July 5, 201510 yr comment_212516 If you come from the right direction you get a nice view of the park, and you can see the likes of rita, th13teen and oblivion in the trees. All these rides have elements of them painted a different colour to comply with the planning permission. Anyone know why Rita is running limited capacity at the mo? Demand was high on tuesday (60 minute queue) but they were only using 1 train for the whole day whilst other park operations where fantastic.
July 5, 201510 yr comment_212517 My only guess is there's a major problem with the trains or brakes, but it's Rita at the end of the day.
July 5, 201510 yr comment_212518 Usually, when Towers are running one train (or limited capacity) it's because one of the trains is buggered... They don't tend to hide behind 'demand' as an excuse...
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216662 Some idiot seeking attention and bad publicity for Towers tried to undo his seatbelt just before launch today, luckily staff spotted it and they were ejected from the park.
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216668 Some idiot seeking attention and bad publicity for Towers tried to undo his seatbelt just before launch today, luckily staff spotted it and they were ejected from the park. Oh no.. here comes the daily mail writing another article about AT which nobody cares about.
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216670 To be fair, it was probably one of their journalists. In all seriousness though, I can't see that happening because it hasn't been massively covered. I read that in one Facebook post from someone who was on the station platform waiting at the time. And if they do write an article, surely it can't be negative as the staff spotted it and stopped anything from happening.
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216686 The fact that seat belts are purely aesthetic means this isn't even a good story
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216688 Yeah, but this idiot clearly didn't know that, did he? Also, surely the seatbelts must have some function, otherwise it wouldn't be enough to stop the ride over.
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216692 They are used in evacuation procedures to make sure all the restraints don't go up at once. As on the intamin trains you cant release individual seats, it has to be all of them at once.
September 4, 20159 yr comment_216711 That's not entirely true, it's just on certain models you can only release seats by car, not the whole train. In example in the case of a th13teen evacuation each seat is done individually, and on Colossus they do it by car. I'm not sure about Rita but it'll be very rare it's the whole train, especially if it has an MCBR, for safety and evac purposes.
September 5, 20159 yr comment_216752 I always thought the belt was there incase the hydrolic mechanism holding the restraints down failed for some reason, to stop the restraint from opening mid-ride. Ignoring the fact for a second that any good dead man's switch should be the other way (failure should be in the locked position).
September 5, 20159 yr comment_216760 Should there be a force strong enough to make the restraint locks fail, then the seat belts wouldn't stand a chance against the same force. So they aren't a fail safe. Well that's the way I learnt it anyway
September 5, 20159 yr comment_216762 are seatbelts even a failsafe though?.. I've seen a fairgroud ride with seatbelts saying they do not attribute towards the safety they're just there for riders peace of mind. And heard on Nemesis Inferno that they're there at a designed length to ensure that if the seatbelt doesn't do up, the restraint isn't far down enough and the ride shouldn't be sent. But it's still stupid to undo the seatbelt regardless, if alton towers enforce it as an extra safety measure.
September 5, 20159 yr comment_216776 Yeah I've heard the confidence thing before too, took a newbie on Saw at Thorpe the other week and he panicked because there was 'no belt holding the harness down'. He is 11 so I let him off his naivety lol.
September 5, 20159 yr comment_216777 It is a mix. If no rides had ever had seatbelts then there would be no lack of confidence. It's just weird going from loads of rides having them then going on something like Saw which has none. The seatbelts (at least at the beginning) had a purpose. You wouldn't stick them on when designing something if they were irrelevant. Money, weight. All adds up. They definitely aren't a fail safe, they have hardly any strength in them. On Colossus they are a good indicator that the seat is actually locked as the computer requests. Seatbelt in they know it's locked, without it in the computer will pick up it isn't far enough down (thus why they can't just put extendible seat belts anywhere). Then on some rides they are used for evac purposes. On Inferno which releases a whole row or two it allows the staff to keep people in their seats or stop the bar coming all the way up when they're busy dealing with the first person. Whereas Saw has a little box that they plug into the car to release seats individually so seatbelts aren't needed in that situation.
February 22, 20169 yr comment_228420 NO MORE SCAFFOLDING!!!!! A sneaky peak at one of the many #TowersLovingCare improvements in the Dark Forest, we will reveal all soon!
February 22, 20169 yr comment_228423 Finally! Hopefully "many" suggests that there will be other significant improvements to the area as well.
February 22, 20169 yr comment_228427 Yay lets all celebrate at the removal of something that should never have been there in the first place and it only took them years and years to remove it because this is the new standard we have come to accept. Yes its good its gone but it counts for nothing as they are the ones who put it there. Towers are a joke.
February 22, 20169 yr comment_228433 Yay lets all celebrate at the removal of something that should never have been there in the first place and it only took them years and years to remove it because this is the new standard we have come to accept. Yes its good its gone but it counts for nothing as they are the ones who put it there. Towers are a joke. I agree that the scaffolding was up for far too long and it should have only been up for a few months as a temporary measure, but it's nice to see that AT listen to feedback and change things for the better, even if it takes much longer than it should do in some cases.
March 7, 20169 yr comment_229091 After all these years, finally Rita doesn't look like an Ug Land cast-off! https://twitter.com/AltonTLC There is more that could be done with the fences (possibly add some vines to them), but I'm impressed with this so far, a vast improvement on what was there previously!
March 7, 20169 yr comment_229092 While a vast improvement on what was there before it still looks horrible in every single way.
March 7, 20169 yr comment_229101 While a vast improvement on what was there before it still looks horrible in every single way. That's because it isn't a mack.
March 8, 20169 yr comment_229105 It upsets me that because it's replaced the awful scaffolding people are being positive about this... It's STILL awful looking, just get rid of Rita and then the area can have something great done instead of this crap...
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