How Many Trains?

[Ryan]

Submission's second arm doesn't work, and hasn't for years. It's being used for spare parts since the company that manufactured it (Chance I think?) went bust, so they can't get new parts.

Is that why it was working not so long ago?

[JoshC.]

I work at a park, I know what they are doing, it makes perfect logical business sense. The rides are virtually walk on anyway, they will be working on one carriage at a time, doing a complete service.

The thing I don't understand is why you're comparing two completely different parks. Thorpe is much bigger, much more popular and much busier than the park you work for. Yes, from a business side they are the same, but the day you seen Thorpe having rides virtually a walk on on one carriage will be a very sad day for the company.

Submission's second arm doesn't work, and hasn't for years. It's being used for spare parts since the company that manufactured it (Chance I think?) went bust, so they can't get new parts.

Yeah, t'is Chance.

[James6]

^^^^ Agreed

I work at a park, I know what they are doing, it makes perfect logical business sense. The rides are virtually walk on anyway, they will be working on one carriage at a time, doing a complete service.

Oh, that explains it, you work at a different park so you quite obviously know Thorpe's maintenance routine... *rolls eyes*

[AstroDan]

I can confirm that both arms on Submission do now work. However this is an exception to the rule at Alton Towers. For some reason, the park never has the budget within the ride team for both sides to operate.Submission had 40 minute queues in July and still only ran 1 arm. It's Alton's stupid point with throughputs, really!

[Rich]

Yeh, when I went to Alton last week they were using the arm closest to the Oblivions brake run! When I went earlier on in the year it was running the arm closest to Enterprise!

[D4n]

I can confirm that both arms on Submission do now work. However this is an exception to the rule at Alton Towers. For some reason, the park never has the budget within the ride team for both sides to operate.

Apologies on the Submission point then, my bad.

[AstroDan]

Yeh, when I went to Alton last week they were using the arm closest to the Oblivions brake run! When I went earlier on in the year it was running the arm closest to Enterprise!

Indeed. Although I must say, your idea of doing full train services in the season seems rather at odds with the purpose of the Closed Season. Unless parks have an excess of cars - such as Dragons Fury and Sonic Spinball, where they have more than they can run, it baffles me as to why a park would do that. Alton would never do that - Thorpe I cannot for the life of me see why they would do that either.There is always a risk they will get busy and having trains unavailable would only be poor from what is the most expensive theme park in Britain (at least, will be come Fright Nights!).

[Rich]

They will do servicing on the cars when it becomes quieter as I keep saying, so it's less work over closed season!! The train won't be completey unavalible, they do one carriage at a time and IF the other breaks down, they can easily put the other one back togeather and swap the two trains over, it makes perfect sense I really don't understand why you lot really dont grasp this concept. It is still running two trains on a weekend is it not?

[D4n]

They will do servicing on the cars when it becomes quieter as I keep saying, so it's less work over closed season!! The train won't be completey unavalible, they do one carriage at a time and IF the other breaks down, they can easily put the other one back togeather and swap the two trains over, it makes perfect sense I really don't understand why you lot really dont grasp this concept. It is still running two trains on a weekend is it not?

But on 1 train, with a 30 minute queue, on weekdays.

[AstroDan]

They will do servicing on the cars when it becomes quieter as I keep saying, so it's less work over closed season!! The train won't be completey unavalible, they do one carriage at a time and IF the other breaks down, they can easily put the other one back togeather and swap the two trains over, it makes perfect sense I really don't understand why you lot really dont grasp this concept. It is still running two trains on a weekend is it not?

Ah, I see what you are saying here. I can understand this logic, but I would only generally support it if that in a situation where the park did become busier than expected, that they would put the second vehicle on the track pronto. But I would presume if a seat was in bits, they couldn't just sort it within 1/2 hour.Personally, in anything more than a 10-15 minute wait, I believe the rides should run higher capacity. I still find it odd though that a park within the same group seems to treat such things so wildly differently. In fact, some of you seem to SUPPORT having queues and having one train. I would label said folk as "fan-boy".

