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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

Matt N said:
I wonder why Alton seem to be struggling so much this year?

It doesn’t even necessarily seem to be a Merlin thing.

Over at Thorpe Park, the current longest coaster queue is The Swarm at 60 minutes (Ghost Train at 65 is the longest queue overall), Detonator is the only ride down and Samurai is the only ride that’s yet to open for the season. Thorpe seems to be struggling way less than Alton Towers.
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Because Alton have put their eggs in one basket focussing on Nemesis that they’ve clearly forgot the rest of the lineup
 
Blackhole_Sun said:
Chessington’s rides are old but they are much simpler in terms of technology. They have bad days and then good. If you take one major coaster down (Vampire or Dragons fury) the park begins to struggle. Which is why they get a reputation of being awful for ride availability.

Alton have far more major big attractions, all complicated (prototypes) so they have a bigger margin for error and still manage to mess it up.

Beyond building warehouses for up charge attractions, immediate attention needs to be made on making the rides more reliable and working correctly. I think it’s been the worst start to a season ever. If they didn’t have Nemesis back it would be a complete and utter disaster.
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That doesn’t explain why Thorpe Park appears to be doing better, though.

Thorpe even shares a number of the same or similar ride types as Alton (both have B&M inverts, both have Intamin Accelerators, both have Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter/Infinity Coasters), but does not seem to be having quite as much of a nightmare today as Alton and seems to have had a far better start to the season.

It must be something to do with Alton’s rides mostly being prototypes. Otherwise, I am flummoxed as to why Alton seems to be struggling far more than the other parks, particularly Thorpe.
 
rob666 said:
Mechanic shortage due to less than competitive rates for the conditions and pressure?
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Wouldn’t that affect all of the parks, though? And I dare say that the other three parks, being located in and around London, would possibly be more adversely affected by this than Alton, not less?
 
Ethan said:
Because Alton have put their eggs in one basket focussing on Nemesis that they’ve clearly forgot the rest of the lineup
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Capex and maintenance are completely different things, you really need to think about how a complex company operates, it’s not like running a house and saying “I want a new car so I will scrimp on the boiler maintenance.

rob666 said:
Mechanic shortage due to less than competitive rates for the conditions and pressure?
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Exactly this in my opinion, you can put as much money into parts and capex as you like but if your wages are not competitive you will struggle.

Everything this season with late openings and clear lack of maintenance completed in the closed season screams of issues with maintenance staff capacity.

I bet JCB pay better for the same skill set and they are closer to the towns so lower commute cost.
 
Alton is in the middle of nowhere, not the best place to relocate...so should offer better terms.
If you don't offer the terms and conditions to attract the staff, they go elsewhere, or remain where they are.
Wet outdoor work, sometimes at heights, in a very high pressure environment.
It isn't like other theme park jobs...highly skilled, slow to recruit and train.
 
Also Chessington has had awful ride reliability so far this season, they just remove anything that isn’t open off the app. As far as I know Tomb Blaster, Monkey Swinger and Tiny Truckers have all yet to open this season and Mandrill has had a fair amount of time down.

Edit: I think Sea Storm and Tiger Rock have opened in the last couple of days but I know they weren’t ready for the start of the season.
 
rob666 said:
Alton is in the middle of nowhere, not the best place to relocate...so should offer better terms.
If you don't offer the terms and conditions to attract the staff, they go elsewhere, or remain where they are.
Wet outdoor work, sometimes at heights, in a very high pressure environment.
It isn't like other theme park jobs...highly skilled, slow to recruit and train.
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They must be offering better terms in the parks located in London?
 
Even if they managed to hire new engineers, they're not going to be hitting the ground running straight away, it takes time to train people especially given how unique some of the systems are.

I know engineers are being given signing on bonuses where I work so it's a very competitive industry at the moment, Merlin need to do more evidently.
 
RIPCorky said:
They must be offering better terms in the parks located in London?
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A little but you also have more people in London looking for work and easier commutes.

Towers is in the middle of nowhere, if you can’t drive you struggle (particularly in maintenance, the early shift starts at 6am and the late shift ends at 10pm from memory so even the pathetic public transport Towers has is useless to you). Even the closest town is 10 miles away so that’s a 20 mile daily commute and with todays petrol prices that’s not cheap.

Plus you have a huge manufacturing company wanting the same skill set in the region probably paying more.
 
Matt N said:
Having a look at the uptime statistics of the park’s coasters would suggest that something is evidently quite wrong with Thirteen; in the last 7 days, it has only had 44% uptime: https://queue-times.com/parks/1/stats

The next lowest coaster is Galactica at 70%, for reference. The next lowest ride is The Blade at 59%.
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I’m surprised even be open that much it’s been closed every time I look
 
Matt N said:
Having a look at the uptime statistics of the park’s coasters would suggest that something is evidently quite wrong with Thirteen; in the last 7 days, it has only had 44% uptime: https://queue-times.com/parks/1/stats

The next lowest coaster is Galactica at 70%, for reference. The next lowest ride is The Blade at 59%.
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That's very bad. TH13TEEN seems to have had a lot of issues so far this season.
 
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