Funny, you would think that if they felt so strongly about the environment, it would be the same at all Merlin parks...

So how come Alton Towers will always run rides on two trains even if there is "low demand?"

I was at Towers on Wednesday and Air, Nemesis, and Rita were on one train all day and Th13teen on two. I think Oblivion was on 4 cars, loading one station.

Granted there was no need for more than one train as everything was literally walk on, but the 'Alton always does' arguement doesn't hold up

I was at Towers on Wednesday and Air, Nemesis, and Rita were on one train all day and Th13teen on two. I think Oblivion was on 4 cars, loading one station.

Granted there was no need for more than one train as everything was literally walk on, but the 'Alton always does' arguement doesn't hold up

That's the thing though, there was no queue.  A 45 minute queue is not "low demand", walk-on is.

I went ti alton everything was walk on with 2 trains

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That's the thing though, there was no queue.  A 45 minute queue is not "low demand", walk-on is.

I think this is the most important thing here.

Practically every park in the world will run on reduced capacity if they can get away with it. I saw it happen at places like Phantasialand and Efteling for example (even Baron was on 2 out of 3 cars during our stay, a day after it opened!). So let's not moan at Thorpe for wanting to run 1 train operations.

The trouble is that they're giving this reason of "low demand" publicly. We all know that behind the scenes, it is likely that cost cutting is the root of this issue, but they won't want to say that. But saying that it's low demand is quite frankly just the park shooting themselves in the foot. Arguably, anything above a constant 15 minute queue warrants full capacity at Thorpe, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

It probably doesn't help that most of these other parks are a lot more responsive (within reasoning) to how the queues adapt during the day... Asterix when I visited recently was adding trains on everything pretty much on things as an example...

 

Thorpe's excuse of 'no demand' shows the lack of customer service we get these days... Especially when people are in 45 minute queues...

This is why I'm so careful when I visit the park these days! It's so hit and miss!

 

In the past when I've visited on quiet weekdays there has been long lines just due to one train operation. Sometimes the weekends bizarrely have less lines as that is the only time they can be bothered to run two trains.

 

However there has been a few extremely rare times when I've visited the park where it's been unusually dead but everything is still running on two trains, simply because they expected more people to attend that day, these are the best visits to the park I've ever had, easily clock up 50 rides in a day

 

I've visited nearly 200 parks and if other major parks can run their coasters on two trains even on low demand days, why can't Thorpe?

Because they think a 45 minute queue is still low demand 

Because they have a lack of engineers.... That's why samurai has only just started being repaired lately...

Because they have a lack of engineers.... That's why samurai has only just started being repaired lately...

 

No it's not, they would of wanted to get Samurai open as soon as possible. 

 

More likely they have only just received a part, therefore they can only start working on it.

I think this is the most important thing here.

Practically every park in the world will run on reduced capacity if they can get away with it. I saw it happen at places like Phantasialand and Efteling for example (even Baron was on 2 out of 3 cars during our stay, a day after it opened!). So let's not moan at Thorpe for wanting to run 1 train operations.

The trouble is that they're giving this reason of "low demand" publicly. We all know that behind the scenes, it is likely that cost cutting is the root of this issue, but they won't want to say that. But saying that it's low demand is quite frankly just the park shooting themselves in the foot. Arguably, anything above a constant 15 minute queue warrants full capacity at Thorpe, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

 

Its a crap excuse anyway, they save very little money operationally by running one train rather then two. Engineers are still there, a train still has to go up the lift hill the same amount of times whether there's a 5 minute queue or a 45 minute queue. The only difference is how much they are willing to force to people to wait for the rides.

Its a crap excuse anyway, they save very little money operationally by running one train rather then two. Engineers are still there, a train still has to go up the lift hill the same amount of times whether there's a 5 minute queue or a 45 minute queue. The only difference is how much they are willing to force to people to wait for the rides.

Actually that's not the case at all. The coaster runs far fewer times on a one train operation than two trains. They also require significantly fewer ride staff in a one train operation.

One can't deny that less trains are sent per hour. That's undeniable. It just takes longer to get through people who are stuck in queue lines.

 

The staff thing has always amused me though, as if they haven't cut the staff budgets to shreds already. Then again, I remember Merlin pulling the one attendant on Vampire trick back in the day.

My main concern about operations is Nemesis Inferno.

