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Towers Loving Care

Alsty said:
You don't need to keep hydraulics pressurised. I would imagine when you pull the harness down you're just moving the liquid from one cylinder to another via a 'check valve' (one way). Add some sensors and an electric solenoid to release the check valve in the station, duplicate the whole thing for redundancy, job done.
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Literally the first fundamental of hydraulics is using pressurised liquids. In fact the definition is : 'denoting or relating to a liquid moving in a confined space under pressure.'

Hydraulics harnesses the power and the way liquids behave when under pressure. In fact, literally the only reason you would use a check valve would be to keep a liquid at a different pressure to the liquid at the other side of the valve. The forklift I mentioned, keeping the forks in the air with tonnes of weight on. That is done with a check valve keeping a very high pressure in the hydraulic rams. With the check valve making sure the extremely high pressure fluid does not escape into the low pressure reservoir, as then the forks with the weight on, would lower to ground level.

Having no valve would allow the pressure between each side of the valve to even out, mitigating the need for hydraulics in the first place. You also don't need a power source to keep a liquid under pressure, once it is pressurised. That's what check valves help to achieve. Power could be from a number of sources and not just an electric pump.

Slightly moving off topic, I apologise.
 
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Alsty said:
On my last visit I walked past one of those queue time screens at about 10 o'clock. I watched some people look at the sign and then proclaim "Oh, Nemesis and Galactica are closed today".

I wonder at what point in the day they realised it was open, and I doubt they were the only ones.

If Alton Towers are going to have staggered ride openings then they should consider changing the signs to say "Opens at 11" (or whenever) instead of just "Closed"
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The only place I saw where they mentioned the staggered openings was on a board near the towers street skyride station, it’s nowhere near as prominent as it should be. If this is something they plan to stick with for the whole season then they should at least have some sort of board near the turnstiles so people can be made aware on their way in.
 
danni87 said:
The only place I saw where they mentioned the staggered openings was on a board near the towers street skyride station, it’s nowhere near as prominent as it should be. If this is something they plan to stick with for the whole season then they should at least have some sort of board near the turnstiles so people can be made aware on their way in.
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And add an extra page/screen to the electronic info boards around the park.

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I think saying "Closed" on the queue time board leaves a bad impression. They should reserve this for ride close, or when a ride will be out of action all day.

For delayed openings they should say "Opens at xx" and for downtime they should say "Back soon" (this is something they do at Chessie). It reads much more positively
 
Brad97 said:
The Smiler is the only Infinity coaster with OTSRs. The rest all have lap bars, and they all invert.

I can't embed a photo right now, but Gerstlauer had a model of The Smiler's layout with the lap bar trains at IAAPA a couple of years ago. So I think The Smiler could definitely have lap bars.
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I posted a while back now about the OTSR/lapbar discussion regarding The Smiler and this is what I posted:



Just watch from 4:10 onwards till about 5 mins. As you hear from the bloke from Gerstlauer, Eurofighters cannot be adapted to have just lapbar restraints if the have OTSR currently due to the excess weight of the housing for the lapbar section which is interesting. I know he said Eurofighter, but I would imagine it would be the same for Infinity rides - so if it isn't originally built and designed with lapbar trains then there is no chance of them ever having them due to the excess weight and unknown forces/stress to the track.

Just thought that might clear somethings up. :)
 
evilcod said:
Tower of Terror would be a definite exception with them being the only form of restraint :p
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DiogoJ42 said:
That's ride that needs proper restraints instead. ;)
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I'm pretty certain Tower of Terror (in Florida at least) used to have a lap bar restraint for the row of 3/4 seats. But of course that would only fit to the largest person in the row, meaning children got a lot more air time than their parents. I assume that is the main reason they switched from a row bar to individual seat belts.
 
Interesting. I'd like to see it return for Scarefest, but I'm not too hopeful if I'm honest. They could be discussing anything in that picture.
 
Benjsh said:
Get rid of the drop sequence all together and convert the ride into an Alien Encounter ride that was once at Disney. That would be great.
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Could easily have that style of attraction running year round. High capacity seating could be put in, the effects reworked a bit and stick a seasonal maze on at the end and you have yourself a winner.


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