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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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ASturge21 said:
I don't think speeds would matter as they have installed the wind gauge which may trigger an e-stop once winds reach speed x but the numbers on the supports are interesting. Also wording on social media to one question I saw on TT made it sound like they have not yet decided on whether to keep the ride open.
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But if they want a certain margin to make sure the extreme panic and pr disaster of a stall can't happen.
 
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Stalling is not a root cause of the crash, but as Andrew rightly says, they will want to ensure that they reduce the potential of it happening as much as possible.
 
ASturge21 said:
On the post it said that it was their desire to re-open the ride at no point have the said that the ride will or will not re-open.
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They have not said it will, but if they want it to, it will happen. I doubt that the hse will say it can never reopen.
 
Tom said:
Stalling is not a root cause of the crash, but as Andrew rightly says, they will want to ensure that they reduce the potential of it happening as much as possible.
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The root cause of the crash was two trains in the one block but if the ride had not of stalled the trains would not have been in the same block.
Leah said:
They have not said it will, but if they want it to, it will happen. I doubt that the hse will say it can never reopen.
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I believe it will re-open just the numbers on the support columns and no statement of intent of re-opening the ride it does make me question slightly. If the batwing was to be re-profiled how would it effect the number of inversions, how the track looks and how it feels to ride?
 
Surly a reprofiling would just involve making that side of the batwing lower so keeping the 14 inversions
 
AndrewH said:
Surly a reprofiling would just involve making that side of the batwing lower so keeping the 14 inversions
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Yes I'd imagine so, do you think the testing was to help them identify how much lower the batwing should be? If I remember rightly people form gerst were on site so they could of been helping with the engineering side of a potential re-profile.
 
I'll believe these reprofiling rumours when I see it with my own eyes. I was there on the day The Smiler opened in 2013 to witness two Gerst employees wince as they watched the trains go through the cobra roll. It was obvious then that there ideally needed to be some work done with the track. Here we are 2 and a half years later and as far as I know nothing has happened, despite multiple stalls and worsening of the cobra roll jolt year upon year. The fact is it will be too costly and they don't want to bother.
 
The only way I can see them bothering with it is if H&S say the ride can't open without it being reprofiled. It would also be quite difficult to do as well given the access down there and all the track and supports I'd guess.
 
Anyone got any photos of these numbers on the supports? I'm sure someone on here might know what to make of them.

Edit: doesn't matter, I forgot. I'm there later.
 
ASturge21 said:
The root cause of the crash was two trains in the one block but if the ride had not of stalled the trains would not have been in the same block.
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The root cause was the allowance of two trains to collide, be that via 'human error', 'sabotage' or a technical issue.

The train is reasonably expected to stall occasionally, failure of the layers of safety protection is not.
 
Tom said:
The root cause was the allowance of two trains to collide, be that via 'human error', 'sabotage' or a technical issue.

The train is reasonably expected to stall occasionally, failure of the layers of safety protection is not.
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Is that not basically a rewording of 'the only reason it crashed is because it crashed?' In this case if just one of the factors changed (like a different guy from tech services) then chances are it wouldn't have happened. There isn't just one cause for this IMO.
 
I have just come back from a 4 day trip to AT, it is the first time I have seen the smiler since the accident, and I must admit, seeing it not operating is quite an unusual and a powerful feeling knowing what has happened, it almost feels like it's doing time! - Anyway, one thing I really think Alton Towers should do is put signage on the fences explaining why the car is being sent around empty etc, and why people are inspecting the track, for example 'the Smiler is currently being tested due to ongoing investigation, you may see abnormal car movements and workers on the track, this is intentional and not a fault with the ride.'

Reason I say this is because while I was looking at the rollercoaster, loads of people came past and all you could hear was comments saying this and that was happening, and they were commenting on how they would never ride it, also while I was watching, a car went up the first lift hill, stopped half way, then sort of jerked backwards a few inches, this set the passers by off again, saying its a death trap.....
 
Tom said:
The root cause was the allowance of two trains to collide, be that via 'human error', 'sabotage' or a technical issue.

The train is reasonably expected to stall occasionally, failure of the layers of safety protection is not.
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What makes you mention sabotage?
 
Some of the media (mainly Daily Mail) has been suggesting (or rather trying to state as fact) that the ride was deliberately crashed by employees.
 
I mention the only three possibilities, sabotage is extremely unlikely but you never know, nurses have been known to kill people.
 
TomLad said:
Is that not basically a rewording of 'the only reason it crashed is because it crashed?' In this case if just one of the factors changed (like a different guy from tech services) then chances are it wouldn't have happened. There isn't just one cause for this IMO.
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There is a root cause to everything, and failures that are reasonably practicable to avoid are it - otherwise you could say that the cause was the fact that the ride exists.
 
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