James Salter

S&S: Stuck & Stranded

Look what I found on my lunchtime trawl of the web:

Sequioa Adventure managed to strand its riders hanging over a vertical drop for nearly 2 hours (see the photos in the second post).

First Slammer leaves riders suspended upside down, now SA - albeit a totally different type of ride - does something similar. S&S aren’t having a good year. It seems their rides just love to get stuck, and when they get stuck they love to get stuck upside down.

Can we still say all these problems with new S&S rides this year are just a coincidence?

The first time I saw the Slammer & Rush plans, I immediately wanted to ride. The first time I saw a picture of a Screamin’ Squirrel, same thing. S&S have fantastic ride concepts, but - certainly this year - are failing to deliver them on time and in a reliable working state.

Thorpe Park (yes, again)

I headed off to Thorpe Park on Sunday to meet up with Paul O and have a few rides on Rush. Paul hadn’t yet riden Rush, because he had to go on holiday to Florida. Yeah, don’t feel too sorry for him.

Unfortunately, come opening time, Rush was closed and was being worked on by an engineer up the top of a cherry picker. A slight change of plans resulted in an early morning ride on Colossus instead (my suggestion, guilty as charged). As Sunday was the hottest day of the year so far, Tidal Wave was the necessary next stop. At least we were cool for the rest of the morning!

Since we were already wet, we decided to do a mini-tour of the water rides. After stopping off at Loggers Leap (where we somehow managed to flood the boat - sorry about you being in the front Paul - total accident!) we headed for Rumba Rapids.

It was as uninspiring as usual, until we reached the end of the ride where we encountered our first breakdown of the day:

For some reason, the lift had stopped meaning boats were backing up at the bottom
Eventually the entire fleet of boats surrounded us
When the lift was restarted, we still didn’t go anywhere: all the boats had wedged themselves together, out of reach of the spinners

A member of staff was dispatched to come and, well, just stare at all the boats with a puzzled expression on his face

The current eventually pushed our boat onto the lift

There were still a lot of boats stuck

The empty boats pushing their way in front didn’t exactly help

Finally somebody had a sensible idea: hold the boats back so that when one moved, it didn’t get wedged against the others

After escaping our river adventure, we took a couple of rides on Detonator. From the top of the tower you get a good view over the Stealth construction site. A fair amount of progress has now been made. They’ve begun to put in footers and groundwork for the launch. It really is a compact site!By that time, Rush had finally opened and we were able to ride … after it breaking down while we were in the SRQ.

Paul gets a Rush (4th from the left, with his hands up)
Following some lunch, while in the Pirates 4D queue, we spotted one of the trains stopped at the top of the Inferno lift hill. According to The Sun, it was a major incident where 50 people were stuck in blistering heat for half an hour. Apparently the passengers began to panic and shout for help, but it took ages for anybody to notice or for staff to go to their aid.From what I saw, and after talking to other people stuck on the ride, the reality was somewhat different. The ride was only stopped for about 10 minutes. Staff were almost immediately climbing the lift hill to make sure all the guests were OK. As for the blistering heat - apparently it was actually quite pleasant up there with a nice cool breeze. Oh, and also only has 28 seats per train, not 50.
Attending to Inferno riders on the lift hill
Staff decending a few minutes later
I’m surprised the tabloids didn’t pick up on the real news story of the day: Slammer broke down again, trapping riders for 30 minutes at the top. (See the separate blog entry for the full story)
We also noticed that Detonator had broken down and had staff/engineers on the cage mid-afternoon
Throughout the day we managed a few rides on Rush, although it broke down every time we were in the queue. We had to be evacuated off it once (hardly a big deal since it can’t stop anywhere but the bottom of the swing - just step off the ride and out of the exit gate). Worryingly, the engineer then went to fiddle with the restraint and look under the seat I had just been sitting in. Another breakdown meant they had to clear the queueline - oh well, another exit pass to add to our growing collection!
Rush broken down … again
Overall, Rush stands to become a brilliant ride. Its only a couple of weeks old, so the breakdowns are understandable. The real problem at the moment is the short ride program, but that should be sorted soon.We spent the end of the afternoon on Inferno, which had a minimal queue by that stage. It was getting too hot to walk all the way around, so we ended up using SRQ a couple of times. When that closed, we used one of our exit passes (don’t worry, its not exactly as if we’re short of them and as I said, it was hot).
Inferno in the sunshine: its been getting quite intense recently - following in the footsteps of its big sister?
A hot, busy day resulted in piles of litter in the N:I queueline by the end of the day
Possibly the biggest shock of the day - Slammer reopened only a couple of hours after it threw its wobbly. Strangely, we declined to ride it, even though it was walk-on for the rest of the afternoon. The blue sky and sunshine did allow for some nice photo opportunities though:
Slammer and an aeroplane
Heading for the ground
Just before park close, we walked past Rush in the hope of a final ride. You’ve guessed it: it had suffered another breakdown, meaning the queueline had been closed for the day. Closed, that is, for everybody but us. Courtesy of a friendly staff member, we were allowed to join the back of those already in the queue who had been promised a ride when Rush was fixed. Huge thanks to her for adding yet another “magic moment” to our day!A day in the park when there are so many breakdowns on major rides (Rush, Slammer, Inferno, Colossus, Rumba Rapids and Detonator were all down at some stage) can be miserable - especially in the heat we had on Sunday. However, thanks in large part to some great staff members we had a fantastic day, proving its always worth being friendly and stopping for a chat.

