Rick
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Crux
I hope this meme never dies.
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ℹ️ Heads up...
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The Smiler - General Discussion
- Thread starter Scott
- Start date
Skyscraper
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
Could they be craning a train on or off the track? That would require a crane as large as that one.
I think this is more due to location of work been done given that the only place that's actually flat & could take a mobile crane is at the Staffordshire Knot part of the ride. The decent down into X-Sector is quite steep & might not be suitable for a mobile crane. You'll need something like the crane in the shot to access most of the ride due to the reach required. So yes, I'm agreeing with you, but the size is more due to access than power/weight capacity in my view. Still probably track work, which starts to make me speculate/wonder what really prevent the ride from opening at end of last season
...... but I'm keeping that all to myself .Unless its stalled in the middle, don't see the need for a crane like that. I would have assumed they could add/remove in or around the service area without the need for a huge crane.
dazza4783
TS Member
No, a crane that size is more likely to be for track than a train.
Here is a video of a train being removed from the track, the crane is a lot smaller.
TheAverageNerd
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Taron
I believe that the issue that prevented the ride from opening towards the end of last season was related to the computer system responsible for the ride, as opposed to any major physical issues. It could have been a combination of both and I’m simply unaware of the physical issue(s), but I have only heard of issues regarding the computer system not working as intended/expected.
Obviously take this with a gigantic grain of salt as my source might be unreliable. Very interesting if we are having some track replacement though, it’d be great if it were the last couple of inversions but honestly I don’t think anything that extensive is happening.
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Obviously take this with a gigantic grain of salt as my source might be unreliable. Very interesting if we are having some track replacement though, it’d be great if it were the last couple of inversions but honestly I don’t think anything that extensive is happening.
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dazza4783
TS Member
They were testing it fairly regularly while I was there at Scarefest, so yes most likely to do with the computer system. If it was a problem with the track itself and they knew that then they wouldn't have been sending so many trains out around it.
Here is some footage I took at the time.
Can someone please explain how they would be able to test the ride if there was a problem with the computer system? I would've thought that would prevent them from being able to run it but I don't know
dazza4783
TS Member
They would be able to run it in manual mode, if they were working on it and sending trains to see if they had solved the problems with it. They just wouldn't be able to allow guests onto it.
Ian
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Dizz, Bobby’s Yarn Land
The key thing to note here is the distinction between “testing” and “running/cycling”.
Testing is usually operating the attraction under normal conditions with the intention of confirming everything is working as expected and no faults are encountered.
Running or cycling is giving the machinery a bit of a run to keep it in good order and prevent further complications. This may well be done under more manual controls to bypass an issue such as sensors and PLCs.
Think of it like a car. You’ve got one and it’s stuck on the driveway as it needs new ABS sensors. You wouldn’t drive it around as it’s not safe to do so, and you can’t get the new sensors for a few weeks. However, you should still go outside and start the engine once a week to let it run. It’ll stop things seizing up, the battery draining, filters getting choked up, etc. This is the same thing we saw with The Smiler.
Towers will often do similar things with rides through closed season. Even if there’s no shuttles ready and going around the track, they’ll still usually fire up Oblivion’s lift hill and let the chain run to keep it moving. The computers are there to monitor the system, automate processes like opening and closing brakes at the right time, and ensure safety. But everything can be overriden when necessary. It’s a basic maintenance and diagnostic requirement.
Testing is usually operating the attraction under normal conditions with the intention of confirming everything is working as expected and no faults are encountered.
Running or cycling is giving the machinery a bit of a run to keep it in good order and prevent further complications. This may well be done under more manual controls to bypass an issue such as sensors and PLCs.
Think of it like a car. You’ve got one and it’s stuck on the driveway as it needs new ABS sensors. You wouldn’t drive it around as it’s not safe to do so, and you can’t get the new sensors for a few weeks. However, you should still go outside and start the engine once a week to let it run. It’ll stop things seizing up, the battery draining, filters getting choked up, etc. This is the same thing we saw with The Smiler.
Towers will often do similar things with rides through closed season. Even if there’s no shuttles ready and going around the track, they’ll still usually fire up Oblivion’s lift hill and let the chain run to keep it moving. The computers are there to monitor the system, automate processes like opening and closing brakes at the right time, and ensure safety. But everything can be overriden when necessary. It’s a basic maintenance and diagnostic requirement.
Ian
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Dizz, Bobby’s Yarn Land
Exactly. Of course, that may not be the exact issue we’re seeing here (it could be lots of things) but you’ve got the principle right.
