djrappa

Keyboard engineering is fun. I think there was a comment from RMC about cosistency at some point? Could be something as simple as the launch works but every few cycles it overheats, or trips out or something like that. Which would take time to solve but not that big of a deal.

But are people saying it's rough compared to a RMC hybrid though? Because it's a completely different kind of ride and that's just a silly comparison. As much as I love the RMC coasters and the pre fab intamins before them. There is still something crazy fun about the 'rougher style' traditional woodies that give you that 'we might die' feeling IMO.

The whole thing is insane. Working for the company that owns our Sea World in Australia I know that a balance of entertainment and education can work really well. Having said that, our Dolphin habitat is larger than what Seaworld in the US has for its Orcas. That I don't agree with, but what is crazy is PETA basically shut down your Seaworld expanding the Orca pools!!! What else is just stupid from Seaworld's point of view is that this 'natural environment' they recon they are making looks all nice from the outside, but inside the pool it's still just a concrete tank. So it's hardly changing anything. Just let Seaworld expand the pools to a more suitable size, and focus on a decent whilst entertaining show (I am very vey against that Shamu Rocks show which really did look like it was exploiting the animals). As everyone has said that engagement is what makes humans care about animals plight. It might be wrong that people don't give a shit about things they can't see in a zoo but it's the case. So to lose that engagement and thus care of the animals plight, it's a real tragedy. Especially because these captive animals don't know are meant to be out in the ocean. They just don't. Raise a child and never let them see the outside world, they won't know it exists. What is hilarious about PETA is that they are focused on shutting down Seaworld which cares and loves it's animals, all the while we still ignore hundreds of dolphins slaughtered each year in Taiji. This is the problem with an increasingly dumb, Facebook educated society where everyone jumps on a cause in ignorance.

I know right! Never shat myself over a rubber duck so much in my entire life!!

I agree. Sounds like they've done something strange to account for a ghost or missing train. Given I don't think there were any proxys in that section of track the train stopped in the PLCs would no longer be seeing it on the track. Definitely a violation of procedure somewhere.

I've got a bit of a different opinion/ idea of what might have happened here. Firstly, all rides have to have a manual mode, and have to be able to 'let you crash cars into each other' in order for maintenance operations to be carried out. Coasters also typically don't 'know' where the trains are until told, and then they keep track from there. What if the engineer didn't actually jog the train off the lift in manual. What if instead they inadvertently cleared the faulty block (with the valleyed car in it) without realising. If the ride had been put back into Auto it may well have then caused the car on the lift to be sent. By the time anyone realised what was happening and went for an e-stop the car may have already cleared the last set of brakes. I think this is much more likely rather than some doofus purposely sending a car off the lift into the occupied block. I don't know the particulars of this rides block reset procedure and Auto mode restart parameters but plenty of control systems do automatically start moving trains as soon as any faults area cleared.

I actually really hope it's not Topper Track. The whole feel and location of the ride I think really lends itself to the 'rough' feel of the traditional track. And you wouldn't get that out of control feeling with a conversion. I think there is a time and place for both, but Ghostrider should keep it's traditional woodie feel, just with a track restoration.

It's exactly right though that we don't know th cause yet. The ride may have be put into manual model and the lift simply started or jogged, sending the train on it's collision course. There is nothing unsafe about the ride then. Rather just a policy that allows that. It's really all don't to results of the investigation.

Yeah what a stupid post. What are you even doing on a theme park enthusiast site if you are that ignorant about amusement ride operations. Any ride that has more than one car can have an accident like this, so best you find a new hobby. Does anyone know how they've been operating Spinball with multiple cars?

They have to be seen to be doing something with how far the bar shit crazy british media has taken things. When you think about the fact that people have died on rides and received less press coverage. I think it's a really smart move on their part to elimate ANY chance of another accident. Imagine how damaging it would be for them if a fluke unrelated freak accident occurred just by chance. It would devistate the company's reputation. Id imaging the eventual cause with turn out to be a unforeseen alignment of a tiny oversight in the ride control system with a tiny oversight in Merlin's operational procedures. Once that's all sorted they could impliment a fix to both to ensure all rides are safe.