Slammer Breakdown: Number 3

Slammer, one of Thorpe Park’s new rides for 2005, has already had a couple of “incidents” since it began operation in March. The day after it opened, its main arm got stuck at the top of its towers, trapping riders for quite a time. Contrary to reports in the press, they were not up there over 2 hours (somewhere around 30 minutes as far as I’ve been told) and they were not upside down.

However, just a couple of weeks ago, Slammer’s second “incident” occured in which riders were indeed stuck upside down for an extended time period when the ride decided a component was superfluous to requirements. Today, Slammer had its third “incident”, although thankfully not as serious as the second:

I was at the park with Paul O. We’d decided to ride Slammer after having an ice cream (lucky for us we had this 5 minute break or we’d most likely have been on the ride) and were standing in the queue. I was doing the usual video/photo taking. We both noticed the ride giving an extra rotation - my initial reaction was they must have increased the length of the ride program (thus the reason it had been down for testing most of the morning).

Following maybe another rotation, the ride slowed, stopping almost vertical. OK, not so normal operation.

  After a few seconds it began righting itself, although didn’t seem to be able to level properly. The ride ops gave the standard spiel about experiencing minor difficulties and that they needed to evacuate the queueline. Security and medics were almost instantly on the scene, together with people from Guest Services with palettes of water bottles.

 After the engineers turned up (and I’m guessing they and the PLC ran through the necessary safety checks) the ride returned to the ground extremely slowly around about 25 minutes later.At any theme park, the staff are the most important factor in its success. Thorpe Park’s staff proved once again today what an asset they are to the Tussauds Group. They acted with speed and professionalism to rectify what must have been a scary situation for those stuck on the ride.

Some credit must also go to the ride designers, engineers and manufacturers. Sure, this type of thing should not happen - especially three times. However, it is a testament to their skills that even in a situation like today’s, rides are built to such high specification that all the riders were brought down safely and in a relatively short amount of time without anybody suffering any serious injury. Many of us enthusiasts (me included) moan at times about over-the-top Health & Safety rules & regs. However, they obviously do a good job.

In fact, after a couple of hours testing, the ride re-opened for the end of the afternoon. Did we venture on it? Yeah, right, as if. If Slammer behaves itself over the next few weeks, I’ll consider it again.

I’ve uploaded a short video of the breakdown. As you’ll probably hear, it started as just a normal bit of ride filming. (Apologies for the language from some of the other people in the queueline).

Surely not Slammer?

Its been almost exactly a month since, if everything had gone to plan, Slammer should have opened at Thorpe Park. It eventually opened on the 28th, only to close the next day after getting stuck at the top and leaving guests in the air for half an hour. I’ve been checking Thorpe’s website regularly ever since and finally I was rewarded yesterday when it said that Slammer would be available from midday. Reports suggested this was true and, having already made rough plans on popping in to the park inbetween other things I had to do today, I drove down there this morning.

