Park Operations

[JoshuaA]

When I visited last weekend two trains were present on all coasters but stacking was fairly bad on Colossus and Swarm.. Colossus in particular had a good 100 minute queue and the staff seemed like Tortoises trying to load the trains.

 

Rush had two swings working last weekend and it ran fairly quickly, hopefully it was just busy today.

Vortex from what the website says and the amount of time it has been down for leads me to believe it won't be back for a while, which is a shame and it is usually quite a good queue eater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marhelorpe]

Can now confirm the reason Rush has been getting large queues lately is because it's running on one swing at present:

 

 

On the plus side, at least this swing now reaches beyond 90 degrees (just about) once again finally! Yay! xD

 

[Han30]

@JoshuaA yup yesterday the dispatches on Swarm and Colossus were pretty slow - Colossus being the worse - the staff could have done with a rocket stuck somewhere to speed them up a bit.  We were on the brake run for what felt like an eternity and I desperately needed paracetamol ? I guess at least they were on 2 trains which is good especially as the park wasn’t particularly busy

[streetmagix]

On Saturday I assumed that Colossus was on one train the dispatches were so slow! SWARM had trains flying out of the station though, the first time in a long time my train has slowed on the lift hill waiting for the previous train to clear the block section.

[MattyMoo]

*insert obvious joke that trains should be flying out of the station as it's a B&M Flyer here*

 

That's good to hear though  Shame about Colossus but then I've never liked it anyway and would rather not ride than ride due to the headache situation that Han mentions!

[Benin]

14 minutes ago, MattyMoo said:

*insert obvious joke that trains should be flying out of the station as it's a B&M Flyer here*

 

Is the joke that it's not a Flying coaster?

[MattyMoo]

Ooops. Need more coffee. 1/10 on the humour scale.

[Kenton80]

Was at the park yesterday, only Saw had more than one train running, all the ops seem to be on the "go slow" 

 

[ProudToServe]

On 6/11/2018 at 2:47 AM, Han30 said:

@JoshuaA yup yesterday the dispatches on Swarm and Colossus were pretty slow - Colossus being the worse - the staff could have done with a rocket stuck somewhere to speed them up a bit.  We were on the brake run for what felt like an eternity and I desperately needed paracetamol ? I guess at least they were on 2 trains which is good especially as the park wasn’t particularly busy

Being on two trains and stuck on the brake run for ages just defeats the point of two trains imo. that train should be ready to go once you leave the first brakes so it just keeps rolling in

[RobF]

2 hours ago, ProudToServe said:

Being on two trains and stuck on the brake run for ages just defeats the point of two trains imo. that train should be ready to go once you leave the first brakes so it just keeps rolling in

Unfortunately that is not the case with Colossus, the ride has to almost stack between dispatch to prevent an auto shutdown, as the other train will reach the top of lift block point before the second clears the break run, Colossus only has one break run which causes this.  It is also held up by the weight of the restraints and all the restraints need to be up to reset the train to enable the dispatch. (Single seat rows cause Issues on Colossus)

[JoshuaA]

1 hour ago, RobF said:

Unfortunately that is not the case with Colossus, the ride has to almost stack between dispatch to prevent an auto shutdown, as the other train will reach the top of lift block point before the second clears the break run, Colossus only has one break run which causes this.  It is also held up by the weight of the restraints and all the restraints need to be up to reset the train to enable the dispatch. (Single seat rows cause Issues on Colossus)

I don't think they meant that they have to dispatch lightning quick.. But as soon as that second train hits the brake run then they should be ready to dispatch.

On Colossus recently the stacking has been up to a good 3 minutes.. Which is really mostly down to the staff not being efficient or quick enough..

 

A few seconds of stacking is completely fine, but 3 minutes on the brake run because a member of staff is too busy chatting to dispatch the damn train...

 

 

[ProudToServe]

20 hours ago, RobF said:

Unfortunately that is not the case with Colossus, the ride has to almost stack between dispatch to prevent an auto shutdown, as the other train will reach the top of lift block point before the second clears the break run, Colossus only has one break run which causes this.  It is also held up by the weight of the restraints and all the restraints need to be up to reset the train to enable the dispatch. (Single seat rows cause Issues on Colossus)

You shouldn't arrive in the brake run to then wait while they are still loading the next train. All this is down to lack of batch staff, and staff just not 'helping' guests. The complete mess of having to cross the track to store bags just adds to the slow turn around too. Shame really. But one less staff member to ensure guests know what row to stand in to ensure a full train and that their bags have to go in the shelf is overruled by profit. For the sake of £80 a day.

[planenut]

10 hours ago, ProudToServe said:

............... The complete mess of having to cross the track to store bags just adds to the slow turn around too. .............

I'm sure if you had a sensible alternative, then TP would like to hear it.

[Marc]

Unfortunately Colosuss was way before the time of bag rooms, there’s just no way it would work, they could always try universal style lockers at the entrance, I remember they trialed it with Slammer back when it opened with free lockers,not allowing anything into the queue,  though unfortunately people seem to want their stuff all the time!

