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Throughput Timings Thread

Recently visited Linnanmäki again. This time, it was crowded, so it was a good way to judge their operations. While Vouristorata (Vintage wooden coaster with a brake man on board) was fine, other rides felt horribly slow. So at one point, I decided to time their dispatches. I haven't noted the number of trains though, but it is an average of at least 5 or more.

Salama (Maurer spinning coaster), theory 800 pph: 200pph
Taiga, theoretically 860pph: 500 pph

I haven't timed the powered coaster, but given that it ran 3 (slow) cycles per ride and as they were only filling the airgates once everyone left the station, it would just make all of us cry anyway.

tl;dr: Linnanmäki is great, but don't go there if it's crowded.
 
  • Wicker Man (Theoretical: 952pph): 1,015pph (7th August 2022, 3 trains, average of 10), 978pph (8th August 2022, 3 trains, average of 10)

Where did you get the theoretical pph for these? The fact they were exceeding it seems crazy to me!
 
Where did you get the theoretical pph for these? The fact they were exceeding it seems crazy to me!
In this case, Alton Towers themselves claim 952pph; it’s in the photo booklet I got with my on-ride photos back in 2018!

Exceeding theoretical throughput is not unheard of by any means. Indeed, Thirteen did it on its opening weekend, surprising even John Wardley! In terms of why, it could be because GCI factored in a certain degree of guest faff when calculating the theoretical throughput, thus making the estimate slightly more conservative.
 
In this case, Alton Towers themselves claim 952pph; it’s in the photo booklet I got with my on-ride photos back in 2018!

Exceeding theoretical throughput is not unheard of by any means. Indeed, Thirteen did it on its opening weekend, surprising even John Wardley! In terms of why, it could be because GCI factored in a certain degree of guest faff when calculating the theoretical throughput, thus making the estimate slightly more conservative.

I really noticed the difference this week at Chessington where you have a ride like Mandrill with riders being prepped and clearly highly efficient (and most importantly numerous) staff on headsets versus say Pirate Ship or Croc Drop, with one operator running everything and each cycle taking 3 times as long as it needs to. I timed the Pirate Ship at one point and it was taking almost 10 minutes per cycle when the ride itself is approximately 2 minutes.

Surely it can't cost the park a lot more to have a minimum of 2 staff per ride (with some obvious exceptions), especially in peak periods? An extra unnecessary 30 minutes in a queue is time you're either not having fun or not spending money elsewhere, it seems counter productive.
 
Thought I'd have a go at Matt's little game as I was bored and maybe it will cheer someone up if they experienced some bad operations recently.

Extreme Rusher - 233pph (1 train, average dispatch time of 6:10 over 8 trains)
Wooden Dragons Roller Coaster - 150pph (1 train, average dispatch time of 9:36 over 4 trains). RCDB says 1,028pph 😄
Flying Aces - 132pph (1 train, average dispatch time of 12:42 over 6 trains)
 
Have you been to IMG Worlds of adventure? It took them 25 minutes to dispatch 5 trains on their Blue Fire clone. But reading 12:42 per train, Ferrari World has the crown…
I have, but 5 years ago now. I feel like things were run much better back then, that or it was so quiet that it didn't matter. Not sure what's happened now but it's bad.
 
When I visited this April, the ops were not great, but they pushed out a train every 5 or 6 minutes which is somewhat reasonable with 1 train ops. Especially considering their glasses policy.
12 minutes dispatches are simply abysmal.
 
Thought I'd have a go at Matt's little game as I was bored and maybe it will cheer someone up if they experienced some bad operations recently.

Extreme Rusher - 233pph (1 train, average dispatch time of 6:10 over 8 trains)
Wooden Dragons Roller Coaster - 150pph (1 train, average dispatch time of 9:36 over 4 trains). RCDB says 1,028pph
Flying Aces - 132pph (1 train, average dispatch time of 12:42 over 6 trains)
The worst thing about the Chinese parks is that the dispatch times will be the same regardless of how busy the park is. When it's dead, you can kind of forgive the 10-minute dispatch intervals, but it's infuriating to wait for an hour for something when you know that queue could've/should've been 10-15 minutes.