The PLCs which run rides, regardless of how much additional fancy hardware and software you layer on top to monitor and interface with them, fundamentally just perform basic logic checks. “If sensor A is closed, apply brake B” or “If mid-lifthill sensor is occupied and MCBR block sensor B has closed and reopened, run the lift motor”. The Flume was a great example of this, as it was so mechanically simple compared to rides today. It didn’t even have screens to show status messages. It just illuminated different lights on the panel to let you know if things were clear or occupied, stopped or running. As an operator or engineer you then had to interpret those lights to understand what the system was trying to tell you. The main evolution is the ability for PLCs to work with much more standard PC-like hardware to show data visualisation and error messages. We can now use fairly common hardware to allow the system to communicate to a human in more user friendly and meaningful ways. But at the heart of the operation it’s the same core principles. It’s why PLC programming is such an art. You need to apply logic to handle every possible combination of events (or safely fail when something that hasn’t been preempted crops up).
In some cases PLCs may also use the opening and closing of multiple sensors to perform mathematical calculations. The Smiler does this with its trims. The PLC logs the delay between a series of sensors being passed by a train. By knowing these times and the distance between each sensor it’s a fairly straightforward calculation to work out the speed the train is traveling at. This is then used to determine how many brake fins are lowered/raised to bring the train down to the desired speed.
However, every sensor has a purpose, even if it’s there for redundancy. If a single reading is out of place, the system will usually perform an emergency stop to bring the ride to a safe halt. It’s then for a human to intervene and see why this has happened. Some errors can be false readings and clear themselves. Others are more persistent and may need physically servicing/replacing to resolve them. But irregardless, in its normal operating mode, the system will still perceive this as a fault and refuse to run.
In the wake of the incident, policies were reviewed and updated around how rides are ran with guests on board, such as manually overriding errors and moving vehicles. As the crash demonstrated, as soon as you start overriding programmed behaviour you are entirely reliant on human diligence to make the right decisions. That, now more than ever, is a risk that should be entirely avoided, rather than just mitigated.
The PLCs which run rides, regardless of how much additional fancy hardware and software you layer on top to monitor and interface with them, fundamentally just perform basic logic checks. “If sensor A is closed, apply brake B” or “If mid-lifthill sensor is occupied and MCBR block sensor B has closed and reopened, run the lift motor”. The Flume was a great example of this, as it was so mechanically simple compared to rides today. It didn’t even have screens to show status messages. It just illuminated different lights on the panel to let you know if things were clear or occupied, stopped or running. As an operator or engineer you then had to interpret those lights to understand what the system was trying to tell you. The main evolution is the ability for PLCs to work with much more standard PC-like hardware to show data visualisation and error messages. We can now use fairly common hardware to allow the system to communicate to a human in more user friendly and meaningful ways. But at the heart of the operation it’s the same core principles. It’s why PLC programming is such an art. You need to apply logic to handle every possible combination of events (or safely fail when something that hasn’t been preempted crops up).
In some cases PLCs may also use the opening and closing of multiple sensors to perform mathematical calculations. The Smiler does this with its trims. The PLC logs the delay between a series of sensors being passed by a train. By knowing these times and the distance between each sensor it’s a fairly straightforward calculation to work out the speed the train is traveling at. This is then used to determine how many brake fins are lowered/raised to bring the train down to the desired speed.
However, every sensor has a purpose, even if it’s there for redundancy. If a single reading is out of place, the system will usually perform an emergency stop to bring the ride to a safe halt. It’s then for a human to intervene and see why this has happened. Some errors can be false readings and clear themselves. Others are more persistent and may need physically servicing/replacing to resolve them. But irregardless, in its normal operating mode, the system will still perceive this as a fault and refuse to run.
In the wake of the incident, policies were reviewed and updated around how rides are ran with guests on board, such as manually overriding errors and moving vehicles. As the crash demonstrated, as soon as you start overriding programmed behaviour you are entirely reliant on human diligence to make the right decisions. That, now more than ever, is a risk that should be entirely avoided, rather than just mitigated.
Skyscraper
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
Steve74
TS Member
Almost as heavy as whatever they're lifting with that crane
I owe my love of the smiler and rollercoasters in general to the young guy working on the smiler when I drove down for the first time since passing my driving test like in September time, i had never been to Alton towers (well not to my recollection, my dad thinks he brought me when I was about 5 so in like 2003 lmao), and I wasn’t a fan of rollercoasters but i just thought I should try and force myself, so we got there and I queued up for the smiler and as I was about to get on, I tried to back out but he came over and told me it would be ok and he said it’s “not that bad”, and well turns out he was right, think I rode it 3 times that day in the end haha, it’s so good. the only one I cannot face is oblivion; I have done saw the ride tho, which has got a big ish drop so idk maybe I could
I've ridden Oblivion countless times so my fear of the ride has long gone. The only ride I get remotely nervous about now days is Rita. Intamin launch coasters are so intense it takes me a lot longer to prepare myself for it. Oblivion is an enjoyable and fun force, whereas I find Rita and stealth a bit uncomfortable at times