Arriving at 10am, I discovered the park had been open since 9:30. Apparently even though Semantic are back in charge of the website, its still as inaccurate as last year.

Anyway, although the lure of Slammer was intense, coasters were calling. Colossus was running two trains: no need to use the Single Rider Queue and I was on within a few minutes. A fantastic ride - after a rough couple of years Colossus is beginning to win back its #1 Thorpe coaster spot in my heart. Somehow I don’t think it’ll be keeping that for long though, but more on that in a moment. There seems to be more difference between the two trains this year: I watched the other one barely crawling around the track. I’m surprised it made it back to the station without stalling it was so slow!

Nemesis: Inferno’s queue wasn’t even emerging from the volcano, so I gave that a quick shot too. Not much to say: still its normal smooth great self.

After that, I decided I had been putting off the inevitable long enough. (For some reason I got a bit intimidated when I actually saw people on Slammer. Bizarre, considering how much I’d been looking forward to riding, but I began comparing its height with Detonator. Not a wise move if you’re me.)

The queue was very short, but it still took a while to get on. Its hardly surprising considering today must only be the second full day of operation. I’m sure as the staff get more used to the ride things will get faster. They need to: Colossus was dispatching 3 trains for every run of Slammer.

What can I say? Slammer is intense! There’s some great music as it rises into position (think dramatic Classical music with a choral accompaniment). The forces range from airtime to pushing-through-the-seat positive Gs as it spins. The restraints are fantastically comfortable … as long as you don’t try sticking your arms out in front of you (they cut into my shoulders then). They come complete with a padded headrest - ideal when you’re straining to get a few more seconds looking at the spectacular views of the Dome or Loggers Leap, depending on which way you’re facing. Of course, that’s nothing to the view of the ground hurtling towards you!

At the end of the ride, I couldn’t wait to get off. Not because I didn’t like it, but because I wanted to get straight back in the queue for another go.

Damn it. Am I really jinxing this ride? I made it all the way through the queue, only for Slammer to break down as I reached the loading bays. I waited around for quarter of an hour or so, but when all the engineers arrived the ride op advised us all that there was little point in waiting: it would be quite a while before it would reopen.

I know when to admit defeat, so I made my way over to Vortex. It had probably the longest queue in the park at the time, but I like it. How about that for justification.

Anyway, my jinxing abilities weren’t too far behind me and it soon ran into problems. Somebody managed to become detatched from their shoe whilst riding. Not too big a problem, or so you would think. That is, until said shoe gets stuck in the floor mechanism, meaning an engineer had to come to retrieve it before the floor could be raised to let all the guests off. It goes without saying that there was some additional emphasis to the PA announcement on the next ride: “Welcome to Vortex. Guests are reminded to secure all loose articles including mobile phones, hats, wallets and shoes before boarding.”

I got a fantastic ride on the top of the swing all the times it counted and a hot dog.

I bought the hot dog after the ride of course.

Wandering past Pirates 4D I saw a show was just about to begin. Since I’d just eaten and I haven’t seen the film for over a year, I thought I’d watch. Impressed! All the effects were working and the scratched old film has been replaced by a new Digital Projector (I assume from the lack of dust and filmgrain). This, however, hasn’t stopped the slightly odd out-of-sync blurred-vision when something moves across the screen too quickly.

Nothing has changed on the Project Stealth site as far as I could see, apart from the addition of a few plant pots around the construction walls and posters featuring the new coaster’s stats.

Having been disappointed earlier, I went back to Slammer in search of a second ride. This time I was more fortunate, although the wait was considerably longer. I got the leftmost seat on the back row of the paddle on the X:\NWO side. The queueline announcements assure riders that each seat offers the same ride experience. As anybody with any knowledge of physics will tell you, that’s bollocks. The back row is about 10ft higher/lower than the front row at the top/bottom of the rotation and is considerably more intense.

2pm had arrived and I had already spent longer in the park than I had intended, so I made my way to the car park, via the Rush construction site.

Rush has arrived and construction is progressing quickly. Its two towers are in place and the queueline brickwork (oh yes sir, none of your cheapo tarmac here) is being laid. Already it has become the focal point of the Dome end of the Lost City, even though it’s not yet at full height. Rush is shaping up to be another worthy addition to Thorpe’s collection of flats. Mind you, that’s what we said about Samurai.

