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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Sometimes, even with a magical shovel, you have to stop digging šŸ˜± It's not so much of having a marginal operating window.... It's a design failure - simple. Don't design a near stall if that can translate into a full stall/rollback/valley. If only there were an example of where this might occur and hot to mitigate it... Oh - STEALTH.

If I were a Merlin lawyer, I'd be demanding a full refund.
 
And then what's the point of a near-stall element - that no longer near-stalls??? In any case, wheels are so 20th century...! The Shinkansen doesn't have wheels and goes a hell of a lot faster!

And before anyone says "you can't have a Maglev coaster".....
 
Smiley said:
And then what's the point of a near-stall element - that no longer near-stalls??? In any case, wheels are so 20th century...! The Shinkansen doesn't have wheels and goes a hell of a lot faster!

And before anyone says "you can't have a Maglev coaster".....
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Several parts of the Shinkansen network do have traditional steel wheels, with limited parts being Maglev.
 
Poisson said:
Several parts of the Shinkansen network do have traditional steel wheels, with limited parts being Maglev.
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Itā€™s less than limited; itā€™s none. One line is under construction and the maglev test line exists (not in passenger use) but thatā€™s it. Planned opening 2034.

On topic - I agree with those commenting on its narrow window of operation. If a ride canā€™t reliably operate in the average UK weather, it really shouldnā€™t have been built at all. See also the woodies built in Florida - the climate makes them an absolute pain to operate and maintain, hence very few of them have been built and those that were have been sufficient enough pains to result in substantive modifications (Mine Blower got 208 RetraK, Iron Gwazi is a full RMC, White Lightning has been extensively titan tracked and Coastersaurus is a family coaster).
 
Haven't done Iron Gwazi yet (did Gwazi before closing and it was a headbanger!). Twisted Colossus (RMC) is awesome! And has a first drop similar (but taller) to the Nash in the second drop. I'd love a RMC Nash.
 
I kinda assumed designs were simulated like crazy before a design was finalised these days. If it's so picky about running conditions, you'd have thought something would have shown up during that.
 
Leigh said:
Itā€™s less than limited; itā€™s none. One line is under construction and the maglev test line exists (not in passenger use) but thatā€™s it. Planned opening 2034.

On topic - I agree with those commenting on its narrow window of operation. If a ride canā€™t reliably operate in the average UK weather, it really shouldnā€™t have been built at all. See also the woodies built in Florida - the climate makes them an absolute pain to operate and maintain, hence very few of them have been built and those that were have been sufficient enough pains to result in substantive modifications (Mine Blower got 208 RetraK, Iron Gwazi is a full RMC, White Lightning has been extensively titan tracked and Coastersaurus is a family coaster).
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it can run in average weather reliably though, i really think people are just over stating the problem, the amount of down time due to weather is quite small people are just over stating the problem, if it was down more than 10-20% of the time due to weather I would agree, but it isn't it runs fine, it is just the odd couple percentage of the time when it can't run.

you are saying about how It ReAllY ShoUlDn't HavE beEn bUIlt but I can give the exact same analysis for a majority of the rides in florida. Florida it is very common to have storms, this leads to high down time as the out door rides have to wait until the storm has passed, I could say about how all out door rides shouldn't have been built (that problem is far worse than hyperias wether issues) they should have built all of their rides indoors, etc, but that dosn't make the rides as fun, as I said previously it is a trade off, they want near stall elements, they have a chance of stalling that makes the rides more fun (as having them outdoors dose) but increases the chance of a stall.

