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Wicker Man - General Discussion - Part Two

I’d heard that something has gone bang on the ride basically. Not sure what, or how reliable it is, but it might be out for the season. The ride was stuck on the lift hill, and Alton only ever put “closed today” on rides that are down for a while, not just one day. Of course, there’s always chance that this issue could be fixed in the next couple of days
 
Wouldn’t they need to move the train in order to have full access to the chain? I’m no expert so I have no idea. Maybe they’ll have to winch it down manually?
 
Ciaran said:
Wouldn’t they need to move the train in order to have full access to the chain? I’m no expert so I have no idea. Maybe they’ll have to winch it down manually?
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Can't winch it down because of the anti-rollbacks. Only way would be to winch it up and let it run back to the station.
 
If it's a chain sprocket that's gone, (likely given where it is stuck) you should be able to replace it with the train in place. I've seen it done on another coaster before. It might not be possible on this specific model, but then again it might be. I am not familiar with Wickermans specific lift equipment setup.

The anti rollbacks will be holding the train, not the chain, so there will be no train related tension on the chain, as the train will have fell back onto the rollbacks when it stopped, taking the train caused tension away, thus making it a relatively simple replacement, as the untensioned chain be taken off the sproket. As simple as replacing sprockets go anyway.
 
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Danscott22 said:
I wonder if they have what they need to get it fixed in time
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Yeah if they had to order a new sprocket then it would definitely be down for the rest of the season. Let's hope tech services have a spare in storage!

Edit: lo and behold, it's closed today.

Screenshot_20221030-093920-259.png
 
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The other Merlin parks have recently added a “ride availability” page to their website. Chessington had a lot of downtime on Vampire a couple of weeks ago and it provided up to date information to manage expectations.

Alton towers don’t have this page. Although it’s hard to find on the website it is useful to have it if they are expecting downtime of their most popular ride.

Hope they can sort it ASAP. Did it at scarefest in the dark and it was incredible. Going again for fireworks so I hope it’s open for everyone’s sake.
 
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