DaptoFunlandGuy

Precisely. Regardless of what the cast member's training manual said, the accident could have happened with or without the extra lines in the training manual. The quotes you listed detail that Disney was to make an amendment to the manual in regards to "funny noises" as a result of the enquiry. it was not a cause of the accident. The loose bolts on the upstop guidewheel could have failed on the very first cycle, rather than the 13th cycle. If it happened on the first cycle, it would not matter if there was an amendment to the manual. the quote I have listed is the be-all and end-all of the investigation - MAINTENANCE was at fault, and nothing more.

.au.... i agree, but essentially these forums are a place for members to discuss every facet of rides and theme parks. i find the questions tiring sometimes to say the least, but it is what the forums are intended for, and while i find it annoying, I am not about to tell him to stop altogether.

And some further info for you - taken from www.answers.com So further to the 1 in 48 million effort, only 3 were from Park Negligence, and one of those was a cast member, not a guest.

From www.sacbee.com: I rest my case Adam...

Bussy - i'm scared.... you agreed with me on practically every point...... even the one i didnt think you would... and sorry that this isnt anything decidedly meaningful to the current discussion, i just had to point out that i got very scared seeing you agree with me....

i have just viewed the vid you have buzz, and apart from the low quality, it is awesome. i think my vids are clearer (less pixelation) but slower framerates. it was good to see the historic filming of the beast in its early days, and the transparent frame bit you used to put your info in front of video and the like was good. your skills in vid editing are superior to mine, but uniqueness is not something you can claim with this one! lol. not many people can use the Wonderland Park Music in their videos either (lol).... unfortunately it would appear that both the people who have on-ride wonderland footage are able to do so... lmao. The one main difference between your footage and mine is that mine is a forwards-facing-only shot, from the front seat, filmed by my own hand. no different camera angles are used... so we each have good and bad points... i only wish i had of known you were making this one, i could have contributed towards it... nice logos and stuff on the end of it too.

im sure she will be there next time Rappa...

ok so a number of replies coming here - Buzz... it would be very funny if you were joking, PM with with some further info on it.... Albert - when DPA opened, it contained a thread that has since been removed, called "r-c bashing" and the description of the thread was something along the lines of "tell me all the problems and complaints you have from richard. you can post safely here, i won't delete it, and if Richard does anything to you, ill sort him out" How can you not expect those who are loyal supporters of this site not to be offended by someone who openly asks his members to "bash" Roller-Coaster.com.au, and the site Administrator, someone who by far is very skilled, intelligent, and fair, but also makes his own decisions about his site in regards to who or what is allowed on the site to keep the peace of the majority? As far as errors in programming, in a conversation i had recently with Paul, he detailed to me his extensive programming experience in CGIPHP and Cisco Systems. While im certain thats a crock, as the site programmer and host is not the site administrator, but a different person... As far as contributions, paul has a lot of images of the park in its early days, from members of this site, and his own collections as well. Wonderbuzz has been a big contributor to this sort of media, but as far as I am aware, a lot of people who Paul has approached for permission to use their material on his site said no, because of - 1) the way in which he approached them 2) his previous bad attitude and behaviour towards them, and other members considered to be their friends. Personally, I gave paul a few photos and videos that would be suited for use on his site, unfortunately, he was too immature to retain the friendship we had, and he never asked me for permission to use the material. I assure you if he were to utilise the materials on his site, I would sue both him and the site owner (who is a nice guy) for breach of copyright. Its a concept with limited scope, poor research, and a lack of materials to make it interesting. Richard devotes a lot of his time to researching information. he has set up a network of contacts to be the first with the info, and also makes constant visits to parks, particularly during periods of heavy construction and refurb to give us updates. how long can DEFUNCT PARKS OF AUSTRALIA last? there can only be so many parks in Australia that close down... and even less of those will be parks that have a broad appeal to the wider community, and are able to supply enough information to sustain a conversational topic about it IN that wider community. As far as designing a site, another user is already in the process of doing so, with site testing being done as I type this. To respect Richard's guidelines I will neither identify the member, or the site in question, but only know that with around the same basic availability of information as DPA, this site will be able to sustain itself a lot better than DPA. Apologies for getting off topic... but to get back to it, it will be interesting to get information on the deconstruction of probe. I recall a maintenance worker lost a finger or two when he failed to follow procedure and a magnetic brake fin came too close to another fin, and they clamped together severing finger(s). I wonder if the plc (or whatever it was that Wonderbus posted a while ago) will be replaced or rebirthed after it died by a shoddy maintenance job...

