The Smiler - General Discussion
- DeadJack5
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In case you missed it. The POV that was recorded during our Spring Spectacular event last month, has been uploaded to our YouTube channel.
Smile. Always.
Smile. Always.
- Tom170499
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They weren’t. I joined the queue as Lift 2 stopped. There was another train on section 1 that stopped as normal at the block breaks before lift 2 due to the other train still being on the lift.Zac wrote:Very disappointing to read about the smilers issues today. Can anybody shed any light as to why 2 carriages were on the lift hill at the same time?
- Justin
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Hey Zac, from the footage and pictures seen then the ride has done exactly what it is designed to do. With the ride stopping on the vertical lift hill then safely being lowered to the ground then there was no danger of two trains being on the same track. The papers appear to have made a story up from nothing.
- Mikw
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As they usually do, complete with footage of the 2015 incident and one of the amputees.Justin wrote:Hey Zac, from the footage and pictures seen then the ride has done exactly what it is designed to do. With the ride stopping on the vertical lift hill then safely being lowered to the ground then there was no danger of two trains being on the same track. The papers appear to have made a story up from nothing.
As far as I can acertain, the ride did exactly what it should've done.
- Tom170499
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Staff handled it perfectly too. They kept us updated, handed out water, and when they started evacing the ride, they told us over the PA that we could all go to Oblivion (at about 18:35) for our last ride as they had kept it open for us. These things happen, nobody was injured and staff did exactly as they were trained to do, exactly as the ride stopped as it was mean to.
- Mr_Gibson
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It’s such a shame the media drags up the same stuff over and over again. The BBC article reads like it was written automatically by a bot rather than a human and if you don’t read it carefully then the incident could look quite scary.
From the App it looks like The Smiler has had the longest queues all morning, I would be curious to know how many people at the park today had read the news articles about it.
From the App it looks like The Smiler has had the longest queues all morning, I would be curious to know how many people at the park today had read the news articles about it.
Last edited by Dan on Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Merged double post
Reason: Merged double post
- Dan
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During the investigation after the incident, it was calculated that the force of the crash was equivalent to a family car crashing at 90mph, so while not 100% accurate, there is some truth to that statement.Harry347 wrote:I saw several news companies bring up the 2015 incident again, with some saying the crash happened at 90mph which is very impressive seeing as we don't have a coaster in the UK that reaches that speed!
- PhNx Survivor
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And yet you look at the damage.. and I'd say it was built (insert perverbial here) great! To withstand that impact and the forces behind it from one train at a stand still to one moving and to produce that much (or little) damage is quite a fantastic engineering skill.Dan wrote:During the investigation after the incident, it was calculated that the force of the crash was equivalent to a family car crashing at 90mph, so while not 100% accurate, there is some truth to that statement.Harry347 wrote:I saw several news companies bring up the 2015 incident again, with some saying the crash happened at 90mph which is very impressive seeing as we don't have a coaster in the UK that reaches that speed!
Especially if you compare the damage to a family car crashing at 90mph.
“A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one”
- wamdue
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I'm pretty sure the press don't dig up the article to hurt Alton Towers, it's some automatic thing to keep you reading the page, just load a previous story about The Smiler, even more so if it's one that has done well. Still I do wonder if there is any journalistic need to keep reposting the story, it isn't new news, and it was well covered at the time.
- GregH94
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You’ll be pleased to know that’s a bogus rumor, pretty much everyone’s used it this weekend.Mikw wrote:Any truth that the Single rider queue doesn't operate now idf the queue is less than an hour long?
Come to think about it, I don’t think I’ve used the main queue at all this season.