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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-25

I haven’t seen the opinion parroted recently that Thirteen can’t run in the rain, however surely days like today can finally but that one to bed. It ran pretty reliably all day long through varying assortments of light rain to heavy rain and everything in between.

It was not an opinion it was a widely known fact. After the accident where a train slipped backwards off the lifthill, the ride would shut at the first hint of precipitation

This remained the case for at least a season afterwards. Good to hear it is back to running normally now though.

Edit: Just seen that someone else addressed this above.

I have never once heard of the locals hating Spinball, but I am pretty sure it has been widely known almost since 2004, that planners are not the most keen on Spinball being where it is, due to it's location and how it ruins vistas of the Towers. Therefor, from what I understand, it's removal could be used as a bargaining chip to get more favorable planning permission else where for something else. Kind of like what they always do with planning permissions, be it restorations, investments into the hertige and everything in between.

There are not really any locals near Spinball, the Ropers were nearby but have long since left. So I dont think the locals would be an issue, as perhaps the single family that live close, brought the house after the ride was built, once the Ropers moved out. Even so, the trees will absorb quite a lot of sound from that ride. Oblivion on the other hand...
 
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I have never once heard of the locals hating Spinball, but I am pretty sure it has been widely known almost since 2004, that planners are not the most keen on Spinball being where it is, due to it's location and how it ruins vistas of the Towers. Therefor, from what I understand, it's removal could be used as a bargaining chip to get more favorable planning permission else where for something else. Kind of like what they always do with planning permissions, be it restorations, investments into the hertige and everything in between.

There are not really any locals near Spinball, the Ropers were nearby but have long since left. So I dont the locals would be an issue, as perhaps the single family that live close, brought the house after the ride was built, once the Ropers moved out. Even so, the trees will absorb quite a lot of sound from that ride. Oblivion on the other hand...
yeah I meant planners and not locals, I have heard this parroted multiple times
 
It was not an opinion it was a widely known fact. After the accident where a train slipped backwards off the lifthill, the ride would shut at the first hint of precipitation

This remained the case for at least a season afterwards. Good to hear it is back to running normally now though.

Edit: Just seen that someone else addressed this above.

I have never once heard of the locals hating Spinball, but I am pretty sure it has been widely known almost since 2004, that planners are not the most keen on Spinball being where it is, due to it's location and how it ruins vistas of the Towers. Therefor, from what I understand, it's removal could be used as a bargaining chip to get more favorable planning permission else where for something else. Kind of like what they always do with planning permissions, be it restorations, investments into the hertige and everything in between.

There are not really any locals near Spinball, the Ropers were nearby but have long since left. So I dont think the locals would be an issue, as perhaps the single family that live close, brought the house after the ride was built, once the Ropers moved out. Even so, the trees will absorb quite a lot of sound from that ride. Oblivion on the other hand...
This is correct, in the Long Term Development plan (remember that iconic document?) Spinball is earmarked for removal due to the close proximity to the historic listed Towers.
I think with the colour scheme as well it doesn’t necessarily blend into the natural surroundings.
 
Surely better staff transport from bigger population centres like Stoke, Derby or Nottingham would also help?

Or if the park aren’t going to do that, perhaps they at least need to consider a more compelling salary and benefits package for their engineering staff? When JCB are nearby, offering year-round employment that remains indoors, probably pays better, and is somewhat less rural, Alton will have to work a little harder to attract talent.

In the era we live in, I think the novelty of simply working in a theme park alone isn’t really enough to counteract the numerous negatives of working for Alton over, say, JCB, and the park has to find a way to address this if it wants to recruit and retain engineering staff.
It's worth noting that pretty much ALL of the Technical Services staff are on permanent year-round contracts. After all it is the closed season when the techies can work on the rides all day, 7 days a week should they wish. (In general the park drops to a 5 day week in closed season). You do get some seasonal ride staff who get offered Winter contracts to assist Technical Services, but they do the "donkey work" so as to speak and leave the specialist stuff to the qualified techies.

So for the Technical Service Engineers, it is certainly not job security [i.e. seasonal] that is the issue - which would indicate it is pay and benefits that is the recruitment problem. As Matt N says, having the likes of JCB right on the doorstep does not help at all. Even if Alton pay the same as JCB, I would put very good money on JCB's training & development program / long term career prospects being far superior to Alton's.

My employer has exactly the same recruitment issues - albeit for hospitality staff on minimum wage. Our sites are rurally located which realistically means the staff need a car [costly to run]. Early start / late finish shifts, so public transport difficult / non-existent. The potential staff can get a similar job, e.g. bar / restaurant work for the same pay nearer home with good public transport available.
 
The issue is location, rates of pay and role.