The most useless coaster product? 2nd trains on Chinese coasters.
 
The most useless coaster product? 2nd trains on Chinese coasters.
They swapped one out for the other during the day for Wooden Dragons, getting the most out of their purchase!

Silly thing about that at the Sunac parks, now that they're partially pay per ride, is that it should be in their best interest to turn over more riders.
 
I was at Thorpe Park yesterday, and I managed to get some throughput readings on the major coasters! Overall, I’d say operations were pretty good; in some cases, there were truly excellent operations that were the best I’ve ever seen on the respective rides!
  • Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains) - 592pph (2 trains, 15th September 2023, average of 7)
  • Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains) - 693pph (2 trains, 15th September 2023, average of 6)
  • Saw: The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars) - 770pph (unknown number of cars, 15th September 2023, average of 3)
  • Stealth (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 2 trains) - 867pph (2 trains, 15th September 2023, average of 8)
  • The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains) - 983pph (2 trains, 15th September 2023, average of 6)
I should say that I was unable to get as many readings as I would normally like (I normally aim for 10), as the queues often weren’t long enough (a very good problem to have!).

I should also say that on both The Swarm and Stealth, the averages I’ve listed here were skewed by an instance of “guest faff” that produced one particularly slow dispatch. Without these instances of faff, both ride teams were managing faster averages than the averages I have listed here. The Swarm was seemingly managing a consistent string of 90 second dispatch intervals with mere seconds of stacking (if any at all) all day, and Stealth was managing a pretty consistent string of 75-80 second dispatches, with the operators quite literally running down the train to get restraints checked! I was very impressed with the operations on both rides; the throughputs were the best I’ve ever seen on those rides in both cases!

Saw was also operating absolutely brilliantly; the average I got for it is as good as I’ve ever seen on that ride. The average listed above was also lower than what I saw at another point in the day; I did a longer string of readings earlier in the day where it seemed to be getting somewhere in the ballpark of 800-850pph, which is the best throughput I’ve ever seen Saw get, but I accidentally messed this string of readings up by pressing the dispatch button twice, so I could not save this reading and save the final average…

The picture of excellent operations was not entirely consistent, however.

The throughput of Colossus was not terrible compared to what I’ve seen in the past, but it wasn’t particularly amazing either; I’ve seen it go slower, but I’ve also seen it go faster as well.

Nemesis Inferno was also letting the side down a bit; when I sat down and timed it, it was getting a pretty consistent string of 2.5-3 minute dispatches, with the average above only being as high as it was due to a faster dispatch at the very end. Every time I rode, stacking for a fair period of time was routine, and in general, the operations seemed slower on Inferno than elsewhere in the park.

Overall, though, the operational picture from Thorpe Park was very good yesterday, with numerous rides having some of the best operations I’ve ever seen on those rides! The operations also weren’t causing much issue, for the most part; there was always a coaster queue below 15 minutes somewhere on the park, and to my knowledge, no queue exceeded an hour all day. At one point, Inferno hit “55-60 minutes” as per the tannoy, but that was pretty isolated to that ride and didn’t last all day; nothing else got a huge amount above 30 minutes, and even Inferno dropped to more like 30-40 minutes after that brief period of 55-60.
 
I went to Chessington World of Adventures yesterday, and I managed to get throughput timings and insights from the 3 coasters I did.
  • Dragon's Fury (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars) - 497pph (unknown number of cars, 17th September 2023, average of 10) Note: This number assumes that all 4 seats in a car were full for the sake of simplicity. Due to a rule imposed by Chessington allowing no more than 3 adults per car, seats were going out empty more often than not; some cars were going out full, but most seemed to be going out with only 2 or 3 seats filled out of 4. Therefore, the actual attained figure is most likely a fair peg lower than the one given above. For some idea, the average dispatch interval I timed was approximately 28 seconds, and in the period I wasn't timing, I'd say that the average interval looked to be somewhere around the 30 second ballpark.
  • Mandrill Mayhem (Theoretical: 840pph on 1 train) - 575pph (1 train, 17th September 2023, average of 9)
  • Vampire (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 418pph (2 trains, 17th September 2023, average of 6)
  • Tomb Blaster (Theoretical: Unknown on 5 trains) - I could not time Tomb Blaster exactly, as I was ushered onto the ride too quickly to gain any timings, but my very vague timing (aka checking my watch) of the dispatch I was on came to roughly a 3 minute dispatch interval, which would equate to around 600pph if all 30 seats on the train were full. (unknown number of trains, 17th September 2023)
Overall, I'd say that the park was mixed to weak operationally, if I'm being honest. The staff on the ground were working very hard and trying their best, but I would say that the park had some of the lowest throughputs I've ever seen relative to the crowds it gets. The throughputs of most of the rides I did seemed to be stunted to some degree by either procedure, a lack of staff, or both; the operations were certainly no fault of the staff themselves.