i like the billboard idea Joz. it works well, and would fit in nicely. fake trees i dont like... it would be too easy to tell, and they would become run down over time... i agree as far as the points on the theming too, and the mirror does suck.. but just like you said, it rates the same, before and after... so if it aint broke...?

yes it does.... quite a lot actually for what could be classed as just a coaster. not as much, obviously as indiana or splash mountain, but sufficient to the ride's design.

Touche, my boy. i didnt pick that one up. The Disney procedures and policies I was referring to was in regards to the maintenance technicians, and the Green Tag, Yellow Tag procedures. The procedure that has been added by Disney since the accident regarding what an operator should do was never there before because it was never needed. there had never been cause previously for a section in the manual detailing "what to do if the train makes a funny noise" because daily maintenance on these trains picks it up. When a green tag is placed on an individual train vehicle, it is valid for 72 hours from the time it is placed. if the train has not seen service for more than 72 hours after the tag was placed, it must be re-tagged again before it can go into service. Bear in mind though that this is one persons opinion and thoughts. Bussy and Daniel have an opinion on the maintenance of rides at Wonderland too, but while im not saying they ARE wrong, operators don't see EVERYTHING that goes into the maintenance of these rides, and the attitude they have towards it could be incorrect. Again I come back to saying, that at the time, there was no policy in place on what an operator should do, and they had no reason to believe that the train was faulty, as i said before it might have just been a new part that needed time to burn in. when it didnt resolve after 12 cycles, they elected that upon return to the station, it would be shunted back off to the sidings, as if it were a new part, it should have burnt in enough by cycle 12. Also as an interesting Sidenote, all of the animatronics and special effects found in Disneyland Rides, including pirates of the carribbean, the haunted mansion, splash mountain and the like are never turned off, and neither is the audio system throughout the park. it is too costly for Disneyland to shut them down every night and restart them every morning, and also unreliable, being that sometimes things dont restart the way they should. They simply turn the sound to mute, so that the cleaners and maintenance workers don't go bonkers. Also, until recently, Disneyland used to replace EVERY SINGLE LIGHT GLOBE IN THE PARK at the same time. Walt's vision was that of perfection, so at the minimum hours quoted by the manufacturer of the globe, every bulb is replaced, so no globes blow in the middle of operation and ruin the effect, although it seems from reports these days that under Eisner's management, this quality control has been let go, allowing numerous globes in the park tp blow, and have been for several days before they are replaced. Im not saying it is what I would expect, but any ride operator will tell you that any delay for safety reasons, while sometimes necessary causes a lot of seriously peeved guests. (Daniel, Bussy... jump in anytime) Guests will simply not understand that an operators "hunch" means they have to wait even 30 seconds more to get on this ride... and that doesnt just apply to Disney. Essentially, without concrete evidence that something was seriously wrong (it was just a noise afterall.. it could have been ANYTHING, not all of which could have been potentially dangerous.) But with the suspicions they had, they elected to allow the train to complete it's cycle, before shunting it into storage before getting maintenance to have a look at it. It was one cycle too late for this, but the operators were not to know. I can tell you now that at other parks (not Disney) that in the past (without siting sources as I am unable to remember them at the moment) there have been instances of operators either e-stopping a ride, or refusing to operate the ride because of an issue they felt needed addressing by maintenance. some of these operators have been counselled, disciplined, or dismissed because of it. To take down a ride like BTM on a suspicion, while it may or may not have saved a life, you end up with one hell of a lot of peeved guests. Look how many people complain about ToT's problems with staging when it rolls back too far... or when Giant Drop only operates ONE cabin because of maintenance issues... What about when Wipeout was emitting a horrid noise during operation... did the operator close it down immediately and request a full investigation? A noise isn't always something an operator should just up and Close a ride for. its a fine line a park has to walk between safety and guest satisfaction. Unfortunately, this time the line was crossed the wrong way, But I don't fault the operators or the park one bit. it was maintenance. that is all, thats the end of it. and it was an external company that screwed up... not disney.

