The Smiler

[Benin]

So basically they infilled supports as they went along with completed sections...

Wait, does that mean they KNEW what they were doing?

[Ricky]

I have just come across this image, I dont know how old it is, but there are two supports next to each other that don't line up...

from TS

[Marc]

It's a towers thing - they won't sell fastrack for new attractions until they know precisely its average throughput and works through any early teething problems.

None of the prizes are fastrack for smiler, but they are offering normal fastrack discounts or free fastrack as prizes.

To be fair Thorpe do the same when it's needed, thankfully The Swarm didnt suffer such teething problems

Id be surprised if fastrack isn't offered atall this year.. Maybe a month or so but I guess we will see!

[J.S217]

Normal Queueing WHAT! it's all about Single rider that is if they still have it at Towers?

[Whiteknuckle]

Every other big coaster at the Towers has an SRQ, so could be likely that the Smiler may aswell.

Time will tell

[Fred]

Smiler definitely has Single Rider.

Shame, hate the system.

[Coaster]

Shame, hate the system.

Why?!

It doesn't cause any harm to guests in the normal queue, and nobody is forcing you to use single rider!

All it does is provides a better service for guests who don't mind splitting up or are on their own.

If they got rid of the single rider on Nemesis then people who go on the ride multiple times would only get on once or twice in a day!

It really isn't doing any harm...

[Ryan]

Why?!

It doesn't cause any harm to guests in the normal queue, and nobody is forcing you to use single rider!

All it does is provides a better service for guests who don't mind splitting up or are on their own.

If they got rid of the single rider on Nemesis then people who go on the ride multiple times would only get on once or twice in a day!

It really isn't doing any harm...

There are times when it can slow down the main queue due to faffing about with getting single riders into the actual train, but that's only when the ride staff/customers aren't on top of what's going on.

[Benin]

As said, for everytime it's run smoothly, there's other times it's run like crap...

Or alternatively, it's put onto a ride which deals with it crap, like Air...

And of course there's the issue with guests who try and use it and want to sit together (cos they're STUPID)...

[Coaster]

Yes but staff should just say to the stupid guests "This queue is called SINGLE RIDERS, it clearly states that you cannot ride in your group" and whilst it doesn't work on Air I can see it working well on The Smiler. (As long as it is like Nemesis with a queueline into the station rather than holding people back in the queue, as that is just a silly system to be honest...)

[JoshC.]

I like SRQ, IF it is run properly and designed to have them.

For example, the majority at Alton's seem to work fine from what I've seen, and it's because the queue line and loading procedures were in mind with the design of it. If the staff are being reasonably quick and performing well, there's nothing wrong with it. However, with a lot of Thorpe's old ones (Inferno and Colossus spring to mind), SRQs weren't designed to be in mind. Even the Stealth one was poorly thought out. It made it much harder and slowed down everything.

Personally, I thought the one that was on Saw in 2009 worked well. Okay, it was designed into the queue line, but the it worked it made use of the queue lines well. It worked because the batching was clear and simple, and the batcher could tell if there was a spare seat avaliable long before people were boarding the cars. The batcher being so close to the SRQ meant it was easy just to direct the odd one guest to the appropriate row.

With Smiler have 4 rows per car, which is basically the same as Saw which dispatches 4 rows at once, if the merge point is logically thought out and the batching system works in a similar vein to Saw's, I see no reason why SRQ would be a bad thing for Smiler and won't interfere with throughputs or anything like that.

[Mark9]

You haven't lived until you've seen a single rider almost die on a ride. That's all I'm saying.

[EC!]

A tad sadistic

[- Michael -]

Rita front row in 2006, I was 11, he was about 30, it was a great moment!

[Ricky]

I don't think anyone can really see how bad SRQ is until they have tried working them. The amount of utter morons that don't understand simple instructions such as " row 6 please" to then faff about trying to find row 6 even when it's clearly labelled. Or for the more incompetent staff who just don't send any SR's to any row until the load attendants shout for one which the SR would then again decide to faff about at the bag room then refuse to go through any gate BUT the gate that leads to the empty seat.

Whilst I know SRQ has its pros, but in many other cases they just don't work at all.

[JohnD]

Providing a ride is designed with SRQ in mind, they're a great idea that ensures rides run to maximum capacity. In my experience the SRQs on Rita, Spinball and Thirteen all work(ed) well, Air's is a bit of a mess as it only serves 1 station but generally doesn't slow things down (and if the merge host sends all odd numbered groups to the right it minimises the number of empty seats). The one on Nemesis seems a bit of a bodge as there's no way of getting single riders into the bays prior to loading so the staff need to be very quick to ensure trains aren't held up, but somehow it still seems to work most of the time.

