Purplepills

Hmm about a week ago. They keep the beach donkeys (for tourist donkey rides :/) near town. When was the last time you ate something you'd never tried before?

Probably should've gone to sleep an hour ago but thought I would be smart to stay up late. Oops

^Its all good, and I would accept never working for a park I would know far less about how things generally work in them. Not really intentionally disagreeing/debating as such, just offering (an uneducated outsiders) thoughts on why things may be the way they are is all.

^Ehm, no, I haven't. Evidently its obvious too, there goes my cover as a super secret non park worker

Regardless of what we think, overall we've no idea how long the 'procedure' writing and publishing process takes. By the time its all been done, it might be a few days, so, if they didn't finish discussing it until Friday it stands to reason they wouldn't open this weekend until the procedures are finalised and staff given training. An organisation this size it might not be a straightforward thing. I know theoretically it would only affect Smiler and perhaps Spinball, but, if their procedure for example said it was OK to operate in manual/maintenance mode with guests on the ride (although I would think this unlikely), this would obviously need to be changed for ALL rides. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if this human error was against procedure in the first place. To me its better they wait to open than open too soon. If there was any risk of another accident now, even if it meant one of the staff making the same error in a very unfortunate set of circumstances, that would have dire consequences in public confidence. The HSE may have given them the go ahead to open, but if they need to change procedures park wide this might explain why they are still closed.

I haven't really seen any news reports going into detail with any negativity (yet) about them staying closed when the HSE have said they can open. I'd guess people will accept the fact its shut without overthinking why they haven't opened when the HSE have said they could. I'd be a little annoyed had I booked a hotel stay tonight, but then I'd also be a bit annoyed if I turned up to find the whole of X Sector still closed off as well as Spinball closed as it makes the lines for everything else longer. Selfish I know, but thats how I would feel. Whether thats the case or not I guess we wont know. Personally I think that the rides shut in the other parks will be open by Monday (or Tuesday perhaps). as will Alton Towers including X Sector and Spinball. Time will tell.

^Very true, I forget it would be much quieter Monday. It was nice to see a lot of people offering messages of support to the staff on Twitter. Things like this would affect anyone, but given the ride staff are as young as 16 I can imagine some of them have been quite upset by the whole thing.

Just been announced the Park will remain closed for Tomorrow. Given they've had the go ahead to open from the HSE, I guess they still have training to do, or there are still investigations going on so X Sector might be closed? With that closed, and also Spinball not operating (stands to reason if Fury at Chessington is closed, Spinball would be too), possibly a decision to close rather than open without X Sector and Spinball operational?

Very interesting to hear, plus he sounds genuine (i.e. not trying to be sensationlist about it). Just his story plain and simple. No stupid journalists trying to push blame, say rides are unsafe or scaremonger in any other way. I don't like the way the story uses the term 'design flaws'. Procedures, is what Merlin said, not design flaws. I guess this is why I don't tend to believe anything in newspapers as they're usually inaccurate/ignorant to the facts.

I expect over on the Mainstream News forums they're laughing at how silly the petition to get her sacked is the way way we laughed at how silly the petition to tear down The Smiler is.

Viewers from theme park website users all over the world?

This week, I was given a senior job title and a pay rise

NEVER When was the last time you were so embarrassed you wanted to implode?

No, unless you include other men Did you enjoy your breakfast today?

