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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Popped into Thorpe on the way home from holiday on Thursday. Not really sure why, but all queues were massively overstated. 75 minute queue for Nemesis Inferno was 5 minutes consistently, several times straight into bays etc. The only ride to have a fair sized queue was SAW, down to late opening it and it's poor capacity.

The other thing I don't get, operations were hampered by staff having to faff with seatbelts on empty seats, fastening for dispatch then having to go down the train when it arrived at the station to undo them. At Towers, they don't bother so I can't see why they do this when it just causes FAFF.
 
Poisson said:
Popped into Thorpe on the way home from holiday on Thursday. Not really sure why, but all queues were massively overstated. 75 minute queue for Nemesis Inferno was 5 minutes consistently, several times straight into bays etc. The only ride to have a fair sized queue was SAW, down to late opening it and it's poor capacity.

The other thing I don't get, operations were hampered by staff having to faff with seatbelts on empty seats, fastening for dispatch then having to go down the train when it arrived at the station to undo them. At Towers, they don't bother so I can't see why they do this when it just causes FAFF.
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Alton do occasionally do belts on empties!
 
They probably do up belts on empty seats to stop them flying around during the ride. Don't want them damaging anything.
 
SAW appears to have been popular today
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Edit: that's not the queue before opening, that's the queue after opening!
 
Poisson said:
Popped into Thorpe on the way home from holiday on Thursday. Not really sure why, but all queues were massively overstated. 75 minute queue for Nemesis Inferno was 5 minutes consistently, several times straight into bays etc. The only ride to have a fair sized queue was SAW, down to late opening it and it's poor capacity.

The other thing I don't get, operations were hampered by staff having to faff with seatbelts on empty seats, fastening for dispatch then having to go down the train when it arrived at the station to undo them. At Towers, they don't bother so I can't see why they do this when it just causes FAFF.
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Belts on empties is such a silly faff and a time waster.

The time it takes to put them in and take them out every cycle really adds up and damages throughput. I hate when parks do it!
 
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We posed this question on a behind the scenes tour at Busch Gardens Tampa whilst stood atop Sheikra, as they operate a similar policy of belting up an empty train.

The rather bemused response was “these rides cost us a lot of money, and given the fact the buckles can mark the seats and restraints we’d sooner spend a little extra time and take care of the rides.”. They seemed rather surprised that anyone would do it differently :tearsofjoy:

One time I do think it makes perfect, logical sense is if you were sending a train around to test and observe. Part of watching a test train is listening out for any unusual sounds (something which is specifically pointed out in B&M’s service documents). You wouldn’t want a load of metal buckles slapping the metal seat columns and adding more noise to the mix (watch a train go around with the buckles out and when they’re all undone you’ll notice they actually do make a fair bit of clattering!)
 
I think Alton Towers used to insist on all belts being done up. I vaguely remember it being done, although the practice had certainly stopped by 2002.
imanautie said:
I get the impression THORPE do belts just to enforce the routine of check every seat every time, not that it entirely prevents mis checks.
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If checking empty seats is a way of making sure hosts actually do their job, that's a sign you should replace said staff with competent people you can actually trust, and additionally improve supervision as a secondary control measure. The operators should be checking their hosts, rather than daydreaming until the dispatch buttons start flashing.
 
Or on Ninferno, everytime: "All restraints checked, cleared for dispatch" Well never, doesn't need you to tell that when the floor drops and the train bogs off
 
Ian said:
The rather bemused response was “these rides cost us a lot of money, and given the fact the buckles can mark the seats and restraints we’d sooner spend a little extra time and take care of the rides.”. They seemed rather surprised that anyone would do it differently :tearsofjoy:
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That does seem pretty sensible to be fair. Yes the risk of damage is probably low, but why not try to keep the ride in good condition.
 
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