[ProudToServe]

1 hour ago, planenut said:

I'm sure if you had a sensible alternative, then TP would like to hear it.

Yes sure, free lockers outside the attraction for a set time (or following the queue time). Could be even more clever and use the park tickets. Very simple and sensible. works very well with many parks across the states. Leave the messing around outside the queue and station. 

 

I know this is something thorpe have recently looked into, but it costs. So it didnt happen. unless it's free, TP wont do it.

[JoshuaA]

The thing is, it wasn't even the guests and their bags that was the problem when I went.. Everyone was sat down in the train and the staff still seemed to be waiting for a blue moon to load the next train.

 

I think if the park organized and perhaps added some staff and put several rockets up their a*** then that would reduce stacking heavily, though a better locker system would speed things up a little I guess.

 

I know the Inferno team overall started off very limp early on in the season but overall have got much faster, I just think they need to organize the staff better and perhaps make sure they are efficient.

I think the slowness has more to do with the current ride team than the ride design itself.. I have seen much faster operations on this ride, heck its been operating for 16 years..

If slow dispatches was a issue due to the design, I think that would of been highlighted ages ago..

[ProudToServe]

On 6/17/2018 at 12:20 AM, JoshuaA said:

The thing is, it wasn't even the guests and their bags that was the problem when I went.. Everyone was sat down in the train and the staff still seemed to be waiting for a blue moon to load the next train.

 

I think if the park organized and perhaps added some staff and put several rockets up their a*** then that would reduce stacking heavily, though a better locker system would speed things up a little I guess.

 

I know the Inferno team overall started off very limp early on in the season but overall have got much faster, I just think they need to organize the staff better and perhaps make sure they are efficient.

I think the slowness has more to do with the current ride team than the ride design itself.. I have seen much faster operations on this ride, heck its been operating for 16 years..

If slow dispatches was a issue due to the design, I think that would of been highlighted ages ago..

My original post listed many factors or what could cause the slow turn arounds with bags just being one of them   Wasnt saying it was just bags. But guests crossing to shove bags in a shelf while others mess around finding theirs add's a few mins  

[Stuntman707]

I think Mack’s shelf flaps is the best bag system I’ve seen. It’s still a compromise. Sure it’s not as safe as a locker or bagroom but it’s easy to retrofit on the platform. Don’t need extra staff like the bagroom and not as much faff as either that or lockers. The shelves are locked when the train departs and only allow access to the same train when it’s back.

In regards to turn around, a lot of it is down to the staff, how motivated, how well they work together and how many of them there are. Dragons Fury at Chessington was flying through the queues down to a 10min wait on Sunday. I think there were at least 5 staff members in there. One taking bags, two checking restraints, one counting guests and the operator.

[Coaster]

On 6/18/2018 at 10:46 PM, Stuntman707 said:

I think Mack’s shelf flaps is the best bag system I’ve seen. It’s still a compromise. Sure it’s not as safe as a locker or bagroom but it’s easy to retrofit on the platform. Don’t need extra staff like the bagroom and not as much faff as either that or lockers. The shelves are locked when the train departs and only allow access to the same train when it’s back.

In regards to turn around, a lot of it is down to the staff, how motivated, how well they work together and how many of them there are. Dragons Fury at Chessington was flying through the queues down to a 10min wait on Sunday. I think there were at least 5 staff members in there. One taking bags, two checking restraints, one counting guests and the operator.

You mean they've finally sorted the 90 second dispatch times?

[planenut]

On 6/17/2018 at 12:06 AM, ProudToServe said:

Yes sure, free lockers outside the attraction for a set time (or following the queue time). Could be even more clever and use the park tickets. Very simple and sensible. works very well with many parks across the states. Leave the messing around outside the queue and station. 

 

I know this is something thorpe have recently looked into, but it costs. So it didnt happen. unless it's free, TP wont do it.

Ah, see what you mean, but as someone suggested, if it costs anything more than one penny, TP would need a lot of persuading. I think with the history of the ride, the people will not want to change, and therefore would need some "policing".

[Coaster]

Having not really visited much lately, what the hell has happened to operations this year?!

 

7 minute dispatch times on Colossus and four rows closed for Fastrack.

[Ringo]

17 minutes ago, Coaster said:

Having not really visited much lately, what the hell has happened to operations this year?!

 

7 minute dispatch times on Colossus and four rows closed for Fastrack.

That’s gotta mean the fastrack entrance is closed and sending them via the exit which then adds to the RAP queue.

 

[Coaster]

1 hour ago, Ringo said:

That’s gotta mean the fastrack entrance is closed and sending them via the exit which then adds to the RAP queue.

 

Yeah that is exactly what was happening, operations across the park have been painfully slow all day so far.

[JoshC.]

4 rows closed for Fastrack and disabled guests is actually a very fair split to be fair. Even 4 rows for Fastrack plus an extra for disabled is decent. 

[Matt 236]

I’ve certaibly heard much worse horror stories with fastrack allocation, where a whole train had been allocated just to fastrack. 

 

7 minutes dispatches aren’t great though, even with the poorly planned stacking layout and terrible trains. The sooner this ride gets Taron style trains the better.