The strongest operations of the day were on Mandrill Mayhem, by my reckoning. Yes, the procedure that means that guests can't wait on the platform behind the airgates is a considerable stumbling block for efficient operations, and that's probably something that could have been avoided during the design phase, but there's not a lot that they can do to rectify that now. With all things considered, I thought the ride was being operated very well. With the cards that have been dealt in terms of the intrinsic throughput of the ride and the H&S-related loading procedure, I thought that an average dispatch interval of just shy of 3 minutes was very, very good, personally; I was certainly pretty pleased with this figure seeing as the ride only has 1 train and has to load in the way it does. The ride seemed relatively well staffed, and the staff were doing an excellently prompt job of checking restraints and such. Great job, Chessington!

Weight limits notwithstanding, Dragon's Fury definitely wasn't operating as promptly as Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers mostly does. On Spinball, the cars continuously motor through the station, with the continuously moving loading system being well utilised and not really having any kind of delay, and dispatch intervals as quick as 20 seconds are achieved. On Dragon's Fury, however, the continuously moving loading system was not really being used (I could have sworn it had one the same as Spinball's from previous visits, but I could be wrong there), and 2 or 3 cars or so often seemed to be stacked up in the station at once. With that being said, a good number of cars were seemingly running, and 30 seconds certainly isn't a terribly slow dispatch interval by any stretch of the imagination, although the weight limit definitely limits the throughput potential of the ride and the likes of Spinball do show that faster dispatches can be achieved with the same ride hardware.

Vampire definitely had some of the most surprisingly slow operations of the day, and this was due in large part to the fact that the ride was seemingly lacking staff. One operator was running the whole show for the main queue, being left to both batch and check the restraints on the entire right hand side of the train. They had one companion, who was batching what appeared to be the RAP queue and checking the restraints on the entire left hand side of the train. These staff were working incredibly hard and certainly putting all their energy into checking the restraints and batching, but at very least, I feel that a separate bayloader for each queue would not have gone amiss and would have sped things along considerably. The whole process of the operator checking restraints, pressing the send button and then having to jump over the separating fence and batch people before jumping back over to check the restraints for the next train and repeat the whole process again definitely slowed things down, and as a result, dispatch intervals of over 4 minutes were timed in some of the slowest cases, with the overall average coming to around 3.5-4 minutes per dispatch, despite Vampire looking like a ride that could quite easily attain quick dispatch intervals on paper. It reminded me of Flamingo Land, where they run things in a similar manner, and with queues being markedly longer at Chessington than they were on my visit to Flamingo Land, I don't think this method is as proportionate to the crowds at Chessington as it is at Flamingo Land.

The situation at Tomb Blaster was very similar to that on Vampire. One operator was running the entire show on their own here, being left in charge of batching, checking restraints and sending the ride. The operator was working very hard and doing a very prompt job, but the fact that they were having to do everything slowed things down, and as a result, a ride that looks like it should attain fairly quick dispatch intervals on paper was dispatching around every 3 minutes. To be fair, though, the queue was not as long for this, with me only waiting around 30-35 minutes, and the ride's fairly large train means that a throughput of roughly 600pph would still have been attained, which, if I had properly timed it, would probably have been the highest on park. Similarly to Vampire, though, 2 additional staff members (one bayloader and one operator sat in the cabin sending the ride) would not have gone amiss and would have sped things up notably, in my view.
 
