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Accident at Alton Towers

I think it might be indicative of more than "just" testing. Don't forget that it did most of its pre-opening testing at night. I don't think they'd dare run any trains during the day when people can take pictures of any potential stalls or mis-haps, unless they were confident of opening it soon.

:)
 
^If they were that bothered they'd have done something to stop it stalling.

If they're that bothered about stalling to test it at night it won't reopen because they haven't done anything to it!
 
Plus I imagine a lot of the safety changes will be about identifying if a train has stalled. Far more likely to be testing that during daylight, no?
 
If I were Merlin, I would organise some kind of event in which all the press are invited to view a man in a boiler suit bash at the batwing element with an oversized spanner for a few minutes, before giving a big thumbs up for the cameras and revealing a banner saying "ALL SORTED NOW!" while the park mascots release confetti.
 
^ LOL, I wonder if the British press and GP would buy it, tbh I think they would!

Surely a slightly heavier 5 car train would help fix the stalling issue as the train would have a boost in momentum to help it through the element?
 
^ Lol that always used to be my trick in RCT2. Bump up the train size if my coaster didn't make it through an inversion.
 
The park are literally bringing out the standard "it won't open until it's ready" thing, because they're trying to avoid the media storm that will whip up when it does open...

When it reopens, it'll be unannounced officially by the park, but the goons/guests who happen to be on park that day will do it for them...
 
The tabloids seem to be getting their rumours from the forums now so it basically means nothing (not that half of the stuff did mean anything anyway).

Someone on TT reported seeing gerstlauer staff at the park. Good to get confirmation (supposedly) that they are actually involved in the process.

I am hoping that details are released even if they go for the suspected 'quiet reopening'.
 
Was here yesterday and witnessed them testing the Smiler. They were sending round cars with different weights of dummies on and at one point they had the car stuck on the lift hill as well.

Going round the park you can see the obvious influence of revised health and safety. Fresh signage and barriers etc, my personal favourite was on Sonic where theyve obviously decided one of the fences isn't high enough around the ride so theyve stuck another smaller fence onto the top of the existing one. My friend also commented on the fact there seemed to be more staff manning the rides than before.

Park wasn't dead by any means....well it wasn't if you wanted Cbeebies land. It seemed to just be families there so any ride with a height restriction of over 1.2m was basically walk on!
 
I haven't seen any official source (haven't looked) but apparently Nick Varney has confirmed that The Smiler won't be re branded.

Good!
 
^ Yes, I read that on the AP newswire the other day.

My sources within the industry (who do not work at Alton Towers, I hasten to add) are expecting a low key reopening late this season subject to HSE approval. With the low gate figures and profit warnings recently issued, I'm still convinced it makes commercial sense to open it this year rather than next.

They have made some safety monitoring modifications, it won't be rethemed and the Daily Star is the only "notable" media outlet with their tanks still parked on Alton Towers' lawn. The story is slowly fading out.
 
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