Skyride Fire - Re-Opened 19th April 2008!

[Crofty]

[quote=""nickdaegg""]An alternative to your avatar?[/quote]

I just wasted a minute watching that.

[Kaycee]

My goodness, who spent time doing that??

[Danzaw*nk]

My word, how annoying is that voice?! .

Dan

[Crofty]

I'm sure there was a Sky ride topic here a minute ago

[AstroDan]

I haven't read any of this topic, but it was certainly quite sad to see flames at Alton Towers - and flames big enough to make it onto national news.

It was both alarming and unusual for something on that scale to occur at the park, and I am just glad that nobody was seriously caught up in the blaze.

[Squiggles]

[quote=""Danzaw*nk""]Do they need any extra routes though?
[/quote]

Well I'm not too sure... but if you think about it, there are basically five routes to FV from the rest of the park*... and the park's gone from having four of them being open (none of which you would exactly call quiet) to having just the one. I would imagine it's going to cause quite a bottleneck at Gloomy Wood, as it will potentially now be seeing the entire traffic to FV passing through it, I should imagine it will be chocka even on a quiet day, and the park would want to dissipate the crowds as much as possible.


*
The Gloomy Woods Path
The Haunted Hollow's original route.
The path through the Gardens from ME
The Cross Valley Path
The Skyride

[Martyj]

Taken From BBC Website

Some 50 firefighters tackled a blaze which broke out in a cable car station at Alton Towers theme park on Sunday.

Alton Towers said the fire was in one of three station buildings next to the Skyride cable car, which is used to transport guests around the theme park.

Skyride was closed at the time and no-one was injured in the fire which destroyed the cable car station's roof.

Guests were enjoying the Staffordshire park's Halloween festival, Scarefest, when the fire broke out at 1930 GMT.

One section of the park was evacuated as a precautionary measure, an Alton Towers staff member said.

'Assess the situation'

Alton Towers is expected to open as usual on Monday though the cable car will remain closed for the rest of the season which ends on 11 November.

The park will open at 1000 GMT but the Forbidden Valley area - which includes rollercoasters Nemesis and Air - may open later, Alton Towers' communications manager Liz Greenwood said.

"Once the firefighters have damped down, we have got to do a clean-up of the area and make sure it's not too wet," she said.

"We'll have staff in from 7.30am to have a look and assess the situation."

The cause of the blaze is under investigation, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service said.

[Dr Pop Rocket]

Honestly, I'm not too upset about the incident but I certainly was very shocked when I first heard. But now the shock has gone I feel no great loss as the Sky Ride was never open for pretty much all of my visits anyway.

Well done to Alton Towers and the Fire Crews for evacuating the area and managing to contain and put out the blaze, very well done as it could of turned out a lot worse, the damage from what I've seen in pictures is not as bad as I was expecting.

Hopefully the Sky Ride is up and running next season, maybe this incident could push Alton to invest in the much rumoured Sky Ride refurbishment?

[Satch]

Shocking news, but there always seems to be something around this time of year that causes it to be closed. Maybe from this there will come a revamp?

[Ryan Kingdaka]

I didn't see this untill today and was thinking the worst when I saw the topic title.

I am so glad no one was on board at the time when the fire started; It would have been absolutely insane trying to free the passengers as fast as possible, as i'm guessing they would have been at quite a lot of risk if any of the cable system caught on fire.

I don't think Alton will get rid of the Sky Ride, and nothing that has been set alight is irreplaceable. Perhaps Alton will take this chance to rebuild the station and sprouse up the cars for the 2008 season?

I was kinda looking forward to not having to walk everywhere this weekend, but I suppose this is a good thing as it will help me start loosing some pounds, perhaps a stone? :P

[jon!!!]

forbidden valley was closed for most of this morning, firefighters were still fighting off the fire till 4am this morning (monday) other than that i dont think the skyride will be running again.

[Vik]

I'd very much doubt that we will see a grand overhaul of the skyride. Any insurance payout will be to cover the cost of repairing the damage to the station. Also I believe Alton regard the skyride as an attraction in it's own right, and not as a form a transport around the park as a lot of guests probably would, so it is possible that it could be decided it is no longer economical to run, which was probably only a matter of time, (maybe a couple of years?) anyway.

Also, while the fire damage appears to be mainly the roof space. What of the water damage? Remember it is the main drive station, and the control room is there. The technology used is, no doubt, now rather obsolete, so any damage to this, and I imagine that sourcing replacement parts would be a tad difficult.

At best, I would expect to see a patched up skyride running next season, but nothing more than that.

Look forward to seeing The Suns article tomorrow, if their website is anything to go by, should be rather amusing.

[JammyC]

know one spent ages making that.

for example http://kaycee.justgotowned.com/ (no specific offensive intended)

it's sick humor. not funny at all.


who laughs at a crying baby in a microwave?

not amused, nickdaegg.

[Mr Hyde]

Did anyone get a video from the news?

[Shent]

[quote=""nickdaegg""]Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6ss1Alic2s

It's only 30 seconds long, cause I'm not in the same region, but it's old news now anyway, and so might not be different in Central West. [/quote]





Anyways, tbh, by the look of that video, it doesn't look TOO bad, but you never know what structural damage it has caused if it spred into the op cabin with all the electronics in and even onto the mechanical part of the ride such as bull wheel/cables

When i was there today, there were staff walking around guarding the area i guess, so it cant be that bad. I wonder if they have had any structural engineers in yet to asseses the damage

You can smell a burning/burnt smell from as good as duel, I guess we shall see what happens while the park is closed for winter!

[Big Dave]

The decent central west video has been updates with a more recent news and therefore now longer contains the towers footage or barnes interview

[Beth]

What's weird is, my work did a works do to AT on Sunday, and nobody mentioned anything about the fire, unless they all left before it started :

[DanB]

Do you know what time they left the park, as quite a few people leave early.

[Squiggles]

[quote=""Big Dave""]The decent central west video has been updates with a more recent news and therefore now longer contains the towers footage or barnes interview[/quote]

Try this link. I think I linked to the rolling news page rather then the specific bulletin.

[Big Dave]

Will try n capture n upload somewhere so ppl dont have to view the annoying 02 advert lol