the trees to the left of the track are not large enough to cover the scaffolding. to truly hide it it would require numerous trees, very closely planted to cover it. they would need to be a lot higher, and with height comes a need for stability. imagine the root bases of trees that high? it could cause serious structural damage to the ride, which would be dangerous. While storms generally help branches fall off, branches can also fall down from the sheer weight of the branch, with little or no wind at all. I also seriously doubt it is possible for there to be sufficient cameras to cover every inch of track on the ride, and also to have enough people watching those cameras so that the branch fall would be noticed IMMEDIATELY. one operator watching the cameras, who is also incharge of despatching the boats at the start would not be sufficient. Also, if a branch of this size were to fall on the ride, there is no guarantee it would be noticed in time for the boats to be caught on a safety brake before it reached the branch = injuries again. It all comes down to it being too cost ineffective, for very little gain in the grand scheme of things. its not feasible, it wouldn't work, and they're not going to do it.

In doing a quick search on RCDB, out of 47 coasters that are: Shuttle Sit Down Made by Vekoma, 27 of them are named Boomerang, Plus 1 Zoomerang, not including Visionland. (some results are double ups, as the RCDB includes coasters twice if they relocated - eg: Titan became Demon) Roller Coaster Amusement Park 1Boomerang Bellewaerde Park 2Boomerang Fantasilandia 3Boomerang Freizeit-Land Geiselwind 4Boomerang Geroland 5Boomerang Hafan y Môr Holiday Park 6Boomerang Jerudong Park 7Boomerang Knott's Berry Farm 8Boomerang La Ronde 9Boomerang Parc de Montjuic 10Boomerang Parque de la Costa 11Boomerang Playcenter São Paulo 12Boomerang Pleasure Island Family Theme Park 13Boomerang Six Flags Elitch Gardens 14Boomerang Six Flags Fiesta Texas 15Boomerang Six Flags Marine World 16Boomerang Six Flags Mexico 17Boomerang Tashkent Park 18Boomerang Tivoliland 19Boomerang Walibi Aquitaine 20Boomerang Walibi Rhône-Alpes 21Boomerang Wiener Prater 22Boomerang Wild Adventures 23Boomerang Woobang Towerland 24Boomerang Worlds of Fun 25Boomerang Zygo Park 26Boomerang Coast-to-CoasterGreat Escape 27Boomerang Coast to CoasterSix Flags Darien Lake 28Cobra Walibi Belgium 29Cobra West Midlands Safari Park 30Colossus Habtoorland 31Demon Wonderland Sydney 32Flashback Six Flags New England 33Flashback Six Flags Over Texas 34Head Spin Geauga Lake 35Krachen Al-Shallal Theme Park 36La Via Volta Walibi World 37Ragin’ Cajun Dixie Landin’ 38Sea Serpent Morey's Piers 39Sidewinder Hersheypark 40Space Shuttle Enchanted Kingdom 41Thunderbolt Aladdin's Kingdom 42Tidal Wave Trimper's Rides 43Titan World Expo Park 44Unknown Grandlink World 45Vampire Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom 46Zoomerang Lake Compounce 47Zydeco Scream Six Flags New Orleans

i believe Gazza was being sarcastic, as was I, on the name being unique... Zoomerang was used for another ride of the same design. Given it has a boomerang element, and so many across the world are already CALLED boomerang, Zoomerang is just another play on word(s). Titan and Demon were unique names, and it would seem that our poor demon has been saddled with a name that lacks creativity and uniqueness, and has had it, or a variation, applied to most of the other rides of the same design. the demon as we know it is unique no more. At least Demon was themed reasonably well (as far as wonderland standard goes), and had an entire themed land built around it. Zoomerang will just be a standard ride with standard gates. its name doesnt imply much in the way of theming, so it will just be another carnival type ride plonked smack bang in the middle of their park, wherever they have the space for its footprint.

