Monorail Accident?

[smudge]

Methinks we will all be scrambling for a rear facing seat at the front of the car next time we are there.

I was thinking about that - not sure if I would rather someone go flying into me, or me fly into someone... I'm leaning towards the latter... therefore front facing seat for me I think... :-\

 

[JaykeAT]

If the monorail did have to close (it wont) they could use the fantastical express to get guest from the car park to the entrance

 

[Rowe]

Or just the normal buses? They do use the resort signage buses during February Half Term when the Monorail is closed, I imagine the Fantastical Express will always be merely for this one time PR use.

 

[delta79]

monorail train bubbles has been park so you can not see the front of daisy from nemesis ST queueline.

they are running 2 sign written buses and 2 coaches from a company in leek for shuttle bus service.

 

[Tom]

monorail train bubbles has been park so you can not see the front of daisy from nemesis ST queueline.

they are running 2 sign written buses and 2 coaches from a company in leek for shuttle bus service.

Cheers. How far from the switch section do you estimate the cow train is positioned?

 

[djtruefitt]

Yesterday the train was near the shop inbetween Duel and Sub terra. With the celebration train further towards Sub-Terras building.

In the morning the Celebration train was in the Towers Street station and I think the cow train was near the coach park, not sure if it was still there later in the day as I went down woodland walk.

 

[Jordan]

By the end of today, it looked like both trains were parked in the maintenance area, alongside the other monorail trains, with none on the main track nearby.

 

[delta79]

daisy the monorail train is no longer there, bubble was there as of 1830. I have seen what the problem was but did not take a photo as my phone memory was full.

the problem has been corrected during the day, personally i think it only a short term fix to get the damaged train into maintenance bay.

 

[PG Ricey]

What you have to ask yourself is how likely is someone to realistically witness it?

Obviously none of the passengers on the train can see it (unless their evacuation enabled them to), so it means that someone would have to be specifically watching the monorail track in that section in Forbidden Valley (? - not too sure on geography of monorail station offhand) around 30 minutes after ride close.

Firstly it wasn't 30 mins after ride close as I walked past the train emptying onto another at about 6:10 after speaking to the actors from sub tera as it had been down for the last 20-30 mins of the day therefor supporting that the eye witness account couldn't have been from thhe sun-tera queline!

Yeah, I now understand it occurred shortly after 5pm - so maybe Sub-Terra was open then? Did they close ST for that reason did he say?

Sub-Tera was down for 2 reasons;
A-The lights weren't working.
B-People got stuck somewhere I didnt hear the full story but they strolled out about 10 mins after everyone else!

 

[Tom]

daisy the monorail train is no longer there, bubble was there as of 1830. I have seen what the problem was but did not take a photo as my phone memory was full.

the problem has been corrected during the day, personally i think it only a short term fix to get the damaged train into maintenance bay.

I'm afraid that just because it has been moved might not mean that everything is OK.

The HSE will have ordered that it was left until their preliminary investigation was complete. They may now either impound the train or have issues an improvement or prohibition notice onto the monorail system.

An improvement notice is basically you can run it again at your leisure, but you must execute changes within a specified timeframe.

A prohibition notice is that you cannot operate the item until changes to their satisfaction have been made. With injuries being sustained by passengers, it could be this.

 

[delta79]

Tom, I agree and to quote myself

personally i think it only a short term fix to get the damaged train into maintenance bay.

I do think the system will be down for weeks or months, maybe even the rest of the season. with AT moving all train back to maintenance area, it look like they are getting ready for major downtime.

I hope AT do a statement, but i think that the due to the problem being a very big one. they will probably wait until the bloke in shirts and ties i saw today give their verdict.

 

[aru]

Why impound a train when the fault was with a switch track? Sounds to me like any improvements need to be made to the automated system / switch track. Technically everything else functioned as it should have with the driver acting as a safeguard and hitting the emergency stop. The train did what it should have and stopped. It doesn't sound like people were that badly injured, and any injuries sustained could have been much worse if the emergency procedure didn't go to plan.

HSE will need to be satisfied that the chain of events will not happen again. This will take as long as AT takes to satisfy this - could be weeks could be months.

 

[Ian]

From what I can gather and piece together from various sources nothing really has gone wrong with the hardware or system as such. It doesn't sound as if say a computer failure has caused this to happen. Obviously, we can't rule out say mechanical failure. It is possible for example that say a bolt fell out, or a sensor broke.

