As prompted, I'm going to take a little while to justify why some of Thorpe's rides arn't as reliable as one would expect, to put it very nicely.
So, lets look at the main offenders:
Rush
Ok, my favourite ride in the UK. Whats up with it? 2008 was obviously aweful for Rush, spending around half the season broken down. Several major flaws occured last season. Of these, one was completely excusable, being the ride dismantling itself. As the health and saftey report states, S&S are responsible for the ride falling apart due to fatigued metalwork.
Otherwise, the ride has generally being quite tempramental. It is a prototype and pushed boundries within its own ride type, which will obviously create potential problems. It's also clearly not the best design, you can see the major differences between Rush and the later models, clearly improvements could be and were made. This doesn't completely justify the problems, but you have to remember all spares have to come from America, so when one is needed it takes a while for it to get here.
This season, according to guest services, it was ready to go, but, an electrical fault was found just before thrill chill which required some serious work on the ride. I can't excuse them for this, especially remembering they had all of 2 1/2 months to find this problem. Yes, the snow may have held them back but I really feel they should of given Rush a big bit of attention early in the closed season, but that said even if it was ready at the end of Decemeber the cold weather for example could of had an effect on it - some factors cannot be controlled.
Slammer
According to staff it was having it's towers inspected for fatigue over the closed season. This work HAS to be done and is absolutely saftey critical. The work started straight away at the end of 08 and if it took a little longer than expected, that can be justified, in my eyes, because the work has to be done and fixed to secure a reliable future without it having to be patched up regularly, so to guarantee its open more, a bit of down time at the start of the season is acceptable, I feel.
Stealth
I explained this in the 'Missing Intamin' topic. Basically it was also having some major work done on it and it's acceptable, again, for it to take more time than expected because it's not as though they left the work until last minute and it has to be done to make sure the ride is more reliable form the future.
Vortex
Its not too bad, infact, often one of the more reliable rides. However, it sounds as though it hasn't had a brilliant start to the season. I don't know the exact reason, but all I can put it down to is Vortex is an old ride, the occasional problem could be justified. I think Vortex has had a great run as far as reliability is concerned and a short amount of downtime at the start of the season isn't anything worth crying about.
Detonator
Detonator has also had a great run. It really amazes me how Thorpe even manage to keep Det going. It IS a fun fair ride, and it simply isn't designed to be operated as intensively as it is. Think about how funfair rides operate; they un for a few weeks, are dismantled and maintained, and run another few weeks. Even when they are run, they certainly arn't run for as long as Det is. Quite simply that type of ride just isn't designed to be thrashed as much as it is. As such I completely understand any problems they my have with Det.
I think the main problem with Thorpe's reliability is as much the type of rides they have installed as the engineering. Many of the rides are fairground rides not designed to be thrashed like they are, yet these rides end up being the most reliable. This is quite a credit to Thorpe's maintenence; The Beast is down a lot more than Samurai from what I hear. The main flats to suffer problems are high tech, and spares do take a while to get here.
Coaster wise - Colossus seems to have the most mechanical problems mid season. This I cannot justify, I would have thought Thorpe would have managed to figure out why it keeps stopping on the lift, maybe this has been fixed over the closed season.
Another credit to Thorpe's maintenence is Samurai. It was ready either on opening day or very soon after, yet on Feb 20th, it was in pieces on the floor. The ride was put back together very quickly and was working again. This is obviously good and prooves Thorpe can get there rides ready when they have everything the need in their hands. Chances are both Stealth and Slammer needed parts, which is out of Thorpe's hands and could justify their lack of being ready.
Anywho, excluding the first few weeks, this season has so far been fantastic for reliability and the park management clearly seem to have put a high priority on maintence and I think the Merlin re-assignment of higher ups is fantastic for the park. Clearly they are doing the right things and prioritising correctly. Lets hope for this good record to continue.