Thanks, so it's clear their "additional layer of safety" is to treat the rides as though they have no blocks and only have one train in circulation at a time. As it's a capacity hit you can only imagine once the investigation concludes they will restore the original operations. How they sell that to the public though with be interesting as so many idiots will probably see it as a reduction in safety.

Two questions; Firstly I watched another awful sky story and it said that the crash was at about 20mph. I heard it was a lot faster than this. Does anyone know how fast the train goes in that section of ride? Secondly are they now waiting for one train to make a full cycle before dispatching the next? Thus completely removing the use of a block system? If that's the case it's going to be a capacity nightmare for them.

Can't believe the Sky reporter is asking parents in front if their kids if they think the rides are unsafe. Oh hang on, it's Sky, yes I can.

Anyone know if the other coasters have been closed?

I can't help but point out the hilarity of reading through the past dozen pages or so that pretty much in the space of one post go from: "This is the stupidest theme ever, it makes no sense, and the park has lost the plot" to: "OMFG Holiday World is the greatest park ever, their team has some up with the most amazing theme for a coster ever created" Had to check the URL that I wasn't on micechat.com. Perhaps people shouldn't jump to conclusions so fast and be so quick to judge from one video and a press release.

I was referring to the comments saying why Intamins engineers wouldn't have noticed the restraint modifications in their regular inspections.

Clearly the reason being all the track ties and spine have just evaporated.

Intamin don't periodically send engineers out to inspect their installations. Once they sell the ride and hand it over it's the parks job to look after it and have suitably qualified personnel perform regular inspections.

That 10 million figure for Storm is also a complete marketing gimmic anyway. 20mil wasn't spent on the coaster, it's the cost it WOULD have cost to build it if it wasn't for already have the existing show building infrastructure.

I wonder if the cars themselves actually hit the tree or just the wheel assemblies? If the later in the case, the rather unique style of this ride is probably responsible for the thankfully no injuries. If the cars happen to be swung away from the tree at the the time it probably saved a lot more damage and injury.

Yeah I think 'what it takes to KEEP a theme park running' would be a good topic. Most shows focus on building a new ride but end with the first successful dispatch. I think the public would be amazed to learn things like how in depth a coaster train re build is where every single bolt is removed, replaced, the whole thing x-rayed, re-painted and put back together and this happens ALL the time. So much major and minor maintenance goes into keeping a ride running, that some of those processes would be interesting to document. A nice plus side is the not so glamorous jobs of the maintenance workers get their five minutes of glory in the spotlight

Thing is, in my experience its not only the parks that come up with these useless procedures, often not at all. In my experience its some fool at the insurance company who lays down the law that xyz must not be followed else they will not ensure the attraction/park and the park has no choice but to abide. It's crazy.

I'm no Potter fan at all, but I can only imagine that for a child that is, actually getting to board the train from london and end up at Hogwarts has got to be about the most amazing experience ever. I know it's in the marketing hype but it's true, most theme park experience start and end with a line and an exit, but the two lands combined with the train make for one pretty damn immersive experience.

I'm with Robb. After reading through several pages and trying not to stab myself I just see it as any other train station, albeit themed to potterness. It'll have gates to enter and gates to exit and people checking tickets and I could care less when and what tickets they require. I'd be much more interested in how they create the 'journey' and make it convincing. Major attractions have multiple entrances and tickets required for entry (single rider, fast pass, etc) and dealt with it just find. Can hardly see the system to be used here to be any more complicated OR interesting.

I'm curious, have any of the other Aqualoop installations had the problems of the Australian Wet n Wild one? Those slides had to be almost completely re-built and now riders must wear 'sleds' on their backs when riding to prevent stalling. It doesn't seem like the other installs have had these sorts of issues..