The speed limit is 60MPH, WHY ARE YOU DRIVING AT 30MPH AND NOT PULLING OVER TO LET PEOPLE PAST? ARGHHHHHH

I believe Shambhala at Port Aventura...only 3 months till I am back on it

^Typical news anchor journalism! It never makes them look good, but hammering people with questions like that is what they're paid to do. Its getting everyone watching clips from Sky news isn't it? In addition to the image earlier, heres a slightly different angle...worse than I thought... BBC news screengrab

Yeah I suspect that will be the protuding bump stop from the back of the car in front piling into (or really being piled into by) the middle of the car behind... I did have a worry that might happen - really not designed for high speed impacts at all So actually, the little bump stop possibly made the accident worse by focussing the energy on that single point and caving the bar in, rather than if it was flat and spread the energy over a large surface area (could've still reduced the energy slightly being made of rubber though). Hrm... This is what I thought when I Googled the Smiler cars just after the accident. You could see the front was at quite angle in a couple of the accident photos. Given the back has a massive stop on as below, its unfortunate that its caved the front of the second train in rather than the back of the stationary one. I wouldn't be at all surprised if The HSE suggest/insist the design is changed - after all, if it was a different design the injuries sustained could've been reduced hugely. I know the design wasn't supposed to withstand this amount of impact, sadly now it has happened they may insist further precautions are taken.

^Very true. Immediately after the crash, the guy on the far left seat had blood all over his face as if he had hit something as it was. I'd say with confidence you'd probably be looking at fatalities had the train only had lapbars. See the video HERE to see just how close the riders are to the train in front.

I cant see any reason to close off X-Sector if the smiler carriages are being removed today. There's not going to be much to see there for anyone really. Time will tell but I hope this isn't the case. My thoughts exactly.

^Well its good news that the park has been given the go ahead to open by the HSE, and Merlin hope to open in the next few days. Hopefully people won't be put off going to the park too much, and things can get back to relative normality soon for everyone there.

I'd suggest it extends to both human operation and computer workflows, HSE will look at both in concert as is typical for control systems, i.e. a combination of the human procedure and the series of over-rides that made this possible. But yeah, to me fundamentally indicates human error, as everyone here and in the press (at least people who the press found who know how coasters work, not that many it seems!) have maintained, the control systems under any normal passenger operating modes simply wouldn't allow this, even in a fault state, unless very deliberately overridden Agreeing with the above, it would mean a fundamental review of every mistake made that day to make sure it can't happen again. Its my personal view that this wasn't a single error, there were several failures leading to this. On the day of the accident, immediately there were reports that people had told the staff on the line entrance who didn't seem to react to it (I'm not talking about the guy claiming he was told it was none of his business). The fact the car was sent on (by human means or otherwise) was one thing, but the main thing here for me is the length of time the empty car was stranded (seems between 5 and 15 minutes), and the lack of communication that led to the second car being allowed to continue. Surely if there is a car stopped on the track, ANY member of staff should report this and the ride should be e-stopped? Nobody asides HSE & Merlin have this information currently, this could of course have been reported to the booth and just somehow lost in translation, its just an example really. Also the handling of the aftermath, its been reported it took so many minutes to call and ambulance, fire crew etc. I would imagine this would also form part of the procedure review if they feel this wasn't an appropriate response. More staff training to deal with incidents perhaps? Who knows. They may have found other areas of failure, which I guess forms the procedures which will need to be written and approved before the park can open.

^This is why I wondered what he meant by 'top'. He's mentioned getting on, seeing the train, and looking like 'we were not going to stop'. As opposed to 'Getting on, stopping at the top, and then starting again'. I guess its hard to tell also if its been edited in any way. All too often though what people think happened in these situations is different than actual events. I know this from witnessing auto accidents, what I thought happened wasn't actually what did happen. Its easy to confuse things.

^For me the quote seems a little confused It doesn't say where the 'top' is, to me it sounds like they saw it stuck at the 'bottom' as they got to the 'top' (of the loop) they werent going to stop. He doesn't mention stopping on the lift hill, seeing the car, then the ride restarting. Regarding screaming at staff to stop the ride - you and I you might realise this is pointless at the top of the loops, but in my experience, a lot of people don't realise coasters can't just stop at any time - they think the cars have brakes on. The whole thing could just be fabricated by an individual or the paper itself. Theres no factual evidence for it anyway.

^Thanks for that, interesting to know also I had no idea there was a train dial. Learn every day I guess!