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I like a good pin. MW sell some sets but nothing for SD. Coins are also very collectible. I know some people collect coffee cups but for me, they take up room.

In this day and age, regardless of how the control system works, there is NO chance of being able to get away with the ride operator leaving the control panel. Just the notion of there not being a person there to respond in the event of an emergency, even if they can't actually do anything other than hit an estop that makes no difference until the train reaches a brake run opens you up to being crucified if another accident happened, especially if it made it to an inquest because of a death. It really brings question to how you operate everything, people start making judgements on if something would have been different if you were at the panel and could respond quicker, even if that's just you being able to generate an e-stop and immediately radio through a code for attendance. The old adage, seconds matter, can actually ring true, plus it also brings in a level of confusion when something actually happens. I've seen people walk right past responders in the event of an incident because they were overwhelmed, so trying to locate someone that by nature is a fluid position (ie, they are moving), it's just another one of those things that can make matters worse. Basically, it's just a slippery slope that nobody wants to die on (argue against) when being put before investigators, so the person in control of the ride is going to stay at the panel. The laws introduced say nothing at all about operations and or how you run a ride. Rightly, they leave that up to the ride manufacturer and trust that the operator (the park) is following their guidelines and knows what they are doing. The accident was just the catalyst to go a bit over the top. Previously, operational procedures basically came from the ride manufacturer and that was largely how things were run. Then, during the mid to late teens, people within management culture thought they knew better, despite none of them actually having any qualifications to support this and started implementing their own controls above the ones specified by the manufacturer. Then it completely snowballs to the point where additional control measures are required above existing devices, and new procedures are invented despite everything being monitored to within tenths of a mm, in addition to which everything has double or triple redundancy. Now its to the point where evacuations are pretty much mandatory any time a safety fault occurs, no matter if its just a protection fault and can be reset fine. Some of the newer procedures put the members of the public at greater risk than trusting the ride control system to be reporting correctly and utilising the judgement of multiple trained/skilled people to make an assessment on the situation and return the train or cars back to the station with people still firmly within their seats. Climbing out of seating or vehicles, walking along catwalks, climbing down ladders, all these things open people up to greater risk of injury than if the ride was still under control. But it is what it is. When you get down to it, there is a lot of contradictory statements/opinions floating around in procedure documents, what's right in one situation is no longer good enough or completely overlooked in another. Ultimately its entirely down to risk avoidance though. If you keep that in mind any time you question why, you start to see it making more sense. Well, maybe sense is a strong word, how about you start to gain some understanding of why things are done the way they are. It's been a progression over the last 10 years. It actually frustrates ride manufacturers because there have been instances where control systems had to be modified or reprogrammed because additions wouldn't function correctly. But it's the village way and nothing is going to change that now.