When I visited in mid-August, it was running on one train, advertising a 15 minute wait early morning. I ended up queuing 45mins max, only to add a second train as I got off [emoji14]

When I returned several weeks later, they where running two trains all day. Except that train two stacked on the block in-front of the station for up to a minute. Funny, that Alton Towers can dispatch their shorter Invert, even though it has longer trains.

Another reason why original Nemesis is better.

...and all the time fastrack sales continue. Shot down every time I suggest there is a fastrack sales potential / manipulated low throughput correlation; it must therefore be just a very very happy and lucrative coincidence that the very experienced and highly budget driven park management have not considered in the slightest. No siree, never ever crossed their minds.

My main concern about operations is Nemesis Inferno.

When I visited in mid-August, it was running on one train, advertising a 15 minute wait early morning. I ended up queuing 45mins max, only to add a second train as I got off

 

I've said this before, but this is the reason I don't visit Thorpe more often. I don't particularly mind queueing 45min for Inferno if it's being operated flat out, but with 1 train and low staffing you don't feel like you're getting anywhere.  Last time I was there I waited nearly 30min from the bottom of the steps (back row was reserved for fastrack & exit pass).

 

The Swarm is even worse though, if it's on 1 train and the queue starts outside the station it can be an utter misery.

...and all the time fastrack sales continue. Shot down every time I suggest there is a fastrack sales potential / manipulated low throughput correlation; it must therefore be just a very very happy and lucrative coincidence that the very experienced and highly budget driven park management have not considered in the slightest. No siree, never ever crossed their minds.

 

Because everyone on here who works/worked in the rides department hates Fastrack and would rather it not exist at all then deliberately on their end create more demand for it...

 

The correlation is more coincidence, there have been some cases at the parks when Sales get a big complaint from the Rides department about over-selling Fastrack, because it's the Rides mob who have to deal with the fallout...

 

Let's not forget the lack of engineers that Thorpe seemingly have no ability to fix (probably due to the lack of experience many engineers would have with ride based systems, as there's not really any dedicated training for it out there, annoyingly)... It's a lot of factors adding up which doesn't get helped by Thorpe's rather pathetic excuses of environmental standards and a lack of demand...

 

The problem lies with the company setting ridiculous spends per head that need to be acheived, otherwise we end up with budget cuts and the like, because they decided that one big park wide pot of money was better than each park operating independently (Hence why because Towers isn't performing after Smiler, the other parks end up having their openings slashed, or ride budgets cut because other rides that are termed more important need the extra bit)...

Stealth and Colossus are on a 1 train with 45 minutes queues

Stealth and Colossus are on a 1 train with 45 minutes queues

Colossus is showing as 80 minutes on the queue times website.

 

Clearly there's no demand for two trains though... 

Same thing happened yesterday but they added two on both between 1 and 2 which in turn created walk on queues for them both around 4:30...

I don't see how walk on queues at 4:30 is a justification for the 45 minute queues during the day. The only excuse for one train operation is that one of them is broken. They are trying to save money because of a shocking year in attendance. While in sure most of that is because of the smiler I think that there is other issues which is putting people off. For example the shocking upkeep of the park, terrible operations and the fact they haven't added anything worth while to the park since the swarm.

Same thing happened yesterday but they added two on both between 1 and 2 which in turn created walk on queues for them both around 4:30...

I went on Colossus at 5pm yesterday and it was nowhere near walk-on.  Stealth broke down at about 4pm, not sure if it reopened but I didn't see it go round.

Wait are you trying to say that one train operation costs merlin the exact same as 2 trains?

Well the more a train is used, the more maintenance it is likely to need; and more dispatches per day means an increase in power usage.  So it's kind of dependent on a few factors and chance whether it would cost more.  The difference in cost would be fairly minimal in the grand scheme of running a theme park

Didn't know where to put this so I will leave this here...

Before anyone says anything, I know this is all rumour and I know this guy has said his source is a tp staff member which can be wildly unreliable, but I was just wondering what people thought of this or knew of this rumour going around...

tbh I think most of its crap but yeah, your views and stuff...

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/433978570084130/?fref=ts

Sounds complete rubbish to me, I can't see four rides closing down completely next year and whilst that's not to say we 'might' lose a ride, I'm 105% certain Thorpe wouldn't close all those rides unless there's a serious fault.