[Dan9]

Why won't fanboys understand the concept of saving money, if they didn't some parks would crippled and their future devlopments won't be as big!

(It seems I've missed a lot but I literally can't be bothered to go through it all).I just genuinely don't understand though why Thorpe continue to feel the need to add new attractions year on year on year as they've done every year (bar 2008) since the turn of the millenium, and then not run their current rides on full capacity because they apparently have to 'save up for more new attractions'. Surely it's best to spend some time and money making sure your current attractions can run on full capacity without feeling the need to break down so often, before installing yet more new rides?Personally I think Thorpe would have done fine in 2011 without a new attraction as they'd still be reaping the benefits from the last two Saw attractions, and also without a new attraction they wouldn't have to be worrying about saving as much money and could have spent the year making sure their current attracions were properly maintained for the long term future (it would probably have also have given them a slightly bigger budget for the 2012 coaster). But if now they need to 'save money' for new attractions in 2010, it worries me what next year may be like when the year after they're installing another major new rollercoaster, and the MTDP shows so much new flats on the horizon that it's difficult to see when there won't be a time when Thorpe are forced to be doing things like this.EDIT: A 10 minute queue is not what I'm arguing against, I can just see this getting worse and worse with the way Thorpe want to keep adding more and more attractions, and I'd rather not see a repeat of the days when Thorpe were having 5 rides down on one day with everything else on reduced capacity.

[Rich]

But on 1 train, with a 30 minute queue, on weekdays.

Umm peaks at 30 mins at the start of day! Nearly everyone does a coaster first! Stealth has been virtually at the bottom of the stairs on weekdays for sometime now...!

[AstroDan]

Please, please tell me that you're being sarcastic. You're pathetic if you're against 1 train operation...Give me strength...

Out of interest, has anyone ever beento Europa-Park? 19 boats run on Poseidon? 6 on Atlantica? 9 on Euro-Mir? 7 on Eurosat? 5 on a Bobsleigh?Makes even Alton's efforts with Th13teen's throughput look shabby! EP's Wild Mouse does more than Colossus and that's even when Colossus is on two trains!May I also add I am shocked at the way some members appear to be posting in this thread? Petty insults and so forth generally don't belong on places like this.

[D4n]

There was actually a mention earlier in this thread of Europa Park running Silver Star on 2 trains on off peak days and that making it OK for Thorpe to run rides on limited capacity.

[AstroDan]

There was actually a mention earlier in this thread of Europa Park running Silver Star on 2 trains on off peak days and that making it OK for Thorpe to run rides on limited capacity.

There's a difference between Silver Star running on 2 trains and still getting over 1,300 an hour and Colossus running 1 train and getting probably sub500!Anyway, I can see that several members here seem to like queues, and enjoy one train operation and for so long as that is the case, there really isn't much of a debate here. If you like high throughputs - ditch Thorpe and go to Alton Towers. Nuff said, really!

[D4n]

There's a difference between Silver Star running on 2 trains and still getting over 1,300 an hour and Colossus running 1 train and getting, what, 400? 500?

I agree, and I don't quite understand how anybody can actually say that it's a good thing that Thorpe is running it's coasters on 1 train when they're getting queues. (Although if the queue really was 1/2 hour Europa should have added the third train, in my opinion).

And agreed Steve, I also can't be bothered to read anymore pointless posts from this thread, if you don't like how and why they are doing it, write in and complain!

I'm not going to 'write in and complain', I haven't even visited the park this year. What I don't understand is that, on a discussion and debate forum you can't accept other people's points of view and have decided to ignore this thread. Petty.

[JoshC.]

I full agree with everything that AstroDan, Air Dan, plain old Dan (though, if you want to be pedantic, the park have added a new 'attraction' per se since 1998 ) and James6 have said. ;)It's rather typical at how 'some' people have resorted to insulting others, and not even sticking to their main point, just because people disagree with them. And that's typical TPM.

