Thorpe Park: General Discussion

[Secret Weapon]

I don't understand why rollercoasters go down so often throughout the day, given that they are inspected each morning

I've never worked at a theme park, but are they mostly just basic error codes rather than serious issues?

I remember hearing that The Smiler will stop if the operator holds the start button for too long (why??) and also if a guest holds the harness down for too long (why?)

I think that a rollercoaster may also flag an error if it runs too fast or slow (maybe this proves that flat rides are more reliable?)

It's a bad idea to generate so many warnings, because it also desensitises staff to more serious issues (years ago, people in a restaurant ignored a serious fire alarm because it was oversensitive and constantly went off anyway)

 

[Steve74]

I don't understand why rollercoasters go down so often throughout the day, given that they are inspected each morning

I've never worked at a theme park, but are they mostly just basic error codes rather than serious issues?

I remember hearing that The Smiler will stop if the operator holds the start button for too long (why??) and also if a guest holds the harness down for too long (why?)

I think that a rollercoaster may also flag an error if it runs too fast or slow (maybe this proves that flat rides are more reliable?)

It's a bad idea to generate so many warnings, because it also desensitises staff to more serious issues (years ago, people in a restaurant ignored a serious fire alarm because it was oversensitive and constantly went off anyway)

The stoppages are not always mechanical or electrical so cannot be blamed on Merlin or the level of maintenance of the rides. Often stoppages are due to guests - being stupid, becoming ill, problems with loading/unloading etc. If someone was sick on Hyperia or The Smiler for example, they don't announce "someone has been sick, we're just cleaning the ride", they close it with the standard wording of "...temporarily ceased operation", the same as when there is an actual breakdown.

Most of the downtime of a ride, isn't usually the actual repairing of it (if its a breakdown) but the waiting for an engineer to get to the ride and then once fixed, doing the couple of cycles the ride needs before it reopens.

People immediately jump to the conclusion that it's the park or ride's fault when quite often, it's nothing to do with that at all.