The Smiler - General Discussion

[Benzin]

I assuming as well just to confound things further Sub Terra still takes scarves off people?

Thats fair enough though, if it drops and the scarf is caught in the mechanism it could hang someone.

But if they have to take loose belongings on one ride, why can't people leave a jacket in the hold as well if they so wish?

 

[Rob]

TowersStreet have posted this photo of work taking place on a support today:

Yet more perfectly normal work for a brand new coaster...

 

[Tim]

For some reason they wouldn't accept my jacket to be handed in. I was with a group of friends and we all put our phones in my jacket to be handed in, but they wouldn't allow it. Does anyone know why?

I had this problem when i was last at towers, I was simply told its a bag room and my lose belongings was not a bag... which wasn't very helpful it does confuse me why Thorpe / Towers have such different restrictions on silly things like this.

Surely though the whole point of a bag storage area is to take any items the guests do not want to ride with, not just bags. How is a rolled up jacket with things in it any different to a bag anyway?

 

[James]

I think they make the assumption that a jacket the guest can wear while riding, whereas a bag you cannot - so they just enforce a policy that does not allow extra items of clothing to be stored (to free up space for bags). I suppose it makes sense if they haven't got the room to accommodate for jackets as well as bags during busy periods.

 

[Tim]

Which begs the question that if they don't have room for all the items they receive in a dedicate storage room why even bother with one? Why not go back to the old method of a storage unit on the platform?

 

[DiogoJ42]

At Thorpe the other week, staff at Swarm's bag store were refusing to take drink refill bottles, telling people to leave them on the platform. Seems utterly pointless if you ask me.

 

[Wilsy]

There is a limit on the amount of space that a baggage area can be, without it being too large for the staff in there to manage.

Clearly the area is only there to accomodate items which cannot be taken onto the ride due to the ride restrictions, there is no reason why people can't wear their jackets on the ride so there is no need for Alton Towers to store them in their limited space.

Storage areas on ride platforms cause issues with throughput, which is why there has been the recent switch to baggage areas.

 

[Tim]

Storage areas on ride platforms cause issues with throughput, which is why there has been the recent switch to baggage areas.

and yet Europa Park use them, masters of throughput... can't be that bad.

I just think it's silly having a large dedicated storage area if they are then going to restrict what you can use it for. Again this all comes back to poor design choices, if they hadn't built the storage drop off and collection point blocking the stairs into and out of the station then the staff wouldn't have trouble managing the number of people waiting.

 

[TheMan]

At Thorpe the other week, staff at Swarm's bag store were refusing to take drink refill bottles, telling people to leave them on the platform. Seems utterly pointless if you ask me.

Also, that only started happening half way through the day? They just suddenly decided they weren't going to take them anymore. Baffling.

Don't get me started again though on THAT day at Thorpe.

 

[John]

Storage areas on ride platforms cause issues with throughput, which is why there has been the recent switch to baggage areas.

and yet Europa Park use them, masters of throughput... can't be that bad.

It's very ride-specific. At EP, 2 of the 3 coasters with on-platform bag storage don’t get as many trains per hour as the Smiler does. Blue Fire gets more, but has several advantages including in-line loading and excellent train design (easy to cross - if it had Intamin trains throughput would be much lower). If you weren't allowed to take bags onto the likes of Eurosat, a bag room would be essential to maintain the current throughputs.

Smiler's throughput would be significantly worse without the bag room. With the possible exception of Thirteen it has the quickest loading procedure of any coaster in the park, entirely as a result of the bag room - Oblivion sends a pair of shuttles far less often, and bags are a major hold-up there.

The problem with bag rooms is when they’re understaffed they can hold things up – on most of my visits to Thorpe this year X has been sending trains half empty as the sole member of staff in the bag room simply can't cope.

 

[thefatone]

I assuming as well just to confound things further Sub Terra still takes scarves off people?

Thats fair enough though, if it drops and the scarf is caught in the mechanism it could hang someone.

But if they have to take loose belongings on one ride, why can't people leave a jacket in the hold as well if they so wish?

Scarves are a safety issue, and therefore are required to be taken off.

Coats, on the other hand, are not a safety issue. You can easily wear them with things in pockets quite comfortably. Plus, the issue with coats and pockets handed in is that noone does up the stuff, things fall out and break. Just keep your coats on or put them in bags.