Adding sparks always adds a risk of fire, regardless of how safe you try to make it. the only "safe" way would be to play a video of the sparks on a screen... Disney's "fire" effect in Pirates of the Carribbean is a white sheet, with an orange and red flickering light behind it, and a fan specially designed to blow the sheet to look like fire - but even in this situation, if the sheet were to catch on the light, a potential fire hazard would exist there as well. the trees you added are small bushes, and the tall trees in the distance are off the rides footprint. planting large trees, big enough to hide this scaffolding, would need to be inside the footprint, and need to be very tall (ala-gum trees etc). Large trees tend to have large branches, and in high winds, these branches can fall off, into the water and cause a hazard. there would be no sensory system that could detect a branch in any one place on the track, without installing sensors every metre along the track (very expensive), so the results would be a branch in front of a boat, which can cause a "Traffic jam" as well as have the potential to cause injury. Also, these types of trees would need a long time to grow. Go and have a look at the photos in the wonderland thread posted by Wonderbuzz. photos in 1985 show a very sparse smattering of sapling sized gumtrees. it took 19 years to grow into what they are now, which only just hides HBLGoldrush from the middle areas of the park. For WBMW to plant enough trees to hide this facade and scaffold and enough time to let them grow, replacing ones that die or fall down early in their life, would be a mammoth, costly and wasteful undertaking, not to mention a very slow way to fix this problem, which, while detracting from the appearance of the ride, most people who ride this ride do not look at this, because they are too busy screaming and hiding from water splashes. it is only very super critical theme park junkies such as yourself and myself who would notice, and complain about this sort of thing. The exit to Batman Adventure is a plain white colourbond wall on one side, and a chain link fence on the other. should they hide this too? bottom line is this sort of thing is either not safe or too costly to hide, and not worth the effort in the end anyway. The only park I know of, who is capable of hiding EACH AND EVERY PART of their back-of-house facilities is Disney, and most of their rides are indoor or underground, so thats a lot easier than a 40 metre mountain. The exception to that rule would be the Matterhorn, but the Matterhorn track is all based inside the mountain itself, and doesnt wind in and out of the mountain like Wild West.

then the same would go for buying a house someone died in, or a car, or driving on a road someone was killed on - ever drive down a country road and see a white cross and flowers along a particularly tight bend? its called ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. I am not condoning Disneyland cutting corners on their maintenance. I would love to go back to the days where their maintenance team was in house - but every corporation is in the business to make money, whether its selling groceries or adrenaline rush, and they need to make decisions. sometimes, those decisions are wrong, and they are learnt from. The point here is that there was not a documented procedure for the operators to follow. They weren't sure what to do. How I read the report, it seemed to me that they had come to the decision to remove it from the circuit after the train had staged and loaded. it is not possible to take the train from the staging area to the storage area, without it doing a full cycle (as far as i am aware), so loaded or not, it would have to return to the disembarking area (which is behind the staging area) to be brought back into the storage and yellow tagged. Once a train is loaded, the cast members would also have wanted to minimise the inconvenience to the guests, as nobody wants to load, then unload and load again - they would be seriously annoyed at the operators. The right thing to do should have been to remove it the moment the noise was apparent, but again, the operators had no clear communication from Disneyland as to what they are supposed to do, in this situation. Disney did all that they could in this situation. While they have accepted blame as the owner and operator of the attraction, it was through no action on Disney's part that this occurred. Disney had all the proper procedures and policies in place. All of the Disney Employees knew the policies in regards to an attraction that was not safe to ride. Train number 2 had a green tag, so they put it into service. it was the external Maintenance contractor who were not educated in the correct greenyellow tag procedure. Repeating - Disney accepted the blame for the accident - of course they did, it was their ride, their operating staff, and the maintenance was performed by a contractor paid for by Disney. for legal purposes, they had to accept blame, but outside of a court of law, what I am saying is that Disneyland Resort California did nothing wrong. it was the fault of the contractor. Thats not what Bus meant when he said that, but as with a grand opening on a ride, every nut and bolt is given a thorough inspection before it is opened again for service. you know there will be no problems after this has happened. Pump 10 Million people through Dreamworld, open it from 10am to midnight EVERY DAY, and then compare death statistics after dreamworld has operated for 50 years. If thunderbolt was still standing after fifty years, im sure it would have eventually had some sort of large issue. Where the report says that the operators had decided to "tag" the train, this was referring to YELLOW TAGGING the train, which would take the train out of service immediately upon its return to the disembarking area. Unlike a ride like Bush Beast, that requires a fair amount of time to bring the second train in or out of service, the operators of BTM are capable of incycling or outcycling a train from or to service in a few minutes, without the assistance of maintenance personnel. Personally I think the only goof in this situation was that the train was signed off by someone who did not do the repair. If the guy who attached the upstop assembly signed off on it, the bolts would have been tightened. And if they weren't then he is solely to blame. A technician who signs off on something that he has not personally checked is just asking for trouble and disaster. this is the only mistake in this entire situation. An operator is not a technician. they are not to know that a slight change in noise is a fault with a train. it could be that maintenance put a new wheel assembly on the train which is a little tighter fitting, and it needs to "burn in" for a few cycles, which is why they cycled the train 12 times before electing to yellow tag it again. I stand by my statement that Disney did nothing wrong. All of their policies and procedures were in place, and available to the external maintenance company. it was the maintenance companies duty to follow those safeguards put in place, and by their own mismanagement - someone died. Disney owns the ride, and pays for the maintenance, so they ultimately are at fault in a legal proceeding, but morally, and responsibly, it was West Reliability Team who goofed up, not Disney.

