Marc

Out of interest how long did the queue get before they started fully loading both trains? This is somthing which happens on Colossus more than the others because when its quiet and there are a load of empty seats the staff have to go down the train and lift up every bar to the very top (even if no one is sitting there) and I guess with the bars being heavy this can be both slow and quite hard un-needed work so sometimes it does make sense for them to close either some rows or entire trains till the ride has a constant flow. Whilst it may not be the case, what you describe above could also be a result of a technical issue if for what ever reason a train had an issue / was just fixed and needed more test runs, they can open the ride with the good train, and have the second one on the track so it gets the testing it needs but dont totally close the ride. Possibly the biggest issue!

I think the main issue here is between what enthusiasts expect from visiting the park and what the core audience expect. I used to go on dead days and would re-ride rides as much as I could all day, they were walk on and it was great, obviously there are now way fewer days like that partly because of the parks popularity has increased and partly because rides are on one train. Its worth noting on the "off peak" days the park will and do increase capacity if they are of the opinion it needs to be done, and thats probably where our opinions differ with theirs. To us (I speak for my self), on a dead day I dont really want to queue 30 mins for inferno / swarm, to the GP (who queue 2 hour plus for rides on the busier days!) 30 mins is probably perfectly reasonable. The park do listen to feedback and if the feedback was often negative on off-peak days regarding queue times on the coasters I'm pretty confident they would improve this. Have renamed the topic as this isnt really about fastrack!: )

I do see your point, but then I do think they make up for this in other customer service they offer, for instance there was a day The Swarm had issues and was due to be closed all day, park wide announcements informed guests they will be given complementary tickets, and when the part arrived it was quickly fitted and the ride managed to open around 4:30 or so on a 5pm close, they once again did a park wide announcement informing eveyone it had opened, they extended park hours and everyone still got comp tickets, which is imo an example of great customer service. Regarding the trains, this is kind of what they do though but in reverse, ride opens on a capacity which is reasonable to the parks predicted gate figure, if for what ever reason the ride needs more capacity (higer gate/ ride issues) the second train can be out and open within 10 mins. I think the real issue here is what people on here think is an acceptable queue on these days, and what thorpe do.

100% agree with this, would solve most issues they have with things on 1 train. I'm sure if other visitors to Thorpe agree this will show up on its KPI's and they will do somthing to tackle this. Disagree they never grasp the concept though, the amount of times theyve extended park hours/ opened early this year even when its not really needed goes down a treat with guests.

To be fair on Monday there was probably enough staff to run rides on 2 trains if needed. To be fair over Fright nights quite often they opened at 9:30 and closed at 10, stealth was still going round at 10:30 or somthing on sunday with staff! Although this is probably not so much of a reason as they did manage it before Fair enough

The hydraulics were installed for reliability more than speed I beleave, if anything there abit slower

Whilst its a nice idea its quite an expensive way to do things, to be fair its only Colossus effected by a broken train but thats not somthing what happens very often. Stealth was running 2 trains the night before and running till 10:30 the so I'm sure the trains were fine My friends who went to towers on the sunday (fireworks) said by the end of the day (when I expect the queues would be more like thorpes were all day) Air was running one station with a train starting to be stripped, similar thing to what thorpe were doing but thorpe did it all day because it was so dead. I'm sure you know from working at a park, if we take inferno for instance, it probably peaked at 30 mins or so at the busiest part of the day, for no longer than an hour, for the rest of the day it was walk on, if inferno had been on 2 trains all day it would of avoided that "peak" queue, but they would of been sending around pretty much empty trains alot of the day Dont get me wrong, id love things on 2 trains every day even when there are no queues to get on more, but I can see why there not. I'm not sure it can save that much money even really?

Samurai and Slammer show they do care IMO. Monday was the first time Slammers actually ran on the final day of the season. Maybe not but its nothing new, I remember rush swings being taken apart one year after a shutdown and they couldn't fix it that day I dont really think queues warranted 2 trains, the only rides what I saw get a queue were inferno and swarm at probably no more than 30 mins each at the peak of the day, apart from that they and everything else was pretty much walk on

Or, more likely the gate figure didn't warrant 2 trains so it gave the engineers an opertunity to get a head start with closed season work and could start stripping the trains? I'm not saying thorpe are perfect at everything they do, but they are certainly not as bad as made out here somtimes. And yes they sold fastrack to those who wanted to buy it, but it wasnt really needed so its really down to the people who did buy it and if a 20 min queue is to long for them, the option was there.

I did feel the judder when I rode it a couple of weeks back but when I rode it Monday it seemed fine. Not that it matters as alot of it will be taken apart now!

Based on theming / length / story lines its Scarefest Based on intenseness and scares its Fright Nights

To be fair I think if enough people complain (not just the few moans from here) they will change somthing. The parks do take feedback seriously and have kpi targets to hit and I imagine a bulk of complaints would possibly work against them in this resulting in questions being asked.

The park very often opened at 9:30 during the weekends / school holidays anyway. ERT would be nice though!

I'm surprised theyve not put Fright nights back to 10, or atleast some of them. Many of the dates were actually extended till 10pm anyway.

I guess its because its still showing this years november, I'm sure it will be open for a week or so in november.

Link added

http://www.thorpepark.com/plan-your-visit/opening-times.aspx - Open times already out for next year, much the same as this year although there are no more 5pm weekend closes (not that they ever did this year anyway!)

It's somthing we are looking to do, you can find the ride audio for its fright night years under each ride

Just to point out the park was busy last night, fastrack had sold out on some rides so it obviously isn't unlimited and the park also extended hours to 10 pm

What id like to see for 2013: 1. If the xnwo retheme is true, make sure it's done properly, it's looking very run down at the mo. 2. Fix music across the park, fix the hi pitched stuff, please lose the chart music on park (apart from for events) 3. Fix up the effects on Colossus / inferno. Would be nice to see the water tower working at tidal wave again and the entrance sign 3. Tlc across the park, repaint lost theming like the police barriers at tidal wave, the majority of the queue lines need repairing / repainting too 4. Reopen fastrack points across the park, the one at inferno is under too much pressure on busy days causing huge queues

Ian set up the live feed on tpm, it didnt work very well for a few reasons (iPhone 3GS! / Batttery / Rubbish camera, Bad signal etc) It was coded by Ian from nothing, its nothing to do with the Towers Nerd system.

From reading through the topic its been geting worse at alton for a while though not just the first Saturday of half term.... It depends what you class as failing really dont it, because if fastrack was as bad as people made out people would vote with their feet and simply not buy it, but they do so some people must like it.

http://www.towersstreet.com/talk/general-discussion/fastrack-farce/msg29659/?boardseen#new - Seems towers are catching up quickly enough. To put into perspective Fastrack over the last 2 years probably paid for the swarm, aslong as people are willing to pay merlin will be willing to sell. Obviously id like it if there was none atall, but IMO its just a way of life and how things in this world seem to work now everywhere

But the point is those who have paid more for a premium service will get priority over those who havent, and those who havent service may be affected by those who have because to the company the one with the more cash are more important.

An example of this can be seen at airports where they offer security fastrack, if the fastrack queue is busy they will push more of them through so they are waiting less time, resulting is less scanners being available for those in the normal queue making it longer. I too dont really agree with it, but its a problem in most things it seems now.