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The Smiler Incident - What Happened

It was picked up off her Instagram. Which is her getting on with life. A girly weekend away in a treehouse sounds like a great time for her.



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Alsty said:
Just responding to that video. While it's a lot more accurate than the reports in the media, it's still not totally correct.

The fifth train was not added by the ride operators without the knowledge of technical services as suggested. The trains are only added by technical services, not by operations, so the miscommunication was actually between the engineers adding the train and the engineers resetting the block (also: base of lift 2, not lift 1). The operator would just be sat in the cabin while this is all going on around them.

It also misses some of the subtlety, in my opinion, by not showing the significance of the lack of formal processes. The report went into great detail about how formal processes and cross-checking eliminate dangerous assumptions, and those processes were missing allowing the assumptions to creep in unchecked.
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Not technically true - certainly in years gone by. The Nemesis opening procedure used to be that Technical Services would bring both trains onto the ride, do all their checks and send them round several times to check all was OK & sign the ride off. One train would then be removed to the garage for cleaning by a couple of the ride team. Only when the queue reached the bridge over the vertical loop exit would the Op make a phone / radio call to a team leader to attend with override keys so the second train could be re-added.

Just to make it quite clear, I don't think this was unsafe - all the mechanical checks had been done by qualified Technical Services staff. All the ride staff had done in the garage was cleanse the train before it was deemed to be needed. On a ride like Nemesis that only has two trains, it's pretty easy to work out how many are on the track - the Op could always see the 2nd train in the garage if it was in the front parking position on CCTV. Also the slight giveaway of also only getting a train back in the station every 95 seconds or so if on single train operation.
 
I was referring to the process for adding trains to The Smiler, not Nemesis.

To be honest it wouldn't surprise me if Technical Services are required for all rides now as part of the tightening of the processes. They probably would want to standardise it.
 
Alsty said:
I was referring to the process for adding trains to The Smiler, not Nemesis.

To be honest it wouldn't surprise me if Technical Services are required for all rides now as part of the tightening of the processes. They probably would want to standardise it.
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Fully agree, it will be 100% Tech Services now - with all train additions / removals documented & reported to control, probably by landline only to avoid any risk of radio interference / confusion.
 
OilyWater said:
That must have been a long time ago that ride staff ever had anything to do with adding and removing trains
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1998 - 2005. The Nemesis Op never held the override keys - a Team leader had to attend with them. At the end of the day if the Valley TL had been on "earlies", the keys were left in the office. We collected them at the end of the day to garage the Nemesis trains.

There are 5 keyswitches on the Nemesis control panels. Technical Services would leave all in Auto / Run mode when they signed the ride off (bar the Dispatch switch was a Towers add-on to the system - when this one is turned to off the ride retains power, but the main panel buttons won't work. Was added for if the operator has to leave the controls for any reason so if a staff member presses any buttons, nothing will happen).

The ride operator gets two keys. A power key and the dispatch key. This enables them to turn the ride on and enable the buttons on the main panel & certain buttons on the auxiliary panel, e.g. lift start, acknowledge, loop reset). Everything else is in Auto / Run mode, so all the operator can do is control the ride in Auto mode.

The override keys (2 of them) enable you to switch the Auto / Manual mode keyswitch to Manual & the Transfer Enable from off to on. This enables the transfer / garaging of trains.

To do anything exotic with the ride, you need a 3rd key - for the Maintenance Bypass keyswitch. This key was only held by Technical Services & is different to the other override keys... but we all knew where their set of keys was hidden upstairs in the Nemesis garage workshop! Bet those keys are in a key-safe now!
 
Kraken27 said:
1998 - 2005. The Nemesis Op never held the override keys - a Team leader had to attend with them. At the end of the day if the Valley TL had been on "earlies", the keys were left in the office. We collected them at the end of the day to garage the Nemesis trains.

There are 5 keyswitches on the Nemesis control panels. Technical Services would leave all in Auto / Run mode when they signed the ride off (bar the Dispatch switch was a Towers add-on to the system - when this one is turned to off the ride retains power, but the main panel buttons won't work. Was added for if the operator has to leave the controls for any reason so if a staff member presses any buttons, nothing will happen).

The ride operator gets two keys. A power key and the dispatch key. This enables them to turn the ride on and enable the buttons on the main panel & certain buttons on the auxiliary panel, e.g. lift start, acknowledge, loop reset). Everything else is in Auto / Run mode, so all the operator can do is control the ride in Auto mode.

The override keys (2 of them) enable you to switch the Auto / Manual mode keyswitch to Manual & the Transfer Enable from off to on. This enables the transfer / garaging of trains.

To do anything exotic with the ride, you need a 3rd key - for the Maintenance Bypass keyswitch. This key was only held by Technical Services & is different to the other override keys... but we all knew where their set of keys was hidden upstairs in the Nemesis garage workshop! Bet those keys are in a key-safe now!
Click to expand...

Thanks for this - very interesting post.
 
Kraken27 said:
1998 - 2005. The Nemesis Op never held the override keys - a Team leader had to attend with them. At the end of the day if the Valley TL had been on "earlies", the keys were left in the office. We collected them at the end of the day to garage the Nemesis trains.

There are 5 keyswitches on the Nemesis control panels. Technical Services would leave all in Auto / Run mode when they signed the ride off (bar the Dispatch switch was a Towers add-on to the system - when this one is turned to off the ride retains power, but the main panel buttons won't work. Was added for if the operator has to leave the controls for any reason so if a staff member presses any buttons, nothing will happen).

The ride operator gets two keys. A power key and the dispatch key. This enables them to turn the ride on and enable the buttons on the main panel & certain buttons on the auxiliary panel, e.g. lift start, acknowledge, loop reset). Everything else is in Auto / Run mode, so all the operator can do is control the ride in Auto mode.

The override keys (2 of them) enable you to switch the Auto / Manual mode keyswitch to Manual & the Transfer Enable from off to on. This enables the transfer / garaging of trains.

To do anything exotic with the ride, you need a 3rd key - for the Maintenance Bypass keyswitch. This key was only held by Technical Services & is different to the other override keys... but we all knew where their set of keys was hidden upstairs in the Nemesis garage workshop! Bet those keys are in a key-safe now!
Click to expand...

Love hearing behind the scenes stuff like this (Especially when it involves Nemesis)
 
The rather excellent podcast Cautionary Tales, from economist and journalist Tim Harford, has just dedicated an episode to The Smiler accident (published this Friday).

It's a very well produced retelling of events, as they unfolded on the day, and how human distrust of "the machine" can sometimes have dire consequences.

Excellent Sunday listening and only 40 mins long, though apparently Spotify will thrust 10 mins of advertising in there.
timharford.com

Cautionary Tales – The Thrill and the Drop: A First Date Rollercoaster

Leah Washington and her new boyfriend Joe Pugh are on their first day out together. They’re at Alton Towers theme park, where they’ve chosen to ride the “Smiler” rollercoast…
timharford.com timharford.com

From: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2RmYJC7kP80UU16KGvqaD5?si=DqmgwogyRQ6wSTAjYZob8A&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A2yPlb6ynbhTJbziSIcykQd

Web Player - Pocket Casts

Listen to your favorite podcasts online, in your browser. Discover the world's most powerful podcast player.
pca.st pca.st
 
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