 

[code-red]

For some reason they wouldn't accept my jacket to be handed in. I was with a group of friends and we all put our phones in my jacket to be handed in, but they wouldn't allow it. Does anyone know why?

I've witnessed numerous times where other guests have wrapped phones/watches/valuables in their jackets prior to entering baggage stores. The hosts don't have a clue if people have wrapped valuables in their jacket, and such can easily fall out whilst they are being placed in the store. Not accepting them lowers the risk of breakages happening. (Not to mention a jacket can easily be worn).

 

[djtruefitt]

Here are a few photos I took yesterday of the Closed Smiler. All of which are now on the TS Facebook page.
As you can see work has taken place in the pit involving re-concreting the supports.

The same support later on after the area had been cleaned. Also notice the yellow dot. There are a few other supports around the ride with these dots, which I think will also have this work done on them.

Finally this support near the single rider queue line was covered up.

 

[Scott]

I sure love how the Mr Twirly graphic is creasing and coming apart... This ride and it's support structure is going to need some serious love this closed season.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

 

[GaryH]

I dont normally worry about the safety of the rides at Alton...... but..... the Smiler, the foundations, the supports, that bolt popping out.... it does concern me slightly

 

[pluk]

Considering how close we are to the end of the season they must have some real concerns about whatever it is they are currently fixing to shut the ride while the park is still open, either it being dangerous to continue running without doing the work, or likely to cause imminent unplanned downtime if not fixed now.

 

[DiogoJ42]

Have to laugh how they are doing the work behind black sheeting so we can't get pictures.

Although, putting my positive hat on (don't panic), the risk of death is why many of us love things like Mouse and Ultimate.

 

[CGM]

Have to laugh how they are doing the work behind black sheeting so we can't get pictures.

It could just be a measure to keep the rain off the concrete while it sets. That said, re-setting the supports of your brand new coaster is not a good look and they may not want the average guest to see what's happening, let alone us lot.

You would hope that Alton would learn a few lessons from this whole saga and start their next major project well in advance of the closed season even if it doesn't take anything like that long to do. However, if the May opening of CBeebies land is anything to go by, they have learned the wrong lesson.

Someone mentioned earlier that all of this would still have happened if The Smiler were a B&M coaster but I'm not so sure.

I'm just speculating but I think that part of the reason that Gerstlauers are so inexpensive compared to other manufacturers are the quick construction times. Fewer days assembling the ride means fewer days that the contractors have to be paid. If you're only scheduling three months to construct the ride when normally you would have five or six, you might assume that you can move work on the footers and landscaping back towards the opening date.

Perhaps in an effort to avoid these kinds of disasters, B&M track can start to go up as much as a year before opening day so the footers have to be ready much earlier. The inaccuracies with the survey would have been identified by then, leaving much more time to sort it out.

I also don't believe that B&M would ever allow this to happen on principle.

Firstly, B&M have built rides all across the world on all sorts of terrain and I have never heard of one having any subsidence issues. They are famously picky about all aspects of their coasters and I reckon that they have an approved list of contractors that they trust rather than allowing the park to employ the cheapest one available.

With Gerstlauer on the other hand, this isn't the first time that this has happened. Saw has famously had issues with its foundations as well. You can take the attitude that it's not Gerstauer's fault as they only make the coaster but they can and should have some element of control over the processes that can literally sink their finished product if things don't go to plan. With engineering on this scale, you can't just take the attitude of "Not my problem mate, I only make the ride."

Even if the problems weren't identified sooner, I doubt that B&M would allow construction to be rushed in the way it was and probably would have made sure that adequate foundations were put in place there and then.

People may continue to absolve Gerstlauer of all blame for the issues with The Smiler but I think they have to accept some responsibility. Being a good coaster manufacturer involves much more than just producing the track and the trains.

 

[GaryH]

I hear what your saying but Gerstlauer would not have been the ones responsible for the initial ground works. It seems the ground may be unstable under parts of the ride, which was the initial reason for the long delays in laying the foundations.

 

[simps100]

Whilst Gerstlauer are far from perfect im not too sure this is much to do with them atall, as far as i know Saw has never had any issues like this and as far as i know its foundations are fine (If anything Swarm has popped more bolts!) it just seems to be this project was riddled with bad luck from the start.