thedazza

Full POV here including ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTRHf384ryI I know what you mean about it taking a long time, wonder how it affects the throughput, although they can probably dispatch a train every 90 seconds - 2 minutes.

Looks like Cannibal is opening today according to some recent posts on lagoonisfun.com

Are Vekoma manufacturing Wildfire, or do they just act as agents when selling RMCs in europe?

I'll be there in 2 weeks, am also hoping for x-sector to be open as Oblivion is one of my favourite rides. Obviously it is very unlikely that The Smiler will be open, but this has not have put me off riding if it is. And if the accident is put down to human error and the ride deemed to be safe then who knows.

The Smiler is running today. It isn't open ofcourse, but it has been testing today with water dummies. Most likely being run by HSE as part of their investigation. Here is a pic from towerstimes.

I think we can probably say that in this accident having OTSRs most likely saved lives, if it were lapbars the front row passengers would all most probably have gone face first into the stalled train. I don't think it is going to reassure the GP of the rides safety if a ride they deem to be unsafe re-opens with just lap restraints.

It doesn't say where the 'top' is, to me it sounds like they saw it stuck at the 'bottom' as they got to the 'top' (of the loop) they werent going to stop. He doesn't mention stopping on the lift hill, seeing the car, then the ride restarting. Regarding screaming at staff to stop the ride - you and I you might realise this is pointless at the top of the loops, but in my experience, a lot of people don't realise coasters can't just stop at any time - they think the cars have brakes on. The whole thing could just be fabricated by an individual or the paper itself. Theres no factual evidence for it anyway. I think by "top" he means top of the lift hill. I'm sure everyone would have been shouting at them to stop the ride when they saw a train going up the lift hill knowing that another train had valleyed and that train was going to crash into it. I think a lot of people must assume that the trains have brakes on, people were shouting for them to stop the ride when it was rocking back and forward at the bottom of the batwing, although we know they can't do that, they just have to let gravity do it's thing. We know the train was stopped at the top of the lift hill, like has been said, the question now is how and why it was allowed to leave the lift hill and carry on into an occupied block.

Thanks, I found a news article where somebody who was on it and seems to confirm this. Kind of chilling. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alton-towers-rollercoaster-crash-passenger-5824114 Is it just me or is anyone else suspicious of this person contacting the Mirror about his story but "not wanting to be named"? Maybe, but maybe just doesn't want loads of attention and other journalist bothering him all the time. I think i'd probably be the same. Although the lift hill is facing in the opposite direction I suppose it may be possible to turn your head to see around the head rest to see the batwing. You can see here,

OMG. Please stop posting stuff like this people. We are supposed to all be smart enough in the theme park business to know this would be completely ridiculous. Outside of a couple of older coasters in Japan, can anyone point to a MAJOR NEW RIDE that had an issue that the park then up and got rid of because of it? No. So if in the totally off-chance something like that DID happen, it would be an industry first and a totally bizarre and shocking turn of events. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Orphan Rocker?

The empty train was already valleyed on the batwing before the full train was released.

I've seen the POV (we have one on our channel!) that doesn't actually tell me that much when you're not that familiar with the ride. I was hoping that someone who has been on the ride could tell me how fast it feels at the point of the impact and if that is one of the faster parts of the coaster. Thank you. I have been on the ride, and yes it is one of the faster parts of the ride. The park are saying that the crash happened at around 20mph, but if the train was at normal speed then I would say it would have probably been a bit faster than that.

I think that safety is their number 1 concern, if this is human error (and I think that it will turn out to be the case) then they want to make sure that everyone is trained to such a level that this can't happen again on any ride. The fact that the full train had been stopped on the lift hill shows that the system was working correctly. The empty train hadn't cleared the block so the system e-stopped and didn't allow the full train to carry on over the lift hill into the block. The train was up there for 10-15 minutes, so you would assume that someone was working on the ride to try and get it going again. Unfortunately it appears that the stalled train has been overlooked and the system has been over ridden to get the ride moving again. I remember that in one of the witness interviews from someone who was in the queue at the time, they said that because of the stoppages and breakdowns an extra train was put on the track to get the queues down. Is it possible that an engineer that had previously been working on the ride come back to it when it stopped again, seen that the same number of empty trains were in the station and so dispatched the train on the lift hill not knowing there was actually another train on the track somewhere.

