Ian-S

Yes I know what you mean.

It's fair enough, I don't profess to know everything so if you guys say he was an engineer then he was, I just thought it curious he was the same guy who had been operating the ride for the hour previously and was still there at 9.30 (they took the train off around half seven). Oddly though, it will be very interesting to find out just exactly what did happen at Alton as I think you'll find your faith that a ride operator wouldn't know how to do something is very much misplaced.

Did you miss the bit where I said they were all working on Stealth? One person came down from the Swarm control room, pushed a few buttons, took the train off, came back from engineering a few minutes later, returned to the control room and sent the remaining train round once to test it, then let us on. He was still there 2 hours later in the control room pushing the two buttons to launch the ride, so I guess he was an engineer moonlighting as a ride op then yes?

Pure speculation here, assuming that the accident was caused by an engineer overriding a safety feature, I've always wondered whether the engineer was aware of how many cars were on the ride, they had made multiple visits to the ride earlier in the morning for problems and according to all accounts, the ride operators decided to add another car to speed up the throughput because the queue was long. So, last time the engineer came there were 4 cars, the time there were 5 but he didn't know, looked at everything, counted three cars in the station, one stuck on the lift hill and thought oh this dam ride is on it's monthly again, just restart it. My belief in this scenario was further endorsed at Thorpe on Friday when they took at car off the Swarm, there wasn't an engineer in sight, just the ride operator who came down from the control room to take the car off then went back up and restarted the ride (took all of 4 minutes), the engineers were over at Stealth fixing it. There used to be a saying 'assumptions are dangerous' but I always see people basing decisions/actions on assumptions nowadays.

11-5 would be better as by closing at 4 they're missing out on the after school visits. Sometimes I wonder if the people running the parks actually realise the demographics of their visitors.

Merlin don't even own Thorpe Park (or for that matter Alton Towers nor Warwick Castle) they lease them from Nick Leslau.

Newspapers and accuracy aren't usually words used in the same sentence. Pretty sure I read the bolt landed on a roof top then rolled off into the public area, that's a little different what he hysterical click baiting fear porn headlines make out. It's concerning yes, but not that concerning.

Probably from one of the support pillars, no need to panic Mr Mannering, there's another 15 to go before it falls apart.

Playground chatter before the Summer hols indicated most parents round here had banned their kids (those young enough to not speak back) from going on Rollercoasters after the Smiler, most of you are old enough to be able to make your own decision so may not understand, but Smiler scared a lot of people. I was even accursed of being irresponsible by a few for daring to encourage mine. I can count on one hand the parents I know who have taken their kids to Thorpe /Chessie/Alton this summer. I think as fans we have a slightly bias view, but a lot of parents are now petrified of the places and won't go.

On present operations (where it seems to take 3-5 minutes to load and unload), and judging by where we joined the end of the queue and how long we queued for the other week, I'd say if the queue line snaked back anywhere near the entrance, it'd easily be a 3-4 hours wait.

...and a zoo!

To be fair they always said they would only be bookable until the end of July (or something like that).

Sometimes, it depends, it's usually the fifth or sixth run that I start to get dizzy/breathless, but then I'm sure 20 years of smoking didn't helped me. I used to hold my breath at the top of drops but don't bother now. G-forces are bad for the body whichever way you look at it, I always find I get a headache if it sit on the right side of the Swarm but don't if I sit on the left, a friend (he's a doctor) says the centrifugal force is higher on the right side because the right turns are tighter than if you were on the left, and to drink water before going to the park, g induced headaches are the bodies way of telling you it's dehydrated. Dunno if that would apply to breathlessness though, maybe that's just a women thing, my wife comes off the rides panting like a horse too

Wasn't that what they were doing a new months ago?

The dam thing managed to make me dizzy on Friday, which is a first.

Yeah could have been a bs excuse, I did have a little chuckle because we had the entire train to ourselves the other week. Note to self, don't leave your phone in the car, trying to communicate with two 11 year olds across the station about what seats to queue for without one is a pain in the arse, should really say thank you to the station staff who helped us by radioing messages back and forth

Yup still don't kbow myself LOL, they wouldn't even let me in at first either. Well I dunno, but every other time we've just walked up to the annual pass entrance, shown our pass and the eventbrite ticket and been given a wristband, last night the Mrs, mini me and his friend got in the usual way, I was following and the girl wouldn't let me in, said I had to goto the advanced ticket office to collect my wristband, I politely explained that I'd never had to do that previously and if I were them, I wouldn't send anymore people that way because it looked like a riot was going to kick off (there was about a hundred people in the advanced ticket collection queue behind a family of ten buying annual passes who were hogging both windows), she smiled and said I'll give you the wristband this time balah blah hehe. We did walk past the stage on the way to X and there was about 5 people in there, I do wonder if Thorpe are paying the acts, my neighbour is a singer and she often does these types of events and either just get's expenses or a share of the gate fee, she rarely get's paid for a small gig like these. Learnt something new too, Swarm can/will only run with a minimum number of people on, they really don't like sending it round half empty in case it stalls. Saw lots of management wondering round too, not really a good night to guage interest since the weather was so crap.

Was it a Pirelli?

Had a quick look tonight, couldn't take photo's sorry, but those inner arches/loops are now having something attached to them (looks like internal theming/supports), so I guess the theory of it being something ripper related could be right, at a guess I'd say maybe they could be forming some railway arches. I have a feeling this is going to turn out to be another one of these 'experience' type attractions that Merlin seem so obsessed with, rather than something actually thrilling.

Wow those people on the front were really lucky then.

Is this ride similar to Nemesis? (Track/train/seating-wise).

Perhaps you should follow your own advise as that comment was made in reference to Marc's experiences on Fury (but yes I did call this guy an idiot, because he is one for entering a ride area, bite me as they say if you don't like it). Perhaps if more people were told they were being idiots instead of egg'd on or just ignored, crap like this wouldn't happen.

I find it hard to have sympathy, and I doubt what I think has any bearing on his family. Staying in school and learning to read has nothing to do with using common sense, he worked in a school after all...

Edit not at your post Mark... It is idiots like those that ruin it for the perfectly sensible ones.

Sad for the park and enthusiasts sure, not sad for the idiot, Darwin Award nominee right there. The volume wasn't great on the video, but did I hear he worked in a school? We all laughed with the 'danger of death' signs at Thorpe and Alton (Blackpool has them too), but maybe there is good reason for them, I can't believe people are still that stupid even after millions of years of evolution.