The Smiler - General Discussion

[Jack]

^but they have excuses for being rough, and you seem to be a lucky git as it seems you've always had the smooth train, as you can tell if it's one of the bad ones :P

[sw7nutter]

I'd like to know if it is as rough as SAW?

Saw is pretty smooth this season as the cars have under gone some extensive maintenance but i would say the smiler has the potential to be much worse than saw. It really depends on the train.

[stealthsmiler]

Ive been on both Grand National and Wild Mouse and The Smiler is still rough. But as the BPB ones are wooden and ancient, they should be rough, The Smiler is brand new and steel so shouldn't be rough. Then again don't know which trains are rough and which aren't, but I went on train 4 row 3 last week and it was the smoothest out of the limited experience Ive had with the Smiler.

[definedancing]

Hmm I've never really found The Smiler rough, with the exception of that really noticeable jolt and then the last three inversions that follow.

[DeadJack5]

I went on yesterday 2x and I didn't find it rough. Found it smooth. I admit that the last few loops where it speeds up, I did see it getting a bit rough but nothing majorly rough. Brilliant ride I must add. The theming is brilliant and the ride itself is very enjoyable

[DeadJack5]

I went on yesterday 2x and I didn't find it rough. Found it smooth. I admit that the last few loops where it speeds up, I did see it getting a bit rough but nothing majorly rough. Brilliant ride I must add. The theming is brilliant and the ride itself is very enjoyable

[Aidan Lowe]

Don't know which train I went on today but the rattling/grinding it does underneath the carriage was pretty severe.

[sw7nutter]

That will be train 3. It had something go wrong in testing and i think it was also the train which kept valleying and hasn't be fully fixed since.

[Jack]

ah, the shopping trolly with a wonky wheel, you mean? :lol yeah, it is VERY bad on that one!

[Sr88]

I don't know if this has already been brought up somewhere, and apologies if it has.

Would it be easy enough for Gerstlauer to built The Smiler as a standard layout, if required by other parks? Basically, could another park get a ride identical to The Smiler?

[Danny]

Usually AT pay a certain fee which means their ride layouts stay exclusive to them for a certain amount of time. However Gerstlauer advertises this as an off the shelf model available, so I guess any park could buy one

[lewis97]

Whilst its layout is listed on the Gerstlauer website, this doesn't necessarily mean that other parks are able to purchase the same layout. Towers are likely to have a contract in place with Gerstlauer that prevents them from selling the layout to other parks for a certain number of years.

Also the layout itself is relatively custom to Alton Towers, so it may be difficult for another park to install it unless their landscaping is near enough identical to The Smiler's.

[Danny]

Or it could all just be placed on flat land right?

[Sr88]

Ah right thanks!

Although, on that last point, the landscaping on The Smiler is pretty much flat, just dug down. Good to know that it will probably remain unique to AT!

[sw7nutter]

The contracts for Gerstlauer normally have much shorter number of years. Hence why there are already Saw variants. The Smiler should stay unique for a few years as its quite an expensive layout. However don't be surprised to see a clone in china in 5 years time.

[RCandrew]

The contracts for Gerstlauer normally have much shorter number of years. Hence why there are already Saw variants. The Smiler should stay unique for a few years as its quite an expensive layout. However don't be surprised to see a clone in china in 5 years time.

I hope if it's copied or whatever that the first indoor inversion isn't included, so that The Smiler still holds the record

[Sentri558]

How can you tell which car is which? Might be handy to deny my fastpass space for one car to pass by first so I can avoid the dreaded number 3

[lewis97]

The car and row number are displayed in the centre at the front of each row, pictured below.

[align=center][/align]

[Sentri558]

The car and row rumber is displayed in the centre at the front of each row, pictured below.

Ahh thanks

[Dr.Kelham]

Until Thursday I had never experienced a rough ride on the smiler but we went on the afternoon and it was that rough you could feel the vibrations through the floor of the car unfortunately did not catch the car number