[AstroDan]

My point really is that I believe theme parks should stand to offer the very best possible experience to guests each and every day. I have also stated that I believe that 5-10 minute waits on one train are acceptable. My issue is that on occasions you actually find it is much, much more than 10 minutes.

[Ryan]

Well, tonight's been 'chaotic' to say the least! We want to make the point that EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinion, no matter how barbaric it may be. What we won't stand for, is people being rude to others due to difference in opinions. Hopefully we can all learn from this mess and move on peacefully

[MikeyT]

Just to back Ryan up here, what I've read this evening has annoyed me a bit- this is not the place to post petty insults to each other; it's not big, it's not clever and you manage to make yourself look like a fool all at once. If I see anyone posting stupid, immature insults to other members again then I will make it a personal obligation to warn you like there's no tomorrow. And breathe!

[thorpeparkjunkie]

I love Thorpe Park more than any other theme park in the UK because I feel the rides are simply the best however the park is far from perfect - one train running on a busy day really pisses me off because I feel that its just an easy way to boost the fastrack sales a tad and save money but I'm sure this is not ALWAYS the case, maybe its worth asking the staff on your next visit

[rickydoodle]

As an enthusiast, it's annoying - so that'll be less than 1% of your park's visitors for the day unhappy.For the other 99.9% of the public - you know what? They won't even realise! Again, I said it in another thread, take your enthusiast hat off and put your businessman hat on. Thorpe Park exists to make a profit, it does not exist for ANY other reason, whether that be to satisfy for your hobby or your quest for thrills, if it didn't make money it wouldn't exist.Not saying I agree with it - but that's the way it is and you can bitch and moan about it forever. If Thorpe can save on expenditure (thus increasing profit) that's what they need to do because they have a responsibility to both the shareholders and the banks.

[Marc]

As an enthusiast, it's annoying - so that'll be less than 1% of your park's visitors for the day unhappy.For the other 99.9% of the public - you know what? They won't even realise! Again, I said it in another thread, take your enthusiast hat off and put your businessman hat on. Thorpe Park exists to make a profit, it does not exist for ANY other reason, whether that be to satisfy for your hobby or your quest for thrills, if it didn't make money it wouldn't exist.Not saying I agree with it - but that's the way it is and you can bitch and moan about it forever. If Thorpe can save on expenditure (thus increasing profit) that's what they need to do because they have a responsibility to both the shareholders and the banks.

Agreed.. And the bit in bold a VERY good point, more than once this year on a summers day, when ive been in Colossus queue line ive heard someone say something such as "It only has one train on the tracks" when really its going around with 2..

[Mark9]

There was actually a mention earlier in this thread of Europa Park running Silver Star on 2 trains on off peak days and that making it OK for Thorpe to run rides on limited capacity.

I didn't say that at all. What I actually said is that other parks do run their rides on a lower capacity, Europa Park being an example. If you want to be good at making adequate discussions don't change peoples meanings, no way did I say that Europa Park running Silverstar on lower capacity, gives Thorpe the excuse to do that as well. I queuds half an hour, I enjoyed the ride even though I know it can run with another train, I didn't whine and moan about it, I just enjoyed it.

I agree, and I don't quite understand how anybody can actually say that it's a good thing that Thorpe is running it's coasters on 1 train when they're getting queues. (Although if the queue really was 1/2 hour Europa should have added the third train, in my opinion).

Who said it's a good thing? People have given reasons as to why they think Thorpe are doing this, but no one has said they enjoy the rides on one train operation.I think it's a shame that instead of people just discussing amount of trains on things, people have turned to needlessly insulting each other. I also feel that this discussion is just another chance to stick the boot into Thorpe.Hundreds of parks, the world over, do exactly the same thing as Thorpe do in the quiet period and for some reason that isn't good enough for members. Whether I like it or not is besides the point.

[D4n]

For the other 99.9% of the public - you know what? They won't even realise!

Yes. The general public can't tell the difference between walking on a ride and queuing half an hour for it.