Remembering that you asked the question "do you think"... trees would become a problem in keeping the ride free of debris. If they were to cover it up, it would need to be walls or more mountain facade. these walls or facades could possibly cause a problem in the event of a fire evacuation. if the escape stairs were enclosed, it would increase the risk of smoke in this area, whereas the current situation allows for superb ventilation to clear the smoke. personally, and from what i gather the opinions of a few others on the site is that they won't. for a person who never saw "the other way" they would not know any different, and the ride is still just as enjoyable, minus a few seconds of extra "thrill" before you're shot out the drop. I also think that the theming that is missing was part of the cause for the fires in the first place - the "sparks" as you climb the lift hill can cause a fire, and the more electrical equipment you have at the top of a drop that utilises WATER is just more of a hazard. Personally I think WBMW has made the decision not to reinstall that theming permanently, because of money, and the potential risks associated with putting it back in. I do not think it will ever be put in, unless they choose to do a complete refurboverhaul on it, and come up with a failsafe way to install it without the risk of another fire...

Not that I have any problem with news and the like being circulated around the web, but its surprising how quickly he jumped on the news... Oh well - pity he didnt offer you the credit of the discovery Buzz... like its his own news report... lol

give em ten points for being unique...

Yes... yes you are. I have on ride footage of BushBeast and Demon, which has been circulated privately to other members (Flea, Paul Hollibone, DjRappa) etc, but up until recently it was only available in MP4 format, and could not be easily edited. I also have Lethal Weapon and Corkscrew on-ride as well. I have since invested in RiverPast's VideoPerspective software, and Ulead Video Studio 8. The first of many - which will be lethal weapon, is in post production at the moment just tweaking some finishing touches, and a few websites have been liaised with to host the video, Richard and R-C.com.au included. One of the sites I have negotiated with wants exclusivity, but is taking their time in getting the files uploaded, so it is highly likely this will be hosted on R-C.com.au very soon. Depending on the recorder you used, your quality is probably going to be better, as this is a hand held (pocket size) recorder, which uses a fibre optic cable to run from the pocket to a strap on the wrist - therefore the quality is pretty low...

as that appears to be the highest point on the ride, i would be inclined to say it is the second. that picture looked to have been taken just after the initial backwards drop, which is after the first lift hill, so the angle of the lift hill shown in the photo would appear to be the second lift would it not?

Bussy, the report details quite clearly that it is an outside sourced company who does the maintenance on Big Thunder Mountain. Final results as to "what went wrong" in this situation, was that the up-stop guidewheel on the decorative locomotive on the front of Train Number 2 had not had its bolts tightened, nor had it had the "safety wire" attached to the assembly. These are two crucial tasks outlined by Disney in the Maintenance manual that were not performed. The train had been "Yellow Tagged" until such time as it was fixed, but the maintenance worked who reattached the upstop guidewheel assembly (and who also did not bolt it on tightly) was NOT the person who signed off on the trains suitability for service, and gave it a "green tag". Again, I am more comfortable riding a disney ride where a couple of people have died, that I would be riding an attraction at a park that has a history of cutting costs in every direction for the sake of a quick buck (dreamworld). How long will it take until the poor maintenance being done on Wipeout causes a strenuous metal fatigue fracture and the whole structure lands on top of the claw? Who knows.... What I do know is that Disney were following all the correct procedures. they had every item documented and catalogued. As far as Disney were concerned, the maintenance operator employed to maintain that train had confirmed it was in safe and working order. The only loopholes and problems associated with the cause of this accident have since been rectified. And Bussy - its the West Reliability Team that performs the maintenance on BTM.

