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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

rob666 said:
Some of us are not booking trips because of the skyride closure.
Some of us are not buying passes decause of the skyride closure.
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Which is fair if you're more dependant on it. That's why Alton has been open about why it's closed (finding that it required an unexpectedly large refurb)

Sazzle said:
A bit of root cause analysis might be helpful as, in theory, this should have been identified during testing and steps taken to mitigate and remove the cause. I saw mention in a post above about soft openings - definitely not a bad shout. There’s clearly something very different about running it “live” than cycling with water dummies that created this issue and could have been spotted earlier.
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I suppose if the first indication is a sound, you're not going to know about it until there's people on board to hear it. By which point it's probably too late.
A longer test period with dummies probably would have avoided the situation they now have, assuming the same breakage would have happened.
 
You can test something for as long as possible, even beyond the standard ratios/hours, and it can still break down once in constant use.

To say it hasn't been tested "properly" is pure assumption and given the recent spotlight on theme park safety would be absolutely idiotic for any park to do.


I've noticed that they've attempted to placate the RAP users online by suggesting just to re-book. Which isn't as simple as before when weekends are getting blocked up. We've been offered a "just turn up and show your booking for the 25th even if its fully booked" but unsure if thats been extended to others.
 
Well done sir, saved me pointing out the fact that Alton have not been open about the repairs at all.
And they have not been timely, they would have been timely if the repairs had been done a couple of years ago.
Off topic, same circles, shut up Rob.
 
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If it is a case of a part breaking, or wear and tear, then it would likely have happened at some point regardless of how long it tested/operated for. And if said parts need replacing, which seems to be the case as this downtime is prolonged, then you're not ever going to avoid this period of inaction (whether that be during testing or when it should be open). Thorpe are no doubt asking questions of Mack here.

As for whether we should get an explanation of exactly what's happened, Thorpe Park have no obligation to provide us with this. In fact, when does any theme park ever explain exactly what has gone wrong with one of their rides? Hardly ever. Top Thrill 2 is down, there are rumours of what's happened by Cedar Point have not and will not say. Steel Curtain is closed all season for various modifications, Kennywood have not said exactly what these are or why they need to be made and they will not.

Taking a step back a minute, I mean to address throughputs in my initial Hyperia post. To put it simply, not good enough. It was getting around 600pph on Friday, way short of the around 1,000pph it should be getting. I think dispatches can be improved over time, but not to the extent that it's going to give them an extra 400pph. Baggage is likely one of the main factors in why it will never achieve its theoretical throughput. A pity, as 600-800pph is not really adequate for the headline attraction at Thorpe Park.
 
Rob said:
Taking a step back a minute, I mean to address throughputs in my initial Hyperia post. To put it simply, not good enough. It was getting around 600pph on Friday, way short of the around 1,000pph it should be getting. I think dispatches can be improved over time, but not to the extent that it's going to give them an extra 400pph. Baggage is likely one of the main factors in why it will never achieve its theoretical throughput. A pity, as 600-800pph is not really adequate for the headline attraction at Thorpe Park.
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I’ll admit that this is less than I’d hoped for.

As well as baggage, another interesting factor to consider is the speed at which it returns to the station after the brake run. I don’t know if you noticed this @Rob, but apparently, it returns to the station very slowly, which sometimes results in quite a bit of idle time between trains. If they could speed up the return speed to the station, then perhaps that would boost the throughput a little?
 
It does return slowly from the brakes to the station, yes. Although I do not think that the dispatches were good enough overall on Friday for this to be making much of a difference. If they can improve dispatches though then yes, it would be better if it did not take as long for the train to return.
 
Jb85 said:
Not the right topic but there was nothing unexpected about this refurb. Poor maintenance led to this.
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Unexpected as in; they were intending for it to run this year, as evidenced by the freshly jazzed up stations, before they found they needed way more TLC, and put out an explainer/ apology about it. We know Alton has suffered poor management over the past decade, which thankfully seems to be turning around now.

I'm not really sure why it was brought up in relation to Hyperias current PR nightmare
 
A few thoughts:
- Mack/TP are going to tell you no tech details. It would hammer Mack's reputation. My (initial) and current guess is it's a re-design of a part that wasn't man enough for continued load. There's not a lot you can get wrong on a lift hill design... Hence my doubt they did full "endurance/stress tests" and inspection following
- throughput. Many US coasters/attractions are designed with max throughput in mind. E.g.
* free lockers for the ride, so you arrive with no baggage (and if you have any, you are sent back to the lockers).
* separate dispatch/offload stations (almost always at Disney). Especially with no track blocks, it means a train is ready to go immediately (one on the lift hill, one loading, one unloading). Plus you can send it up the lift early, with the option to hold it if there's an issue with the train on the track.
Why they didn't do this for Hyperia I have no idea. Works great for Stealth.

Will be keeping an eye out for when it opens as only 30 mins from TP. If it's after half-term, foot traffic will be a lot lighter!
 
The wanting a video or information about what’s happened is a strange one because Merlin on the whole wouldn’t do it but this year Thorpe rebranded into this honest, upfront & unapologetically authentic brand.

Up until now they have stayed true to their new brand and I think that’s why those on socials are expecting proper information from them.
 
They will never give complete details as they have to consider the reputation of the manufacturer as well as their own.

We will never know for sure but the testing phase was very short compared to other rides. I’m certain it was enough to stress test safety critical systems but the more load testing you can do before opening the more likely any faulty parts will manifest in the testing phase (remembers parts don’t have to fail due to faulty design, sometimes micro-weaknesses are in a part during manufacture which only show once you put it to the test). I never went to Thorpe during early May but they never seemed to be just banging trains out one after the other for prolonged periods of time which other coasters do during testing.

But that’s a complete guess on my part.
 
I don’t think they need to do a long video explaining all the problems. Just something short with one of the managers saying something like, ‘This ride is perfectly fine. This ride is perfectly fine. Move along, there’s nothing to see. This ride is perfectly fine’.
 
Smiley said:
My (initial) and current guess is it's a re-design of a part that wasn't man enough for continued load.
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watch ryan the ride mechanics video, he suspects the return sprockets, and thinks that there may have been a prblem when it was heat treated, this is a possible reason.
The reason parts are heat treated is complex but simply put: you can buy grades of steel, typically the harder the grade the less it wears and the higher stress it can take, but the more brittle it becomes and the harder it is to machine, typically with faces that are being worked like gears we use a softer metal and cut out the shape, then heat treat just the outside this gives a "skin" of hard material that won't wear quickly but also keeps a core of softer more tough material to resist the shock that may be experience.
this would mean eventually if it wasn't hardened right it would start wearing more than expected and this process normally speeds up as it wears.

Smiley said:
There's not a lot you can get wrong on a lift hill design... Hence my doubt they did full "endurance/stress tests" and inspection following
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have you designed lift hills? it may not seem like a challenging thing to design but there are many components that need to work properly and an issue with one component that wears faster than expected would be hard to catch and if it wears, so that after 200 runs it is noticable but you only test 150 how much do you test? it is easy to say after the fact I would test it 200 times, but that is not what these test amounts are based off.
 
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