Alton as we know quite isolated. There will be similar roles at JCB, Toyota, East Mids airport, Seven Trent Water and various Amazon warehouses which will be better paid and easier to get to. Then further afield there are places like AZ in Macclesfield.

The role that Alton want is someone who is electrically competent, software/controls competent and from a FMCG (Fast moving consumer goods) background. Basically the best of the best for a wide range of skills. They’d be better splitting it into two roles of an electrical engineer and controls engineer.

Then there is the pay, which given those skills are in high demand everywhere else, and as someone who employs controls service engineers. The pay on offer isn’t inline with the rest of industry for systems integrators or equivalent industries.

It’s why they’ll struggle.
 
Galactica is almost down to 1.5 trains. Haven’t seen train 2 since before summer, and train 1 is running with rows 2 and 7 out of action.
That’s odd. It was operating brilliantly on 3 when I went at the end of July!
 
Just back from a weekend at the towers, operations were a bit hit and miss, however this morning the monorail opened very very late. Galactica is just painful at this point, 1 station open and the throughput is horrendous on it. Oblivion kept randomly going down and on Saturday 1 of the 3 trains was being sent around empty most of the day from what i could see, cant comment on today as it was down completely every time i was in the area but the app showed it running with long queues mostly. Someone being sick on the smiler caused a bit of chaos for a bit as well today with some downtime occurring whilst they cleaned it up. 13 was also late opening today. Also at 1 point i spotted 4 rides in cbeebies land shut. Toxicator seemed to be a bit up and down also. Nemesis, Rita, Wickerman and the Smiler (asides the cleanup) seemed to be doing well as did Hex.
 
Oblivion's operations today on a quiet end of September (queue calendar at 13%) was absolutely dire. 4 shuttles and 1 station but it was taking a good 2-3 minutes between each dispatch of a shuttle. A lot of times they were standing around waiting for something before even checking the restraints, but this was a good 30 seconds after everyone has got into their seats!

It meant the queue reached up to 35-40 minutes.
 
Oblivion's operations today on a quiet end of September (queue calendar at 13%) was absolutely dire. 4 shuttles and 1 station but it was taking a good 2-3 minutes between each dispatch of a shuttle. A lot of times they were standing around waiting for something before even checking the restraints, but this was a good 30 seconds after everyone has got into their seats!

It meant the queue reached up to 35-40 minutes.
1 Station isn't uncommon for Oblivion on a quiet day.

Sure they'll be back on 2 stations during Scarefest and Fireworks
 
A lot of times they were standing around waiting for something before even checking the restraints, but this was a good 30 seconds after everyone has got into their seats!
I don't understand the reasoning, but on Oblivion the hosts use an OK 👌hand signal and wait for the operator's acknowledgement before checking harnesses. I don't know why.

Also not uncommon in my experience to see multiple people in the operator booth, which seems to cause more delay due to the operator (presumably) being distracted. There should generally only be one person in there under normal operations.
 
Also not uncommon in my experience to see multiple people in the operator booth, which seems to cause more delay due to the operator (presumably) being distracted. There should generally only be one person in there under normal operations.
Some rides have a second person in the ops booth who is solely responsible for monitoring the CCTV, though. That means the op can focus on the station and dispatching trains.
 
I don't understand the reasoning, but on Oblivion the hosts use an OK 👌hand signal and wait for the operator's acknowledgement before checking harnesses. I don't know why.

There was some discussion of this either on here or TT when it first came in (I can't remember how long it's been part of the procedures). IIRC there was apparently an incident where somehow a train went out without anyone actually checking the restraints on at least one row. The idea behind the OK signal presumably being that having the op acknowledge that the restraint check has started adds an extra person into the loop of ensuring it is completed.
 
Oblivion's operations today on a quiet end of September (queue calendar at 13%) was absolutely dire. 4 shuttles and 1 station but it was taking a good 2-3 minutes between each dispatch of a shuttle. A lot of times they were standing around waiting for something before even checking the restraints, but this was a good 30 seconds after everyone has got into their seats!

It meant the queue reached up to 35-40 minutes.


Sounds like they didn’t have a person assigning rows and the station staff were doing it hence the one on the other side waiting for them to return.
 
Looks like Spinball has been down Tuesday afternoon and all of today. Any signs of life from it today?
 
Looks like Spinball has been down Tuesday afternoon and all of today. Any signs of life from it today?
I’ve been today, it was completely barriered off. Ride music off, no signs of life at all.

On a separate note I’ve got on 27 rides in the 6 hours it was open. Operations were excellent across the whole board, particularly on Wicker Man. The Smiler was running all 4 trains which was wild to me considering how quiet it was
 
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