Gosh Adam, you were right - once - after doing research... my work here is done - YOU DID RESEARCH! Damn, and after I just went and praised your research capabilities, I am quite sure that Wild West Falls has TWO turntables - 1) after first lift hill, before reverse drop then a turnaround (reverse park and then forward system) 2) prior to final drop, to rotate the vehicle onto the "drop" track Indeed, it doesnt have a turntable, but unlike all the other examples you provided, and Mummy itself, ToT is not a circuit coaster, and therefore doesnt need a turntable at all. I never talked of reverse drops, but rather the methods with which the cars are then put forwards again. this is a shuttle, just like demon, deja vu etc.... Feel free to keep gloating that I was incorrect. Its not a regular occurrence these days, but when I am wrong, I will admit it... So as I said, keep gloating... you will be back to normal next week when you claim that the Batman Adventure - The Ride 2 Attraction actually has tracks mounted under the vehicles, and they follow a roller-coaster style layout to deliver the motions felt by passengers, all as a result of a tyre drive system, with fire detecting bunnies in the front of the car that chew a carrot if theres a fire, causing the vehicles to reverse back to the station under its own power.

LOL. Just cause you didnt get in first dan... I didnt attack Phats in my first post: I only then referred to him as Shifty Junior in response to Rappa's comment about my being harsh... and in all fairness, this is the sort of thing that would have come from NightShifter. So far, nobody has come up with any reasonable explaination of what this "extra track" would be used for. The only explainations others have come up with are contradicting the initial report.

I have spent the last 2 hours reading that article, associated articles, and the full 22 page report by the department of occupational safety and health (amusement rides division). I can tell you that the following statements were made and accepted as fact, post-accident: Disneyland Anaheim's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is not considered by the division as inherently dangerous. It was found to meet all quality and control guidelines in its construction. The accident was not as a result of any Guest interference. The accident was not as a result of any Operator error. The safety procedures Disneyland Anaheim have in place were found to be adequate and above average The maintenance personnel, which were all outside-employed contractors were found to be lax in their performance of their duties. The maintenance personnel were signing off on work as completed, without having done the work themselves. No maintenance workers interviewed could demonstrate the correct procedure for "in serviceout of service" protocols for the trains. Cast Members who operate the ride were not properly trained on what to do in the event that a ride emits an unusual noise or other suspicious anomaly. The results of this inquiry were that Disneyland Resort Anaheim would be obligated to re-train all external maintenance personnel associated with big thunder mountain on the correct maintenance proceedures, as well as the "in serviceout of service" procedures. Disneyland Resort Anaheim would also need to modify it's existing operations manuals to define more clearly the procedures cast members should take in the event of a suspicious anomaly in the rides operation. Adam, what you said as far as being put off by Big Thunder Mountain, Space mountain has had the same or more number of incidents as Big Thunder over the past 5 years. There have been (between 1999 and 2003) 5 Major incidents at Disneyland Resort Anaheim, which included 2 fatalities and over 40 injuries. In a related article, from the one you posted, i found these facts and figures for perusal - (http://www.themeparkinsider.com/news/respo...nse.cfm?ID=1296) (figures recorded in 2003) According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (www.census.gov.au) there are currently 20 million people (just over) living in australia. According to Google.com.au and varying sources that were turned up through its search engine, an average of 10 Australians are struck and killed by lightning every year. This means that the odds of getting struck AND killed by lightning are 1 in 2 million. The odds of receiving a lightning related injury are much higher. around 100 Australians are injured every year as a result of lightning strike. Odds of getting INJURED by lightning are therefore 1 in 200,000. Compare this to 1 in 48 million of being killed at Disneyland. I like those odds.