robbalvey

I get what you're saying, but you have to remember that it's a *HUGE* deal to close down a park. Yes, there was the accident, but you also have to remember that tens of thousands of people are going to come to that park every day and will now be turned away. And while SFOT is more of a 'regional' park, Alton Towers is a resort destination for the UK. People plan longer vacations around visiting the park and they have two on-site hotels. This is going to impact people's plans quite a bit. I have a feeling the park would remain open if they could. But given the nature of this, and if it DOES turn out to be human error, that means the finding could be with the maintenance staff at Alton Towers and I think they would have a lot more to answer to if they discover one of their own staff dispatched that train meaning that staff member should have never been at the controls and that's cause for alarm to think what other members of the staff might be putting riders at risk. My "guess" is that this is why the park is closed, because Heath & Safety feel it could be more of a global issue with the management, procedures, or maintenance training at the park.

I don't think Alton Towers has any choice in the matter to be honest. If I'm reading everything correctly, this is UK's Health & Safety department shutting them down until they complete their investigation, or at least until they feel it's safe to re-open. Is this correct?

This would be my guess.

Wow. Has there been any other incident in the past that has kept an entire park closed for three days?

You've been reading the articles, right? And seen the pictures of the underfloor of the front row? First off, no need to be obnoxious on our forums. Secondly, Yin does not speak English as his first language and I'm damn sure his English is better than your Chinese. And finally, what Yin meant was actually killing the riders. A crush impact that would have crumpled or folded the train killing the riders in the process. I found it easy to understand what Yin meant so I highly doubt it should have been that difficult for others. Or did you just feel the need to register for the forum to "correct" someone?

^ Thanks Yin.

We will be out there tomorrow filming for the park so please be patient! TPR will have some awesome footage to show you soon!

I would expect today would be the day that every one of our riders has posted this to their social media pages, asking friends for one final push, etc. There is a lot of art in the first post of this thread you can use. I have put this on the front page one more time and we will blast it out to all of our socials today! Best of luck everyone!

I'm reading reports that the impact was at a point in the ride where the train reaches speeds of 50MPH, but I'd have to think that if a train valleyed, could it really have been going that fast in that section? Anyone more familiar with the ride know if where it crashed is one of the more high speed moments of the ride?

Some important info for everyone attending the event this weekend - We will want to cover the even and "Live Tweet" from as many parks as possible that Team TPR is participating at. We are looking for photos of our team having fun, sitting in the trains, hanging out, pictures of the park, the coasters, etc. Just overall take us on a journey through your day having a good time at the event! To send us photos, please send them to us via Facebook or Twitter. You can tweet photos @themeparkreview and then I can retweet them, quote them, or re-post them. You can go to the TPR Facebook page and click "message" and send us a message with a photo attached. You can also email them me at robblavey@themeparkreview.com however that doesn't always work best, but it is an option. again, please put these in your phone NOW and keep us updated as the event is underway. Thank you!

Exactly. I am *shocked* that their procedure wasn't to evac the train of people who were stuck on the lift BEFORE operating the ride in manual mode. And who knows, maybe that was their procedure (which would fall in line with what most parks do) and that wasn't being followed, which is a much bigger issue with their maintenance staff. Again, this is purely "speculation" and nothing has been reported to make be believe this was actually the case, just my own personal experience working around rides most of my life.

It is very likely that there WAS some sort of warning light or message that displayed that the block was not cleared, but that's the whole point of operating it in manual or maintenance mode. You are essentially turning off and ignoring any computer notifications or warnings. When you turn that key to disable the computer, you are taking entire responsibility of the ride in your hands. It is VERY rare that I've seen a ride operate in maintenance mode with people on it. But I have seen it happen before and the person controlling it needs to be paying EXTREME caution to make sure everything on the ride is in the proper place before you send a train around. Going back to my "I'm speculating, but I probably shouldn't mode", I'm also going to guess that part of the reason why the park has remained closed now for two days is because this was human error. Again, I don't want to speculate but to me, if it was a computer error isolated to that one ride, I think it would be "ok" to open up and operate other rides. But if this is human error, where that team of humans are working on ALL the rides in the park, it might be necessary, if not required by UK's Health and Safety to shut the park down and make sure that maintenance team is given proper training or evaluation of their job performance.

I've made a tl;dr version of what you were saying, which is actually my thoughts as well on this incident. Again, not wanting to speculate and will be VERY interested to see what the actual report has to say, but I would be very surprised if this wasn't due to human error running the ride in maintenance/manual mode by a technician that didn't realize a train had valleyed and over-rode the computers safety systems. It's very sad that this is my initial speculations and part of the reason why I put more trust in computers than I do in humans.