However, speaking to a past staff member the Monorail has always had the potential for something like this to happen apparently. According to them (And I have no reason to disbelieve them) the switch track can be turned at any time while the system is in operation. Sounds like it's been a disaster waiting to happen since the Monorail was built personally. It poses the question though; how and why has it actually happened, and not before ???

If this is indeed what has happened (Which to me sounds the most likely answer given what we know and have seen) then impounding a train would probably not prove anything. Only if the train and it's hardware were at fault would it have any impact.

Normally trains are garaged when the Monorail is not operating, so I should think the ride team/techies have made the decision to garage the trains while they work on the ride, applying any fixes and modifications which may be required. It's just a way of keeping the other trains out of harms way. Just how they probably wouldn't leave both Nemmy's trains out in the station and on the breaks if they were say changing the lift chain, or repairing a support.

 

[delta79]

aru, at the moment no trains have been impounded. I do believe the problem was just before the switching points, where the fixed track meets the frame work for the switching points.

 

[Tom]

Why impound a train when the fault was with a switch track? Sounds to me like any improvements need to be made to the automated system / switch track. Technically everything else functioned as it should have with the driver acting as a safeguard and hitting the emergency stop. The train did what it should have and stopped. It doesn't sound like people were that badly injured, and any injuries sustained could have been much worse if the emergency procedure didn't go to plan.

HSE will need to be satisfied that the chain of events will not happen again. This will take as long as AT takes to satisfy this - could be weeks could be months.

The train itself seems to have caused injury via its stopping procedure, *IF* it is determined that such an abrupt stop was not necessary then action could be taken as injuries have still been caused. It's not simply a case of "well if they didn't stop it, it could have been much worse" as injuries should always be avoided if possible.

It's more significant that the apparent dangerous opening of the switch section occurred in the first place. The HSE are very interested in control measures.

I do think the public have a right to know what happened and yesterday I e-mailed the Staffordshire Sentinel newspaper yesterday asking if they were aware. Hopefully they have made enquiries, but so far they have not responded and nothing has appeared on their site.

 

[Fredward]

I have a theory that the monorail will be closed for a few weeks or months while HSE will shake there heads and tick boxes.

It'll then reopen with no changes except for a sticker in the train saying "brace at all times in case of an e stop" or something similar.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ben.]

yes the public have the right to know, but with all incidents like this it is a very hush hush situation, all it takes is one passenger to exaggerate and become a 'survivor', who will take what the park says and blow it out of proportion, imagine if the sun got hold of the story, phrases like "potentially fatal" and "catastrophe" would be used (mind you that is pretty steep for the sun", i think the park will keep it under wraps until the investigation is complete, mainly so they are sure, and secondly everything will have cooled down by then so there wont be a panic.

 

[Ian]

You can't really blame the park for wanting to keep things quiet until they are resolved. Considering in this day and age the media will say riders "survived a death-defying experience" simply because a ride was stacking for too long

Around the world parks try to keep incidents under wraps (Just ask myself or Sazzle about the American Adventure ). It's in their interest so as not to frighten people, and tarnish their reputation. I'm not saying it's always the right thing to do, but they have reasons for doing it.

 

[Tom]

Agreed about how things can be blown out of proportion, I can see it now:

THEME PARK HORROR ON MONORAIL RIDE

A family of six have spoken about their horror as a theme park monorail ride came to a violent halt after nearly DERAILING off the ede of the track.

18-year-old mother-of-five Mercedes Astra-Golf was travelling with children aboard the white knuckle attraction at Alton Towers, Staffs on Sunday.

She said: "The whole train stopped suddenly, catapulting everyone out of their seats and into the walls of the cabin.

"It was like a scene from a school shooting, there was blood everywhere.

"I had to spark up a fag I was that shook up afterwards. We certainly won't be coming back here again."

An onlooker described the train as approaching the edge of the track as like a scene from the Spider-Man film starring Tobey Maguire.

"We were all screaming and waving our arms around, trying to attract the driver's attention, but he appeared to be texting from his iPhone.

"Luckily he had sent his message just in time and as he looked up he managed to stop the train just a few inches from the edge."

The monorail was opened by Captain Kirk in the 1980s and the trains are painted in the style of farmyard creatures and sweets.

 

[Craig]

Every considered a career at the Daily Mail Tom?