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2016: The Smiler Reopening

Will you ride in 2016?

  • Yes

    Votes: 147 94.8%
  • No

    Votes: 8 5.2%

  • Total voters
    155
Your right though. Even the probability of it was higher on smiler - it is (as far as I'm aware) towers only coaster (I'm not counting closed rides or rita, as that is designed to be able to stall if the launch fails) to have stalled other than RMT (and that didn't end well for towers either). Add to that that it's been one of two of towers' coasters to have a major accident (the wheels falling off, bolts falling from the track, the many stalls that have occured). Then just look at the build quality. You can tell just from riding that some of the tracks just been squeezed in. I don't think I even need to mention the ground works.

I'm sure if this happened on nemesis or oblivion there would be complete shock, and - if the injuries were the same as the smilers incident - then I'm sure towers wouldn't even consider closing them as it would obviously be a one off accident, rather than the worst of many.

Doesn't stop me riding though. When I was getting on the smiler last week, I could see in the op cabin. There was a monitor with the words wind checker or somthing like that that I've never noticed before. It's obviously got even more things in place now to prevent an accident or stall. It might never feel as safe as nemesis or oblivion, but there are far worse rides out there that are safely operating.

Sorry know it's late but I can think of 3 roller coasters at Towers currently operating that have stalled (and about 9 in the UK).

Towers ones are: Smiler, Th13teen and Spinball.

If you count a failed launch as a stall you can add Rita too.
 
Sorry know it's late but I can think of 3 roller coasters at Towers currently operating that have stalled (and about 9 in the UK).

Towers ones are: Smiler, Th13teen and Spinball.

If you count a failed launch as a stall you can add Rita too.
I wasn't counting Rita (it's designed to stall if the launch loses power), didn't know about th13teen stalling. Now that I think about it, I remember hearing about spinball, but I forgot about it. I did count RMT since that lost power and collided. Point still stands though.

Close enough ;)
 
Did it stall? Didn't the train break off from the front and roll back?
 
Spinball stalled at the immelman - back when it was spinball v.1 (not sonic and pre THIS spinball) if you look at old photos you'll see the immelman had a ladder and space for staff installed.

Thirteen stalled I think due to the ridiculous breaks prevented it from getting to the crypt area.

Smiler we all know.

RMT - doesn't really count as a stall, the whole thing is powered so it can't stall as it doesn't run without the current, and the back half of the train succumbed to gravity when it lost the front half. Less stall more ride error.
 
Pretty sure the issue with Thirteen was that the trains were going too fast, and would over-shoot the second lift hill, which would cause it to cut out. This then resulted in the addition of the trim brake on the first drop, to slow the trains down enough so that there is no over-shooting. :)
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned but his has been put up to cover the "wobbly" support.

18d8c1f0242a5e8441fb6e6afd698262.jpg
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned but his has been put up to cover the "wobbly" support.

18d8c1f0242a5e8441fb6e6afd698262.jpg
They've been up weeks (since reopening I think), but that is hilarious. The way to stop people worrying about their safety - cover it with a sign and hope no one notices.

Edit: just realised that that seems to apply to most things merlin do...
 
Wasn't there on opening day, but I went the day after and I'm sure they were there. I'll check photos, but I'm think I remember seeing them (fully accept I might be wrong here)
 
I thought the signs like that were always there (albeit after a few weeks after the ride opened) and were only removed due to the crash?


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they were added a few weeks ago as they weren't there when I visited at the end of March. I've noticed these aren't actually the same signs that used to be up. All marmalisation references have been removed and the inoculator has a different picture on it

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I thought the signs like that were always there (albeit after a few weeks after the ride opened) and were only removed due to the crash?


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They had all the big 6 signs there before the crash, and now they've been replaced with the pre-big 6 signs (which I think were on a fence near the other end of the ride)
 
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