Leaderboard

Station organ audio is back and some audio added to the lifthill too. The most welcome change however is that the Swarm vests no longer lock at dispatch, making for a far more comfortable ride. This brings it in line with more modern B&M Wing Riders.

For anyone who's interested, I managed to time various ride throughputs on my visits to Alton Towers yesterday and today. The throughput readings I managed to attain are as follows: Galactica (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains/2 stations): 871pph (3 trains/2 stations, 24th March 2024, average of 10) Nemesis Reborn (Theoretical: 1,400pph on 2 trains): 1,301pph (2 trains, 23rd March 2024, average of 8 ) Oblivion (Theoretical: 1,900pph on 7 shuttles/2 stations): 1,146pph (5 shuttles/2 stations, 24th March 2024, average of 7) Rita (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains): 394pph (1 train, 23rd March 2024, average of 5), 357pph (1 train, 24th March 2024, average of 8 ) Runaway Mine Train (Theoretical: 1,061pph on 1 train): 473pph (1 train, 23rd March 2024, average of 4) Note: The back car was missing, so the 473pph figure, which assumed a full train of 46, would have been more like 432pph in reality due to the train actually only carrying 42 riders as opposed to the usual 46. The average dispatch interval was 5m 49s, for reference. Wicker Man (Theoretical: 952pph on 3 trains): 829pph (2 trains, 23rd March 2024, average of 8), 770pph (2 trains, 24th March 2024, average of 8 ) I also have a few other side observations and insights to offer: Operations on Nemesis Reborn were noticeably slower today than they were yesterday. Yesterday's operations, listed above, saw dispatch intervals of 90s or less and little to no stacking, with a train often being dispatched as the one in front of it was still completing the course. Today, however, dispatch intervals of no faster than 2 minutes were being attained and stacking was routine. I'm not sure what the difference was, but today's operations were notably slower. I was unable to get a proper timing, but a brief attempt I made at timing saw a dispatch interval of over 2 minutes being attained, and I'd say that this was quite par for the course for the time I was in the queue. Pretty much every train I saw stacked outside the station for a notable period. For some perspective, I waited 60 minutes from the gun for my ride yesterday, while I queued 50 minutes from a little before the Phalanx shipping container lab for my ride today. The Smiler looked as though it might have been running 4 trains today, but I wasn't sure. I say this because the ride was often attaining perfect duelling, which I wouldn't imagine is possible on only 3 trains! I noticed that the intervals on Galactica appeared to be pretty inconsistent when I was doing the timing above. The intervals appeared to range between 80s and over 3 minutes!

The Big One by far. The way it whips round to the right is always a bit terrifying. But Hyperia could take the best first drop.