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Towers Loving Care

I miss when they used to do breakfasts first thing in the morning.

Looks good, glad their saying they'll be doing the entire street. First impressions and everything.
 
Might as well rename Towers Street Balamory Street with the amount of bright coloured buildings now.

I doubt the bar will reopen as Merlin seem to focus purely on magical cuts.
 
As much as I love most of retro Alton Towers, Towers Street's exteriors have always been bland. The new paint jobs are tasteful enough and spruce up an otherwise tired area. The street idea is nice and the view down the street beautiful, but the actual facade designs are so limited there's only so much you can do.
 
Fantastic stuff, and the scaffolding around the left set of legs hopefully indicates that they'll also be remedying some of the more noticeable wear on the portions that were refurbished first.
 
I wish they could could some proper greeney on Towers Street, back in he day it used to look really really good.



This promo video from the early 90's shows just how different the park was back then. And Towers street looked fab!
 
Lordy said:
I wish they could could some proper greeney on Towers Street, back in he day it used to look really really good.



This promo video from the early 90's shows just how different the park was back then. And Towers street looked fab!
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H
That’s a great video - certainly brought back some memories

A far happier place than it is now
 
That video is somewhat depressing. Yes there are better coasters at the park today however Alton Towers seemed like a far more fun family day out back then. Just look at all of the entertainment, something that Merlin and Towers management seem to think has no place in a theme park today.

And just look at the state of the gardens then compared to now. That to me says a lot, they used to care about the whole estate, now it is a financial burden.

:)
 
Rob said:
That video is somewhat depressing. Yes there are better coasters at the park today however Alton Towers seemed like a far more fun family day out back then. Just look at all of the entertainment, something that Merlin and Towers management seem to think has no place in a theme park today.

And just look at the state of the gardens then compared to now. That to me says a lot, they used to care about the whole estate, now it is a financial burden.

:)
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So true - I think you said earlier on though now it’s shareholders first customers second .

Something morally wrong about that in an entertainment business and dare I say it the reason the smiler accident happens .
 
JB1985 said:
So true - I think you said earlier on though now it’s shareholders first customers second .

Something morally wrong about that in an entertainment business and dare I say it the reason the smiler accident happens .
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What babble! Smiler was an incredibly tragic incident, I think to trivialise that in any such way is reprehensible.

To address your point directly - creating a scenario whereby visitation and revenue at your flagship property drop into Oblivion is not good for customers or shareholders. Injuring people in one of the most high profile incidents the industry has ever seen is not good for the business or your share price.
 
JB1985 said:
So true - I think you said earlier on though now it’s shareholders first customers second .

Something morally wrong about that in an entertainment business and dare I say it the reason the smiler accident happens .
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I think the horrible incident can't be simplified in that way.

There are many factors to an incident like that. It may of been a factor. However i think it was a small factor.

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onair said:
Some of the commentary from this excellent Alton Towers Memories video should be played in the Merlin Boardroom.



How to run a theme park !
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My god - a clean, fresh looking Towers Street - choc full of a variety of top quality entertainment, and lined with the World Bazaar, the Wedgewood Exhbition (complete with on-hand skilled potter), the Bond Street Boutique selling high-brow goods and even kitted out with a bank and foreign exchange...

Now it's just a crass mess of ugly, garish colours; a monstrosity of an unthemed "gift shop" selling extortionately priced Chinese-manufactured cheap tat and on the other side a row of neglected, empty shopfronts furnished at the end by the serially undermanned and cheaply named Box Office, customarily replete with vile snaking queue of angry, ripped-off customers. What a difference.
 
Alastair said:
My god - a clean, fresh looking Towers Street - choc full of a variety of top quality entertainment, and lined with the World Bazaar, the Wedgewood Exhbition (complete with on-hand skilled potter), the Bond Street Boutique selling high-brow goods and even kitted out with a bank and foreign exchange...

Now it's just a crass mess of ugly, garish colours; a monstrosity of an unthemed "gift shop" selling extortionately priced Chinese-manufactured cheap tat and on the other side a row of neglected, empty shopfronts furnished at the end by the serially undermanned and cheaply named Box Office, customarily replete with vile snaking queue of angry, ripped-off customers. What a difference.
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And we are told things improve!

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Rick said:
What babble! Smiler was an incredibly tragic incident, I think to trivialise that in any such way is reprehensible.
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The accident was found to be the result of a culmination of several negligence factors by Merlin. Notably that engineering departments' pay depends in part on how much downtime there is, combined with the unclear training processes which were heavily criticised in the investigation. Also that adequate CCTV was cut from the project which otherwise would have shown operators the stalled train - on a section that was known to regularly stall with empty trains.

It was no accident, it was an incident in that could have been prevented, although there was no one cause. So it's highly contentious yes, but actually highly within reason (within the H&S world of root cause especially) to state that Merlin were at fault. Which is also what the judge ruled.

It's people like Alton Towers' owner Nick Leslau who continue to state that it was "human error" even after the ruling who are reprehensible, implying no fault on the part of Merlin. That's nonsense, the coaster system was clearly compliant and designed to remove any pure "accidents", and the team that caused the crash were following procedure as best they knew it. Merlin rightly changed their statement earlier and admitted guilt.

Lordy said:
Thanks Merlin for changing that
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Well to be fair it seriously declined before Merlin took over. Merlin have just decided to keep it that way.
 
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