I went to Chessington World of Adventures yesterday, and I managed to get throughput timings and insights from the 3 coasters I did.
  • Dragon's Fury (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars) - 497pph (unknown number of cars, 17th September 2023, average of 10) Note: This number assumes that all 4 seats in a car were full for the sake of simplicity. Due to a rule imposed by Chessington allowing no more than 3 adults per car, seats were going out empty more often than not; some cars were going out full, but most seemed to be going out with only 2 or 3 seats filled out of 4. Therefore, the actual attained figure is most likely a fair peg lower than the one given above. For some idea, the average dispatch interval I timed was approximately 28 seconds, and in the period I wasn't timing, I'd say that the average interval looked to be somewhere around the 30 second ballpark.
  • Mandrill Mayhem (Theoretical: 840pph on 1 train) - 575pph (1 train, 17th September 2023, average of 9)
  • Vampire (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 418pph (2 trains, 17th September 2023, average of 6)
  • Tomb Blaster (Theoretical: Unknown on 5 trains) - I could not time Tomb Blaster exactly, as I was ushered onto the ride too quickly to gain any timings, but my very vague timing (aka checking my watch) of the dispatch I was on came to roughly a 3 minute dispatch interval, which would equate to around 600pph if all 30 seats on the train were full. (unknown number of trains, 17th September 2023)
Overall, I'd say that the park was mixed to weak operationally, if I'm being honest. The staff on the ground were working very hard and trying their best, but I would say that the park had some of the lowest throughputs I've ever seen relative to the crowds it gets. The throughputs of most of the rides I did seemed to be stunted to some degree by either procedure, a lack of staff, or both; the operations were certainly no fault of the staff themselves.

The strongest operations of the day were on Mandrill Mayhem, by my reckoning. Yes, the procedure that means that guests can't wait on the platform behind the airgates is a considerable stumbling block for efficient operations, and that's probably something that could have been avoided during the design phase, but there's not a lot that they can do to rectify that now. With all things considered, I thought the ride was being operated very well. With the cards that have been dealt in terms of the intrinsic throughput of the ride and the H&S-related loading procedure, I thought that an average dispatch interval of just shy of 3 minutes was very, very good, personally; I was certainly pretty pleased with this figure seeing as the ride only has 1 train and has to load in the way it does. The ride seemed relatively well staffed, and the staff were doing an excellently prompt job of checking restraints and such. Great job, Chessington!

Weight limits notwithstanding, Dragon's Fury definitely wasn't operating as promptly as Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers mostly does. On Spinball, the cars continuously motor through the station, with the continuously moving loading system being well utilised and not really having any kind of delay, and dispatch intervals as quick as 20 seconds are achieved. On Dragon's Fury, however, the continuously moving loading system was not really being used (I could have sworn it had one the same as Spinball's from previous visits, but I could be wrong there), and 2 or 3 cars or so often seemed to be stacked up in the station at once. With that being said, a good number of cars were seemingly running, and 30 seconds certainly isn't a terribly slow dispatch interval by any stretch of the imagination, although the weight limit definitely limits the throughput potential of the ride and the likes of Spinball do show that faster dispatches can be achieved with the same ride hardware.

Vampire definitely had some of the most surprisingly slow operations of the day, and this was due in large part to the fact that the ride was seemingly lacking staff. One operator was running the whole show for the main queue, being left to both batch and check the restraints on the entire right hand side of the train. They had one companion, who was batching what appeared to be the RAP queue and checking the restraints on the entire left hand side of the train. These staff were working incredibly hard and certainly putting all their energy into checking the restraints and batching, but at very least, I feel that a separate bayloader for each queue would not have gone amiss and would have sped things along considerably. The whole process of the operator checking restraints, pressing the send button and then having to jump over the separating fence and batch people before jumping back over to check the restraints for the next train and repeat the whole process again definitely slowed things down, and as a result, dispatch intervals of over 4 minutes were timed in some of the slowest cases, with the overall average coming to around 3.5-4 minutes per dispatch, despite Vampire looking like a ride that could quite easily attain quick dispatch intervals on paper. It reminded me of Flamingo Land, where they run things in a similar manner, and with queues being markedly longer at Chessington than they were on my visit to Flamingo Land, I don't think this method is as proportionate to the crowds at Chessington as it is at Flamingo Land.

