500pph. On busy days currently I presume it does around 1,000pph just below nemesis. These are guesses however I'd guess that they are fairly accurate looking at your timings for oblivion in a few different threads my guesses seem to be a little optimistic. Perhaps someone who is a little bit more mature can tell us what it used to do? I don't think they never run the number of shuttles they used to but maybe I'm wrong. So I don't know why it used to achieve higher throughputs but that's just what I've been told.

 

[Ethan]

I did an experiment today in x sector to see how many dispatches there are in an hour for the smiler and oblivion. I totalled in the hour smiler sent 50 trains and oblivion 37. This means assuming the 16 seats were filled that the throughput in the hour was 800 pph for the smiler and 592 pph for Oblivion. Not surprised by how low Oblivions throughput was as the operations on 1 station were shocking today

 

[jon81uk]

Every shuttle running, few RAP or other exit entries, no fasttrack so every seat actually filled by two batching hosts etc.

 

[Loui Richards]

The latter. That's the reason why they run it on single shuttle dispatch during off peak times... it requires less staff. Only two hosts are required, one on the onload platform and one on the offload platform. For dual shuttle dispatch it requires an additional two hosts for the rear shuttle.

In theory the two shuttles will therefore be checked in parallel so it should not take any longer.

when i went in july they had 3 ride hosts on dual station, 2 were doing the second car and the other 1 was doing the front car and also row batching :/

also i recall the smiler staff having harnesses on one of my visits a couple of years back.

 

[JAperson]

I did an experiment today in x sector to see how many dispatches there are in an hour for the smiler and oblivion. I totalled in the hour smiler sent 50 trains and oblivion 37. This means assuming the 16 seats were filled that the throughput in the hour was 800 pph for the smiler and 592 pph for Oblivion. Not surprised by how low Oblivions throughput was as the operations on 1 station were shocking today

That's really interesting. Cheers @Ethan . It demonstrates the effect the 1 station operations are for oblivion. It seems to me it has an even greater impact then galactica on one station. I really think if the difference is that big oblivion should be on 2 stations almost all the time and only on really quiet days should it be allowed to operate on 1 station. How long did you queue for it? If you queue anything over 15 minutes then I see no reason why it shouldn't be on two stations although currently I recognise staffing issues are still are problem so I suppose we can let it slide for this season however in normal seasons I wouldn't expect that to be the case.

 

[rob666]

I did an experiment today in x sector to see how many dispatches there are in an hour for the smiler and oblivion. I totalled in the hour smiler sent 50 trains and oblivion 37. This means assuming the 16 seats were filled that the throughput in the hour was 800 pph for the smiler and 592 pph for Oblivion. Not surprised by how low Oblivions throughput was as the operations on 1 station were shocking today

This is where all throughput calculations fall apart.
"Assuming the sixteen seats are filled"...
They very rarely are!
Most trains on most coasters don't run full seats, there is usually at least one empty seat on every train, many people go to parks in odd numbered groups!
Unless you have a super efficient batcher on every ride, all throughput/capacity figures are broad estimates, nothing more.
And going back to the "good old days"...Oblivion's queue ran quicker than Nemesis's when on both stations, and batching and queue division control was amazing.

 

[JAperson]

This is where all throughput calculations fall apart.
"Assuming the sixteen seats are filled"...
They very rarely are!
Most trains on most coasters don't run full seats, there is usually at least one empty seat on every train, many people go to parks in odd numbered groups!
Unless you have a super efficient batcher on every ride, all throughput/capacity figures are broad estimates, nothing more.
And going back to the "good old days"...Oblivion's queue ran quicker than Nemesis's when on both stations, and batching and queue division control was amazing.

How easily do you think they could implement that again for really busy days like fireworks, scarefest and summer holiday/bank holiday weekends? I know sometimes Nemesis has a batcher at the bottom of the ramp, on busy days, letting a certain amount of fastrack through while making sure the main queue is moving fast.

 

[Ethan]

That's really interesting. Cheers @Ethan . It demonstrates the effect the 1 station operations are for oblivion. It seems to me it has an even greater impact then galactica on one station. I really think if the difference is that big oblivion should be on 2 stations almost all the time and only on really quiet days should it be allowed to operate on 1 station. How long did you queue for it? If you queue anything over 15 minutes then I see no reason why it shouldn't be on two stations although currently I recognise staffing issues are still are problem so I suppose we can let it slide for this season however in normal seasons I wouldn't expect that to be the case.

I queued 10 minutes but that was not far from the station. God knows how long it would be if the queue was full on 1 station, probably 90+ mins

 

[Matt N]

This is where all throughput calculations fall apart.
"Assuming the sixteen seats are filled"...
They very rarely are!
Most trains on most coasters don't run full seats, there is usually at least one empty seat on every train, many people go to parks in odd numbered groups!
Unless you have a super efficient batcher on every ride, all throughput/capacity figures are broad estimates, nothing more.
And going back to the "good old days"...Oblivion's queue ran quicker than Nemesis's when on both stations, and batching and queue division control was amazing.

Wouldn’t the return of SRQs help throughput, in theory, as trains are being filled fully?