Ideally, most major coasters and many flat rides should have SRQs, but only if its users can realistically be batched before the gates open. Out of Thorpe's rides I believe Saw, Colossus, Inferno, Stealth and Samurai would all benefit from SRQs if properly implemented - possibly other rides too.

[Inferno]

Out of Thorpe's rides I believe Saw, Colossus, Inferno, Stealth and Samurai would all benefit from SRQs if properly implemented - possibly other rides too.

When they had it at Thorpe I seem to remember it was generally ok, but it depended on the member of staff who was supposed to be organising it... Stealth always sticks in my mind as being a nightmare because it's just a free-for-all at the top of the stairs, and if the staff didn't have a good grip of it then it was awful.

The baggage drop was the thing that slowed it down the most - you couldn't get a single rider to quickly dash over and fill a gap because they would need time to drop off their bag and fight their way through the busy gates. To be honest it was worse than useless because it took so long just to fill one seat!

If bags are dropped off a long way before the station (like Th13teen) then it could work. If the baggage hut is right on the station platform though (Saw, Stealth, Rita) it is a nightmare.

[Matt 236]

I've found in some cases SRQ is a longer wait than the main queue. For example when I queued for Oblvion, the queue wasn't moving for a good half hour and at Rita they closed it due to similar reasons.

[pluk]

Stealth always sticks in my mind as being a nightmare because it's just a free-for-all at the top of the stairs, and if the staff didn't have a good grip of it then it was awful.

The baggage drop was the thing that slowed it down the most - you couldn't get a single rider to quickly dash over and fill a gap because they would need time to drop off their bag and fight their way through the busy gates. To be honest it was worse than useless because it took so long just to fill one seat!

I think the exact opposite to this. The batching on Stealth is soooo simple I'd question the staffs ability if they can't manage it.

I remember one guy on there would simply ask the normal queue how many people in their party and if it was an odd number get one out of the srq line and tell them they were sitting with them and not to lose them, which seemed to work a lot better than faffing about with row numbers.

[Fred]

Having worked on Rita, it'd work well for stealth to an extent.

The main issue with them is everyone thinks SRQ WILL be quicker. Therefore, if the queue is easily accessible everyone will join it, making it long or making people try and abuse it. Ritas was closed more than open because it'd gain an hour queue within 2mins of opening the gate. Then you'd have people moaning at you because the queue barely moves.

The only one I think it generally works on is thirteen, or spinball (wet weather ONLY) as it's a long length queueline and you'd have to make a serious judgement before joining. Though, people in singles get irritated if they queue more than 5mins, so it's really not worth the hassle whatsoever.

It doesn't work properly on Air, Nemesis, Rita, Spinball (unless wet weather) and completely and utterly pointless on Sub Terra, so can only imagine Smiler could be as bad. Waste of money installing and staffing.

[stretchy]

Coaster and I were once again on park today and I must say, in the sunshine, SMILER looks amazing. You turn the corner towards X sector and this sight greets you.

The painting on the maintenance shed is coming along well, the following few pics were taken through out today

The transfer track and the station track were being worked on quite a bit today.

Proof that the spinny wheels spin, here's one of the motors.

The tickler's foot is being added and the red thing in the bottom right of the image is the ride envelope measure.

were still at least a few days off testing, the footers haven't started to be concreted in yet. We also have some black metal things that I am not sure about and also a yellow frame that I assume will hold the cameras at the base of the vertical lift hill as on the game.

Workers at the top of the vertical lift hill looked like they were doing wiring for most of the day.

It looks like they have started adding the normal lift chain. that looks like chain to me at the top of the dog whereas we have none at the bottom

There has been quite a bit of talk about a bit of track still not meeting. This is the joint that they are on about. NOTE this is not one of the rails but the back spine and, more importantly, if you look at the bolts they are fully tight. I think that this is deliberate to allow for movement in the track, rather than a mess up.

Whereas, this joint, I think will be more problematical. This is the joint that I photographed last week when they couldn't get it to join. It is now joined but there is quite a visible step and that is track not spine.

Total NERD shot

The station building is receiving cladding

And further along we have this. I am not quite sure what is happening here.

The games unit has had more paint

My usual overview from the oblivion queue, sorry for the huge rain drop on the lens at this point, we were having one of those April showers that plagued today.

Finally in the car park we have 1 footer left

and 4 concrete stairs (which I assume will be the entrance to the queues)

And I will leave you with one more shot of the ride in the sunlight with a storm cloud behind.

[Fred]

Liking the area fencing. Lovely and airy and like they don't really exist.

Thanks for the photo update!

[Bubbles1]

So are they putting cladding on, after theming? I'm confused!

[OldFarmerDean]

I'm guessing it's for the shop area adjoined to the station which they are now building...

[EC!]

I think so yes.