The situation at Tomb Blaster was very similar to that on Vampire. One operator was running the entire show on their own here, being left in charge of batching, checking restraints and sending the ride. The operator was working very hard and doing a very prompt job, but the fact that they were having to do everything slowed things down, and as a result, a ride that looks like it should attain fairly quick dispatch intervals on paper was dispatching around every 3 minutes. To be fair, though, the queue was not as long for this, with me only waiting around 30-35 minutes, and the ride's fairly large train means that a throughput of roughly 600pph would still have been attained, which, if I had properly timed it, would probably have been the highest on park. Similarly to Vampire, though, 2 additional staff members (one bayloader and one operator sat in the cabin sending the ride) would not have gone amiss and would have sped things up notably, in my view.

Matt where do you get your theoretical numbers from (I only ask because although your theoretical numbers seem pretty reasonable, these seem astronomically incorrect)?
 
Matt where do you get your theoretical numbers from (I only ask because although your theoretical numbers seem pretty reasonable, these seem astronomically incorrect)?
I get them from a variety of sources.

In this instance, Dragon’s Fury’s is from RCDB, Mandrill Mayhem’s is extrapolated from a document embedded within the planning application that referred to a dispatch every 2 minutes as being the theoretical throughput (thus leading to 840pph with 28-rider trains), and Vampire’s is from Wikipedia.
 
I went to Chessington World of Adventures yesterday, and I managed to get throughput timings and insights from the 3 coasters I did.
  • Dragon's Fury (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars) - 497pph (unknown number of cars, 17th September 2023, average of 10) Note: This number assumes that all 4 seats in a car were full for the sake of simplicity. Due to a rule imposed by Chessington allowing no more than 3 adults per car, seats were going out empty more often than not; some cars were going out full, but most seemed to be going out with only 2 or 3 seats filled out of 4. Therefore, the actual attained figure is most likely a fair peg lower than the one given above. For some idea, the average dispatch interval I timed was approximately 28 seconds, and in the period I wasn't timing, I'd say that the average interval looked to be somewhere around the 30 second ballpark.
  • Mandrill Mayhem (Theoretical: 840pph on 1 train) - 575pph (1 train, 17th September 2023, average of 9)
  • Vampire (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 418pph (2 trains, 17th September 2023, average of 6)
  • Tomb Blaster (Theoretical: Unknown on 5 trains) - I could not time Tomb Blaster exactly, as I was ushered onto the ride too quickly to gain any timings, but my very vague timing (aka checking my watch) of the dispatch I was on came to roughly a 3 minute dispatch interval, which would equate to around 600pph if all 30 seats on the train were full. (unknown number of trains, 17th September 2023)
Overall, I'd say that the park was mixed to weak operationally, if I'm being honest. The staff on the ground were working very hard and trying their best, but I would say that the park had some of the lowest throughputs I've ever seen relative to the crowds it gets. The throughputs of most of the rides I did seemed to be stunted to some degree by either procedure, a lack of staff, or both; the operations were certainly no fault of the staff themselves.

The strongest operations of the day were on Mandrill Mayhem, by my reckoning. Yes, the procedure that means that guests can't wait on the platform behind the airgates is a considerable stumbling block for efficient operations, and that's probably something that could have been avoided during the design phase, but there's not a lot that they can do to rectify that now. With all things considered, I thought the ride was being operated very well. With the cards that have been dealt in terms of the intrinsic throughput of the ride and the H&S-related loading procedure, I thought that an average dispatch interval of just shy of 3 minutes was very, very good, personally; I was certainly pretty pleased with this figure seeing as the ride only has 1 train and has to load in the way it does. The ride seemed relatively well staffed, and the staff were doing an excellently prompt job of checking restraints and such. Great job, Chessington!

Weight limits notwithstanding, Dragon's Fury definitely wasn't operating as promptly as Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers mostly does. On Spinball, the cars continuously motor through the station, with the continuously moving loading system being well utilised and not really having any kind of delay, and dispatch intervals as quick as 20 seconds are achieved. On Dragon's Fury, however, the continuously moving loading system was not really being used (I could have sworn it had one the same as Spinball's from previous visits, but I could be wrong there), and 2 or 3 cars or so often seemed to be stacked up in the station at once. With that being said, a good number of cars were seemingly running, and 30 seconds certainly isn't a terribly slow dispatch interval by any stretch of the imagination, although the weight limit definitely limits the throughput potential of the ride and the likes of Spinball do show that faster dispatches can be achieved with the same ride hardware.