Mykeprime said:
I kinda assumed designs were simulated like crazy before a design was finalised these days. If it's so picky about running conditions, you'd have thought something would have shown up during that.
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they are simulated, but you have to realise that all simulations are mathematical models and never 100% accurate, for instance if you are simulating combustion in a cylinder using something like 2 zone table combustion you aren't actually simulating the air in the cylinder, nor the turbulence, nor the mixture you are assuming it is a sphere of burning gas and non burned gas, this is accurate enough to compare but isn't going to be accurate compared to the engine (thus a simulation has to be tuned)

there are a lot of assumptions they are assuming the wheels are preloaded to x,y,z the bearings are greased so they have x resistance, they are using wheels with rolling resistance with x, wind of x, etc.
you can't simulate it without these assumptions as they are required numbers, and you can't get exact numbers because you don't have the ride made.
 
flyingguitar said:
there are a lot of assumptions they are assuming the wheels are preloaded to x,y,z the bearings are greased so they have x resistance, they are using wheels with rolling resistance with x, wind of x, etc.
you can't simulate it without these assumptions as they are required numbers, and you can't get exact numbers because you don't have the ride made.
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Computing power is cheap and easy to rent, so you can run a LOT of variants to take into account tolerances, temperatures, wind, etc. If you want to design to small margins (like a near stall) don't be surprised if you get bitten. I like the design - but I'm not going to defend the designers when the problem is literally in the name!

Am at TP on Monday - the winds and temps look fine, and I carry plenty of ballast to increase the train weight!
 
Back of house related but interesting Thorpe Park has recently installed a Scada system to centrally monitor the control systems of 8 rides. Looks like itā€™s required a site wide fibre network installed.

It will be interesting to see if Alton does something similar, although it would be considerably more difficult getting fibre across Alton given its size. And if theyā€™d like any help please feel free to reach out

3fd201d33ed374b7e9e5bd24972c2f9f.jpg
 
Smiley said:
Computing power is cheap and easy to rent, so you can run a LOT of variants to take into account tolerances, temperatures, wind, etc. If you want to design to small margins (like a near stall) don't be surprised if you get bitten. I like the design - but I'm not going to defend the designers when the problem is literally in the name!

Am at TP on Monday - the winds and temps look fine, and I carry plenty of ballast to increase the train weight!
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you really haven't ever had to run a simulation.

I have had to code my own simulation, they are extremely complex operations (for a relatively simple FEA depending on the type and how it is done, using the basic method it essentially equates to finding the inverse of a matrix (if I recall correctly) this could easily by millions of elements long, on top of that you need to generate the matrix (which is very complex in its self) and that will result in a very basic simulation.

i'll put it this way, an I9, 13th gen and rtx 3080 when simulating a 1D single cylinder petrol engine (1D meaning we essentially simplify all of the piping to an assumed equation and ignore the space) it took over 10 mins to generate 5 seconds of data... and that was a heavily simplified model ignoring the effects of the transmission and only simulating one cylinder.

what they probably have is probably a system where they can input variables on the train (rolling resistance, drag coefficient, friction coefficient etc) and then run the simulation from those values, those values will be calculated from either other simulations (e.g CFD) or hand calculations, only a few things being calculated to reduce the computing power

you still have to realise though that they are essentially assumptions though, all modelling is assumptions, you are assuming the part is made correctly, on a track with few bumps, they don't know how straight or bumpy the track will be when made there will be losses that haven't been accounted for and thus they will have to determine a safety factor.

besides, I really don't think the issue is that bad, and thus can't really be a design flaw. if it was going down every week or something due to high wind then fair point, but it isn't down nearly that often due to weather.
 
flyingguitar said:
besides, I really don't think the issue is that bad, and thus can't really be a design flaw.
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Keep digging.
The vast majority of punters on here really seem to disagree with you though.
Nothing to do with simulations or input variables, more to do with a very short rollercoaster not making it around all the track.
The ride now has a reputation for poor reliability.
Mainly because it isn't actually reliable...flawed by design.
 
Ash said:
Looks like itā€™s required a site wide fibre network installed.

It will be interesting to see if Alton does something similar, although it would be considerably more difficult getting fibre across Alton given its size. And if theyā€™d like any help please feel free to reach out
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Both Thorpe and Alton will already have full site-wide fibre networks in place for their IT systems, with plenty of existing dark fibres which can be (or in the case of Thorpe have been) used for new systems
 
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