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Was at Towers yesterday. It was also the day where a large number of the traveller community visit. All in, it wasn't a bad visit. Certainly better than my summer visit. But between Rita being closed (apparently waiting on a part) and Nemesis being on one train (apparently engineers need to do some addition work to it), Th13teen being temperamental, staggered openings, no Skyride, etc, it wasn't exactly a good visit either. Hex has certainly seen interesting changes. Broadly speaking, it's all a bit too light, and lacking in subtlety. The branch in the main show sequence is lit in what is best described as green Christmas lights for the whole ride, which I found distracting, and the ending has loads of little white lights across the whole room, which is a bit...eh. The park are really limping through to the end of season. I didn't visit until May, so I can't comment on what it was like at the start of the season, but I do wonder if Nemesis' opening disguised some of shortcomings Towers had anyway this season, and the season has really just taken its toll.

Sold out day today!

For anyone interested in Vampire and Bubble Works in their old days, I'm currently attempting to recreate the interiors in 3D for a book on Sparks, the studio that created them. Also the Alton Towers Haunted House (see the Duel topic). This after sadly most the photo archives on the two classic rides (when they were first built) were destroyed by a fire some years ago. To raise funds to recreate the missing scenes to a photo-realistic standard, from all the original production records and plans, I'm doing a Kickstarter campaign this month. It would be brilliant if anybody wanted to contribute, if we beat the target the recreation will be able to go ahead. For more information on the book see the Kickstarter video on the link!

Here on park today. It is very very busy. Got on the first train of the day for hyperia for it to break down when we were on the break run after our ride. The train in the station was then sent into the maintenance shed not to be seen again; still running one train now and boasting a 200 minute queue. Glad I got my ride early!