Marc

I think a boat would be somthing whats nice more than anything I guess Anyway today marks the start of work for The Crash Pad! And we all now how much people love pictures of dirt moving around so here's one taken this morning Please no stealing !

^ I guess, but by the sounds of it 3 years is much more permanent than anything else snoozebox have done so *hopefully* there will be some thorpness about them somwhere!

I'm pretty sure they are just going to be grey, thats what I read in the plans anyway, but as said I'm sure they will do their best to make them look presentable.

Colossus (5) Detonator (5) Logger's Leap (5) Nemesis Inferno (7) Rush (5) Samurai (4) Stealth (5) The Swarm (6) Tidal Wave (4) X:/No Way Out (4) Colossus +1 X -1

Colossus (5) Depth Charge (2) Detonator (6) Flying Fish (5) Logger's Leap (5) Nemesis Inferno (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (7) Stealth (5) The Swarm (6) Tidal Wave (5) X:/No Way Out (4) Depth Charge -1 Colossus +1

Where: London Waterloo - Under the clock: Date:Saturday 5th January 2013 Time: 10:00am Following the poll, Saturday 5th January 2013 was the favoured date so we will arrange the meet on this day The plan will be to meet at London Waterloo at around 10:00am on the lower level of the station under the clock where we usually meet, from there we can catch the tube to do Tussauds and the Dungeon's, which I expect will be many peoples last chance before they move in March! From there we can head back towards Waterloo, do the eye and those who want to we can also head over to Winter Wonderland. Of course meals will fit in in-between the activities! Please drop me a PM to confirm your attendance! Attending (10 + 1): Dan9 Jaymie Luke Mark9 Mer Mia-Louise Peaj Pluk (+1) Tommy Turtle

I think all the Merlin parks are exactly the same to be fair, maybe all in different ways but they all show a possible lack of budgets what they really need (Alton with awful open times, Thorpe with things like this and CWOA's just general lack of investment) Agree with this, whilst I dont think loggers needs a huge amount of refurbishment (the ride generally works quite well and looks fine too) things like this are really frustrating if the tunnel does need work and the answer to it is to just remove it.

Agree with all what has been said, I can see that it needs to come down, I guess all structures like that will eventually fail, but I dont see why they cant rebuild it... if they really wanted to

It had an awful lot of downtime I cant see thorpe getting it... hope not anyway!

I'm guessing that one abit more temporary than 3 years, I hope they make more effort than that!

Hmm I'm not so sure, Saw was sending cars around in December, this isnt even vertical yet. Lets just hope this dont suffer from the issues Saw did during testing... otherwise I cant see it being anywhere near ready ;\

As most of you will know we've been searching high and low to welcome some new members to the team here at TPM and we are pleased we have finally got there! Firstly Sheepie and Neil are no longer part of the team due to other commitments out side of the forum, we thank you both for your efforts! Joining us on the team are Peter (Pluk) and Tommy! We had a number of great applications and trust me, it wasn't easy but we're confident we've made the right choices and hope you join us in welcoming them to the team! Thanks Marc

I think there will be a new bigger on there

I do disagree with this, maybe to somone whos travled the world that the case, but to a group of mates looking for a day out I expect the majority of the rides are pretty decent and memorable for them.

Its hard to disagree with any of that, whilst ive argued in defence of the park, obviously the way alton do it is the way it should be dont for maximum guest satisfaction and be it down to budgets or staffing unfortunately it dont happen often at thorpe. I think over the next few years we will see the infrastructure at thorpe catch up abit, with the Crash Pad opening the park will suddenly be a 24 hour operation and I'm confident they can catch up with alton in regards to how things are run, if merlin support them.

Obviously, thats not what I was saying, but if you ask a guest if they think a 30/40 min queue is reasonable for the rides, I expect most would say yes.... And anyway if it was to get much longer they would bring the second train out, just really wasnt needed on the last day of season. I'm not saying they I like one train on rides, obviously like everyone id rather 2, but if the majority of guests who visit are not bothered then thorpe will continue to run rides on 1 train till its busy enough to run 2.

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.