The same thing happened with The Smiler but they managed to get it pulled into place.

Two people have died after falling from a ride on it's first day of operation. Looks like it was started before they had their restraints locked. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3064055/The-shocking-aftermath-two-tourists-plunged-deaths-thrown-Chinese-amusement-park-ride-called-Scream.html

Heaven's Wings (mystery red B&M) POV.

Official Thunderbird night test video.

Not sure how you go about watching this video. Any advice? If it doesn't play on the site then download it.

Here you go guys, Thunderbird night time test video. http://www85.zippyshare.com/v/YKEIzFi0/file.html

The problem is though a very common complaint the parks get on busy days is when they see empty seats go out on the train and there is an hour or so queue. There is a fine line between it working efficiently or effecting operations and a lot of parks don't manage to get it to work which I do believe is the case with Alton Towers and Thorpe Park. Chessington have just installed SRQ on Dragons Fury and I will be very interested to see if that works or not. Yeh but now the fasttrack queue is going where the SRQ was on Nemesis. So they are quite happy to slow down dispatches as long as they are getting money for it. Also the fasttrack queue being there can only lead to problems, now it is those with fasttracks that are going to be told what row they have to sit in. I can imagine alot of people complaining that they have paid for the fasttrack and can't choose to join the front row queue or go to the back of the train where it is more intense. I personally think the late opening of some rides and removal of single rider queues is an attempt to sell more fasttracks. Especially in May when the big six challenge starts and people are trying to get on all 6 big coasters to get a free ticket to come back to the park. But hey, if it means they have more money to spend on a big new coaster then who cares.

Blade's closure and the tree removal around the area is all pointing towards the next big coaster being in that area. It's looking more and more likely that the cross valley woodie may finally be getting built. I know the official given reason for the tree removal is that they are diseased and need removing, but the main reason the original plans for the cross valley coaster were denied was because of the amount of trees that would need to be removed. Well now they need to be removed anyway so there is no real reason that planning permission should be denied so is the perfect time to put it in. New trees can be planted anywhere but there are only so many places they can put a big coaster so that it can't be seen outside of the park so this would be the perfect opportunity for them to use the valley without needing to remove many trees that wouldn't have been removed already anyway because of them being diseased. If it is happening then here's hoping for an RMC, although I think Gravity Group did the original designs for it so they may go with them, which i'm sure will also be very good.

From Alton Towers Facebook, emphasis on the "Sit Back" so yes most probably backwards facing, maybe a couple of rows or possibly full train. The forces on that back row aswell as being able to see everything behind you as you go, sounds good to me.

Yes The Smiler does have a single rider queue and usually the wait isn't too long in it. Also on Nemesis the single rider queue is right next to the exit of the ride so a lot of the time you can get off the ride and straight back onto the train you have just got off if you want to get re-rides in. Although as you aren't guaranteed which row you get I would definitely recommend getting a ride on both the front and back rows so if the normal queue isn't that big get in that and queue for those rows. Rita and th13teen tend to get big queues although the single rider queues on those go down quite quickly. Oblivion can be hit and miss when it comes to single rider, sometimes can move quickly and sometimes the wait can be longer than the normal queue seeing as there are 8 riders to a row it is easier to fill them from the normal queue. Sonic Spinball's queues are biggest at the beiginning and end of the day so go on that in the middle of the day. Although, the slightest bit of rain they are only allowed to run it with maximum of 3 riders per car so in that case the single rider queue will move very quickly.

Looks like a Zierer Force Two.

Not quite the POV we were hoping for but here is the vid. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152555955082680&theater

Well there is an inverting woodie opening this year in Ireland, and strong rumours of Flamingoland building a woodie for 2016. So hopefully the publicity for those will help Alton market theirs if they do indeed build one. I think if we are going to see an RMC in the UK then the Merlin parks are our best hopes, and with Thorpe building a big new Dark ride next year Alton Towers is the most likely to get one. And with Paramount London edging ever closer Alton may need to add something pretty spectacular to keep ahead of the game.