Vampire definitely had some of the most surprisingly slow operations of the day, and this was due in large part to the fact that the ride was seemingly lacking staff. One operator was running the whole show for the main queue, being left to both batch and check the restraints on the entire right hand side of the train. They had one companion, who was batching what appeared to be the RAP queue and checking the restraints on the entire left hand side of the train. These staff were working incredibly hard and certainly putting all their energy into checking the restraints and batching, but at very least, I feel that a separate bayloader for each queue would not have gone amiss and would have sped things along considerably. The whole process of the operator checking restraints, pressing the send button and then having to jump over the separating fence and batch people before jumping back over to check the restraints for the next train and repeat the whole process again definitely slowed things down, and as a result, dispatch intervals of over 4 minutes were timed in some of the slowest cases, with the overall average coming to around 3.5-4 minutes per dispatch, despite Vampire looking like a ride that could quite easily attain quick dispatch intervals on paper. It reminded me of Flamingo Land, where they run things in a similar manner, and with queues being markedly longer at Chessington than they were on my visit to Flamingo Land, I don't think this method is as proportionate to the crowds at Chessington as it is at Flamingo Land.

The situation at Tomb Blaster was very similar to that on Vampire. One operator was running the entire show on their own here, being left in charge of batching, checking restraints and sending the ride. The operator was working very hard and doing a very prompt job, but the fact that they were having to do everything slowed things down, and as a result, a ride that looks like it should attain fairly quick dispatch intervals on paper was dispatching around every 3 minutes. To be fair, though, the queue was not as long for this, with me only waiting around 30-35 minutes, and the ride's fairly large train means that a throughput of roughly 600pph would still have been attained, which, if I had properly timed it, would probably have been the highest on park. Similarly to Vampire, though, 2 additional staff members (one bayloader and one operator sat in the cabin sending the ride) would not have gone amiss and would have sped things up notably, in my view.

I've often noticed the lack of staff at Chessington. The Pirate ship is the worst, there's usually one person batching the queue, RAP, checking safety bars then operating the ride, which means the whole cycle takes around 10 minutes. I can't imagine these are particularly well paid jobs so what are the park saving, a couple of hundred pounds a day when a handful more staff would have the park running so much better.... although less Reserve a Ride appeal :(
 
I'm being dense but when @Matt N posts these - what does 'Average of X' mean?
That means the average of the number of dispatches I timed. So for instance, if I say “average of 10” (the ideal that I aim for), that means that I have timed the throughput over 10 dispatches, and the throughput given is based on the average dispatch time across those 10 dispatches. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
 
Unfortunately wasn't in a position to time but the throughputs at Chessington were the most unusual i've seen in the past 3 years of regular visits (and the park was very busy).

- Vampire was smashing it all day, no breakdowns and managed to get on 3 times. They even had someone checking RAP passes at the stairway entrance though sadly only for the first few hours of the day.
- Croc Drop and Pirate Ship were also surprisingly decent, both doing around 5 minute cycles.
- Ostrich Stampede was utterly abysmal. One staff member managing 3 queue lines, safety checks AND operating the ride meant it was over 10 minutes per cycle. We joined a listed queue time of 20 minutes and started halfway down the path which ended up taking 55 minutes, woe betide those who were joining the full line when we got off.
- Can't speak for Mandrill as it was down till after lunch and then couldn't get a slot 😢
 
Furius Baco is on a 3 minute dispatch interval (for a ride that lasts under a minute) this morning. This is why the queues get so large at this park.

I've almost seen better dispatch interval on The Ultimate with one train ops!

Edit: 4.40 for the last dispatch interval. That is not a typo.
 
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I've done the maths now in the nerdy spirit of this thread. 480pph, for a ride with a capacity of 1500.

I hope Universal do buy this place back and overhaul the ops. Shambhala even has a target countdown clock that gets ignored, until it's an hour before home time.
 
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