Photos from today are available here.

Jinx?

I’m sure I’m jinxing Slammer (Thorpe Park’s newest ride installation for those of you who I haven’t incessantly badgered about it).

I still haven’t managed a ride on it. Here’s a quick summary of my attempts so far this season:

• Opening Day: Pushed back to the Friday of opening week a month or so before
• Friday of Opening Week: Originally going to pop in for half an hour after uni. Pushed back until “Easter”.
• Opening Weekend: See above (went anyway - good day out!)
• Over Easter: Still not opened
• Last weekend: Closed following the “incident”.
• Yesterday: Originally I planned to go yesterday, but according to the website, Slammer is closed again.
• Today: still closed

I’m loosing hope! Beware: don’t be organising a trip to Thorpe with me if you want to ride Slammer - without doubt it’ll be down for the day

Thorpe Park’s first Saturday

It doesn’t seem very long ago that I was at Thorpe Park, but it was actually last October! Anyway, we had a fantastic day yesterday, in somewhat of a mini heatwave. According to Metcheck, the temperature hit 20�C by early afternoon.

There have been a few changes around the park since last year, most obviously of course the huge area cordoned off behind construction walls. Previously home to Model World, the Sunken Garden and the Flying Fish, the patch of land will next year be occupied by Thorpe’s new rocket coaster, currently codenamed Project Stealth. At the moment, however, its just a rather large patch of dirt, albeit possibly one of the most photographed patches of dirt in Surrey.

Another smaller construction site currently occupies the space vacated by Eclipse when it left the park and hotfooted it across the Chessington over the winter. This will become home to Rush when it eventually arrives in June (according to many of the posters stuck up around the park). Not much to see yet, apart from a few bits of concrete with pipes sticking up.

Slammer, Thorpe’s new Sky Swat, was testing but is not ready to ride yet. At least its conforming, meaning none of the new rides installed at Tussauds’ UK parks this year have opened for the start of the season, whether or not they were originally scheduled to.

There appeared to be staff training going on in the afternoon though, with Samurai being down for ages while staff seemed to be congregating in Slammer’s control box. The water dummies at least were certainly having a good time riding.

A retheme of X:\No Way Out has been a long standing rumour for the last couple of seasons. While this still hasn’t happened, there have been a few “improvements” over the winter. Along with a new bit of queueline, the coaster now has a soundtrack (well, boom boom bass noises anyway). Inside the pyramid itself is an extremely low budget light show. The lights clearly came from Maplin and can’t have cost more than a few hundred pounds. Mind you, thinking about the amount of money spent, this could well be the best value retheme ever.

Unfortunately, Thorpe have missed a golden opportunity to reach out to their new target audience by renaming the ride, so I have decided to do it for them. From now on it will no longer be known as “X colon backslash no way out”, but will be shortened to “ex-colon-chav-slash”. All they need now is neon-blue lights underneath the trains!

Also new for 2005 is a replacement for the Spider-Man show in the arena (”la la la la - Diamonds - cool as ice - la la la la”). They have at last found something half-decent to follow on from the classic Dive Show: Stuntzmania. Rather than trying to come up with a half-arsed storyline, they’ve employed a professional stunt team to put on a half hour show filled with just that - stunts.

Even though we didn’t get to see the full show (they were still building the set mid-morning and the dive pool is not yet filled with water), its a major improvement and definitely something I’ll be making the effort to see again later in the year.

Although (with the exception of the stunt show) there was nothing new on offer at Thorpe yesterday, we had a fantastic day out. Staff were friendly as ever - we got jumped on by Burger King staff all overly-eager to serve us. There was a small amount of downtime here and there, but nothing too substantial. Although at the beginning of the day it was obvious Thorpe were not expecting so many guests (e.g. only running one train on Inferno), they managed to pull off much of the usual magic which makes it a unique park to visit.

If yesterday was an indication of the rest of the season then this will be an awesome year, with memories of disasterous 2004 with a dodgy secondhand ride and events cancellations swept well out of sight.

Photos from Yesterday

Gate Figure: ~6000