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If you had to build a theme park using only one manufacturer, which manufacturer would you pick?

Theme parks are for innocent fun.
One accident is one too many.
One death is one too many.
They should be safe places, all day, every day.
We are not the Action Park generation.
We know better.
 
DistortAMG said:
Sorry, because someone else brought this topic back to life. I felt the urge to comment on this. Try May 2017. Just under 4 years from the date of your post that someone was killed on an Intamin attraction. To my knowledge anyway. Could be less. Close to home too.

Where: Drayton Manor Park.
Ride: Splash Canyon Intamin River Rapids.

The number may be low, but they have always been quite high compared to the rest of the industry. Too high! Some quite gory accidents too, I recall a girl having her legs / feet chopped off on a Giant Drop at one point, due to a cable snapping.

That said, I feel Intamin are the only company that offer enough diversification across their products to truly build a fully fledged theme park out of. Second place would be Mack for me.
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Admittedly, I think I had forgotten about Splash Canyon, but in my defence, that’s not one that Intamin themselves were really responsible for. Of course it was tragic, and absolutely shouldn’t have happened, but given the circumstances, I don’t think Intamin can really be blamed for that one. Compared to something like a coaster, where they do have slightly more of a direct culpability, there’s nothing that Intamin could really have done to prevent the incident on Splash Canyon.

I was swiftly corrected on that assertion with another death that I had forgotten about from back in 2014, but from what I remember, none have happened since.

As far as I can tell, Intamin rides certainly appear far less accident-prone now than they were a decade or two ago.
 
Matt N said:
As far as I can tell, Intamin rides certainly appear far less accident-prone now than they were a decade or two ago.
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Are they less accident prone or have parks stopped buying them in the same volumes, particularly in the west. Cedar Fair and Merlin have certainly shied away and gone to alternative suppliers.

Plus, some of the rides with more problematic histories have gone or haven't operated for ages (Perilous Plunge, Xcelerator, Dragster, Shoot the Rapids, Pilgrims Plunge, etc).

Some of it is a numbers game though, Intamin has sold a lot of rides over the years.

Edit - the rapids death at Adventureland in summer 2021 involved an Intamin ride, but it was an old ride and I am sure Intamin would dispute it was their fault.
 
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RicketyCricket said:
Not surprised the big chains prefer to stay away from Intamin. Not just the accidents but they have had a few balls ups in the design process where coasters need to be modified.
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They have indeed. So many, there was a steady stream of them at one time. Maverick was delayed to be modified, I305 did a season before being modified, Shoot the Rapids was delayed because (to quote the ever reliable Dick Kinzel for saying too much to the media) "The boats don't fit the flume".

The Shoot the Rapids accident could have been a horribly tragic event if it wasn't for some quick thinking by park staff and other guests.
 
Rick said:
Are they less accident prone or have parks stopped buying them in the same volumes, particularly in the west. Cedar Fair and Merlin have certainly shied away and gone to alternative suppliers.

Plus, some of the rides with more problematic histories have gone or haven't operated for ages (Perilous Plunge, Xcelerator, Dragster, Shoot the Rapids, Pilgrims Plunge, etc).

Some of it is a numbers game though, Intamin has sold a lot of rides over the years.

Edit - the rapids death at Adventureland in summer 2021 involved an Intamin ride, but it was an old ride and I am sure Intamin would dispute it was their fault.
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Intamin certainly did go through a bit of a dry spell in the early to mid 2010s in Western parks, but I’d argue that from the late 2010s onwards, we’ve seen a resurgence from them.

Quite a few major Intamin coasters are still being built in the West. Look at things like Taron, Taiga, Toutatis, Gotham City Escape, VelociCoaster, Kondaa, Hyperion… I could go on. None of these newer Intamin rides have had major accidents, and as far as I can tell, they all seem to have had a much smoother ride through the design stages from Intamin’s end than some of the company’s earlier coasters.

Yes, the odd newer Intamin has had a few teething problems (Hagrid’s comes to mind), but the high profile flops seem to be a thing of the past, as far as I can tell.

As you say, it could also be a numbers thing. Intamin builds a lot of rides, so if you look at it from a probability standpoint, it’s only natural that they will have more accidents to their name than a manufacturer who builds less.
 
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