You need to understand more how Orlando works. Universal isn't putting a small dent into Disney's marketshare, but instead they are simply increasing their own. When people come to Orlando for vacation they look at the number of days they need. I'm sure there is plenty of research out there that tells us people aren't spending LESS days at Disney, but instead they are spending MORE days in Orlando to do and see more things. This isn't hurting Disney, but it's most certainly benefiting Universal, and as a whole, that's a great thing. The more money brought into the area and the longer people stay in town is what Orlando wants. The whole concept between Disney Vs. Universal is something that mostly falls on the fanboy level that doesn't understand how the industry works, especially here in Florida. "A rising tide raises all ships" is by all means what is happening here.

The most interesting take-away for me is Orlando. This once again just proves that Disney doesn't *NEED* to be building anything on the rate that Universal or SeaWorld parks do. I've seen people say things like "Wow, all these new announcements for all these Orlando parks...what do you have to say for yourself Disney?" and my response to comments like that are "Disney's response is that they are the #1 parks in the world." Universal's best performing park in Orlando doesn't even come close to touching Disney's worst performing park. And that's not a knock on Universal. I think it's great that they are continuing to expand and increasing their numbers. But I'm not convinced they are pulling people AWAY from Disney as much as they'd like to think they are. (Or at least maybe their fans claim they are.) And seeing that IOA was flat this year, while Studios saw an increase due to Potter also tells me that most people when they come to Orlando are visiting Disney as their #1 priority, and then spending ONE day at Universal. I think a lot of people were hoping to see a boost as both parks with an increase in 2-park, 2-day ticket sales, but it doesn't appear as though that is happening.

It's that time of year again! The theme park attendance report is out! Take a look at the link below and post your thoughts! http://www.teaconnect.org/images/files/TEA_103_49736_150603.pdf Here's the top 25 world-wide parks in 2014 compared to 2013: 2013: 2014: And the top 20 in North America for 2014:

Yes, I'm sure Alton Towers is going to get right on that removing their $30 million investment over this accident. Just like Six Flags Over Texas removed Texas Giant or Six Flags New England removed Superman....

Four seriously injured in Alton Towers crash http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32980354 Four people have been seriously injured in a crash between two carriages on a ride at Alton Towers in Staffordshire. Sixteen people were on one carriage of the Smiler ride, the other was empty. The resort said their first aid staff were on the scene and emergency crews were building a platform to help reach those on the ride. The air ambulance is also in attendance following the collision that happened at 14:09 BST. Eyewitness Ben Richardson said: "When the second carriage crashed people were screaming and shouting - even after it stopped. Everyone around the park ran over. "The people looked significantly distressed. It was almost like a car crash, very full on." Merlin Entertainment, which runs the resort, said in a statement: "There has been an incident on the Smiler this afternoon involving two carriages coming together on a low section of the track. One of the carriages was empty and the other had 16 guests in. "The Resort's fully qualified First Responders were on the scene immediately to assist with the evacuation which is ongoing, and the area has been closed to allow for access to emergency services vehicles. To ensure the safe and timely evacuation of guests a platform is being constructed. This will take a few minutes but will enable us to proceed more quickly. "There will be a full investigation once we have recovered the guests who are our priority." The Smiler opened in May 2013 and is billed as the world's first 14-loop rollercoaster. It holds the official Guinness World Record for most loops in a rollercoaster, according to the Alton Towers website. The resort claims that it features "a series of twisted psychological effects including optical illusions, blinding lights and near misses designed to mess with your mind".

^ Aska at Nara Dreamland was nearly IDENTICAL to SFGA's Viper. I thought the ride was completely over-sold by the ACE/ECC trip that went there the year after we rode it and claimed it to be the best thing in the world. I'm guessing that since it closed shortly after and not many enthusiasts got out to ride it that it became bragging rights to say they were on this OMG hidden gem of a ride that most people won't be able to counter because it's gone. We didn't find it any better than Viper at all.

It is new to this version. It still creeps me out that this version is using the music from WDW's "Celebrate the Magic" show!

You have never have too much Elsa!

I have had zero communication with GKTW since the initial email I received saying our team pages were created. Kara did a great job with the event and took a personal vested interest to be in constant communication with all the clubs involved, so those are big shoes to fill, but I agree, I feel like this event is mostly on auto-pilot lately as far as GKTW's coordinator goes, but that doesn't stop our awesome group from kicking ass raising lots of money!

Are you getting a Flash Pass on any of the days, and do you plan on getting there BEFORE the park opens?

Here's the video. I really like how Six Flags put this whole thing together! Great job! Be sure to check out Josh's media day report: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1591782#p1591782

It's on the radar! Don't worry. It will get up in the next day or two. It has been quite the insane last few days! lol