April 2, 201510 yr comment_206308 It should definitely be opened, but needs a sign outside the ride warning people that it's on one train so the queue will be slower. They shouldn't even be in this situation, there's no excuse for not having the ride ready on time, this just adds insult to injury. It's not really Chessies fault though is it? If they are awaiting parts from the manufacturer, its completely out of their control!
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206309 It's not really Chessies fault though is it? If they are awaiting parts from the manufacturer, its completely out of their control! It depends, they may have left inspection of the ride too late, therefore not left enough delivery time? I don't know, I'm not in charge of the park, but it seems strange that other parks can manage yet Chessie can't.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206311 It seems strange they have 3 trains and only one is ready, which makes me think maybe the trains aren't the issue still.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206313 but it seems strange that other parks can manage yet Chessie can't. I think it is a bit unfair to expect rides to be ready on time all the time! It is complicated machinery and unfortunately does not always work perfectly the way everyone wants it too. If Chessington are waiting on a part for it is there much else they can do? Maybe it is poor planning who knows! Just accept the situation, sucks for the company, sucks for us! Are there people to blame (does it really matter?) eh at least it is opening!! Also after seeing Thorpes issues with their rides opening I would not just pin this on Chessie
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206315 I don't know, I'm not in charge of the parkExactly, you don't know and are just guessing now.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206317 Also after seeing Thorpes issues with their rides opening I would not just pin this on Chessie I'm not, believe me I've had a good moan at Thorpe as well! Exactly, you don't know and are just guessing now. That is true, but it's frustrating even if it was completely out of the park's control (something I doubt) and it's not acceptable.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206321 Oh dear oh dear, things are still going pear shaped for Chessie then. Instead of bashing them for getting just 1/3 of its transport hardware in operation, there is one thing that must be considered. Vampire is 25 years old this year, An age span ive heard from somewhere apparent is the approximate lifespan for these suspended swinging coasters. Thus being an arrow still (in many ways) even after the vekoma refurbishment means the ride is likely to become harder to maintain, especially now it has reached 25. Whilst the park will likely want to keep the ride for as long as possible, due to the park's planning difficulties and still being in many ways the park's icon, Chessington will want to try keep this ride going for as long as possible until the ride has reached a state where it can no longer be maintained. One thing for sure is when Vampire dies and needs removing is whatever replaces it (perhaps with Bubbleworks too) will be noticeably smaller scale due to planning reasons unless on the very unlikely off chance, a force or body made planning laws relaxed significantly.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206322 I'm not, believe me I've had a good moan at Thorpe as well! That is true, but it's frustrating even if it was completely out of the park's control (something I doubt) and it's not acceptable. Do you ever stop moaning? It's life, machines break and they require new things. It is out of the parks control when something needs a new part and they don't have this part. I highly doubt they left the safety checks until the last minute. We don't know how long they have been waiting for this part. The thing is it was doing test runs at the start of African Adventures, suggesting something might have broke during testing. Its just unfortunate that the park don't have the part needed and can do nothing except wait for the part to come in and then reopen the ride once the part is fitted, sfaety checks are completed and staff are trained. It can happen with any park so I don't see why your giving Chessie stick for something that is out of the parks control!
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206323 Could it be at all possible that they ordered spares of every part so when a part has ended its life span, it can be changed over without a fuss? If they had spares and re-ordered spares so that any broken parts could be changed over quickly, I'm sure both chessington and thorpe wouldn't be having so many closed rides at the beginning of this season.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206324 Could it be at all possible that they ordered spares of every part so when a part has ended its life span, it can be changed over without a fuss? If they had spares and re-ordered spares so that any broken parts could be changed over quickly, I'm sure both chessington and thorpe wouldn't be having so many closed rides at the beginning of this season. Do you realise how many parts that would be? Each ride has hundreds of components and I doubt the parks would have the budget to buy every part in for all the rides and I doubt they would have the room to store them!
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206364 There are about 15,907 individual components on one Vampire train alone. So if you want Chessington to buy and house doubles of everything...you're going to have to start investing some pretty serious cash into the park sonny.
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206369 If they still had 3 fully assembled trains then losing one wouldn't be such a big deal. As it stands, they should have a full set of parts on the 'spare' train. If not then they're presumably using the loss of a train as an excuse to save some money on parts.
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206370 If they still had 3 fully assembled trains then losing one wouldn't be such a big deal. As it stands, they should have a full set of parts on the 'spare' train. If not then they're presumably using the loss of a train as an excuse to save some money on parts. They still do have 3 fully assembled trains ?
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206371 They still do have 3 fully assembled trains ?They did have, atleast in 2014.Part of me wonders if this could actually be something to do with the brakes/chains instead of the trains themselves.
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206374 They still do have 3 fully assembled trains ? In which case all the talk of not having spares is total nonsense.
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206380 Just looked on Chessie's ride status page and the note about when Vampire reopens it will be on lower capacity has been removed. By the looks of it, it might be running two trains when it opens! (Highly doubt it will be 3 trains, but you never know)
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206388 At the end of the season last year I got chatting to one of the engineers about stripping the trains down and asked him why the third train was never used last year. He said the plan was to never use the train but use it for spares and plans for using the third train required modifications done to the second lift hill. At the end of the day if a ride isn't safe to open its not gonna open! I'm sure Chessington are doing all they can to reopen the ride as fast as they can. After all there probably losing money on the amount of free tickets there giving out...
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206413 There are about 15,907 individual components on one Vampire train alone. So if you want Chessington to buy and house doubles of everything...you're going to have to start investing some pretty serious cash into the park sonny. Not to be 'that guy' but those individual components are not unique components, they are repeated over and over. As a generalisation there's 12 rows (/12 = 1325), most things are then mirrored across the two symmetrical seats / wheel assemblies (/2 = 662) and most of those would then be repeated on each side of that half of the assembly (/2 = 331). I wouldn't mind betting the total unique part count would be considerably lower than even that modest number as many things are repeated over and over within that individual seat/mounting (bolts, wheels, chain links...), apart from main chassis and major lift hill stuff they probably do have one or two of everything in store! Whatever, the reliability record is horrid. They may have the odd bit of bad luck but to be this consistently bad there simply must be an underlying problem in what they are doing with Vamp and across the park. There's only so many coincidences that can be plausible.
April 7, 201510 yr comment_206584 Vampire is open today but on reduced capacity. You need to collect a ticket to ride at the ride entrance.
April 7, 201510 yr comment_206587 At least they've got it open Think it's a better idea that it's allocation only to be honest, as queues would be absolutely ridiculous while on 1 train.
April 7, 201510 yr comment_206594 Is it running normally? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Running on 1 train. They are issuing people with ride times vouchers at the entrance. You go away and come back to ride at the time specified to avoid a huge queue building up.
April 7, 201510 yr comment_206630 That's better than no train at all. Let's hope these delayed parts won't be too much longer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
April 13, 201510 yr comment_207174 Rode Vampire on Sunday. Didn't have a ride time ticket as we arrived at the park at about 12pm, and they had all gone. However, the people at the queue entrance said that a few people had no-showed for their slot so we could go on. Still running on 1 train obviously, but the thing I noticed was when the train pulled back in to the shed, there was a parked train on our left that looked like it had been stripped down completely! There weren't even any seats on it, just the metal bars that would support the seats. It was obviously dark so couldn't see very well, but it is quite clear that they do not have 3 fully assembled trains right now.
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