Attraction Source Forum

[quote=""Hark""][quote=""mattbailey""]
PLUS We wont be able to get aerial shots of SW6 now [/quote]

Rita's breakrun =][/quote]

What if they close UG Land towards the end of the year? Akin to when Rita was added?

Its weird how these buildings keep setting on fire!

To be fair - they are old & look like they've had the best of their days. Poor old Sky Ride

[quote=""Altonator""]Skyride kept stopping and starting during my visit on Monday (see trip reports) especailly at CCL Station maybe it's connected?

I boarded skyride to go to FV not sure if there was a problem with skyride but it did stop and start a lot the chap at the station was talking to someone about the hydraulics.

[/quote]
Surely the system is shut down at night - don't see how a problem with the system whilst running would cause a fire whilst shut down, unless of course maintenance were doing some testing...

Isolated fire at the Alton Towers Resort

Alton Towers Resort can confirm that there has been a fire in the Cloud Cuckoo Land Skyride station on the Park. The fire broke out at around 10.30pm last night when there were no employees or guests present. The station has been destroyed and the ride will therefore not reopen for the foreseeable future.

There will be cosmetic alterations to the Park tomorrow as certain areas will have to be fenced off during the fire service investigation into the cause of the fire.

The Park will be open as normal from 10am with some rides open for early ride time at 9am.

Official Statement from Alton Towers, once again from ATA Dan.

A few years ago I complained about the Skyride being closed for cost saving, (remember 'reduced opening'?) and was told that it is not intended as transport.... it is a family attraction like any other.

When it says destroyed, I wonder if this means that the cable has been dropped as a result of the structure collapsing?

Good no-one was hurt.

Shame it's not at the Merrie England end so all those horrid coloured gondolas would be melted down.

Post made via Mobile Device

probably has dropped the cable.

[quote=""Disco Ball""]I presume the only people on park would be security? The security lodge is miles away from UG Land/CCL, it would take a few minutes for them to arrive.

Then another 10 minutes for some proper Fire Fighting equiptment to arrive. (It takes 10 minutes-ish for them to get to ATH, probably another 10 by the time they get through the park)

I couldn't see them getting there in time to prevent any major damage.

[/quote]


Not at all. The access road that runs all the way around behind Cred St and Ug Land (which incidentally is where the construction traffic goes, and does not use the gate between skyride and burger king at all) takes 2 minutes max to get round there

Things do have a habbit of spontaneously combusting at Alton Towers. Merry England rubbish cart anyone?

[quote=""Liam""]Shame it's not at the Merrie England end [/quote]


Where is Merrie England?

[quote=""kryn""][quote=""Liam""]Shame it's not at the Merrie England end [/quote]


Where is Merrie England?[/quote]

The area that's currently lost at a fancy dress party in a pirate costume.

[quote=""kryn""][quote=""Liam""]Shame it's not at the Merrie England end [/quote]


Where is Merrie England?[/quote]

Mutany bay i think it now is.

[quote=""kitsune""][quote=""kryn""][quote=""Liam""]Shame it's not at the Merrie England end [/quote]


Where is Merrie England?[/quote]

Mutany bay i think it now is.[/quote]


I thought it was near Splash Landings?

To be honest, this really is awful news, and I still can't belive that it's happened again. The fact that Alton have just spent a load of money on the Skyride and that it's been working well so far this season makes it even worse. By the sound of it, they are going to have to completely rebuild the station, which is going to involve demolishing the current burnt out remains.

In a way I'm not looking forward to seeing pictures of the station, I just don't want to see something at Alton Towers destroyed, whatever it is. I really hope Alton are quick to address what has happened, obviously all the safety stuff needs to be done first, but I hope they start rebuilding the station during the season if possible, not just leave it until the closed season.

Thinking about it, all of the ride parts in the building will also have been either badly damaged or destroyed, which is going to involve ordering in new parts and working on the whole ride system. It just gets worse.

Glad everyone's OK, but this is pretty bad news for the park.

If they have to rebuild pretty much from scratch, it's a fairly substantial job, especially with all the equipment involved.

However, the new gondalas show that AT are committed to the skyride long term, so they'll want this up and running again as soon as possible. They will still have to blueprints of the station, so they will probably just rebuild it as it was.

The park will really want this up and running in time for the opening of SW6, when the area will be receiving a lot of people and a lot of media attention, so that gives them a tight, but, in my view, achievable timescale.

Re. the cause, I wonder if this has anything to do with SW6 construction? if there's interruptions to power supply, or heavy machinery work going on nearby, something could have happened to trigger the fire.

Oh dear, not again.

The one night I decide to get an early night and this happens .

Just echoing people's other comments I guess at the moment. There's been a huge investment in gondolas and station modifications to get the Skyride back up and running to a decent standard again. It's a huge shame to see yet another fire which is pretty much a dead cert to close the attraction for the remainder of the season.

I guess we can't speculate too much about the cause of the fire at the moment, but looking at the time of day it's looking likely that some sort of electrical fault caused it. No doubt we'll hear a bit more information today no doubt along with a few photos from those who are on park which might shed a bit more light onto it though.

Despite what some think of the gondolas, I thought they were a brilliant addition to the park and a vast improvement on what we had before. I'm just glad that at the moment nothing else seems to be damaged, and that the gondolas were tucked up down at Towers Street.