webslave

I found the constant nickel and diming for surcharges at the parks particularly galling given the prices they demand, and also given the surcharges do not represent the reality of the costs of acceptance to the business.

Yeah, we got that a few times but I expected that. I dunno, it just all seemed very... sparse(?) in the back end.

I spent some time at WNW this week having not visited in a few years, and my observations were (and I know I'll be repeating others); - If you're there on your own there's a lot you're going to struggle to be able to do. Quite restrictive. - The river rapids body slides are badly needed (seriously, what's with going to a water park and spending all of your time out of the water?), but some of those section joins need some work. - Hauling rafts to the top of most of these slides, frankly, sucks. - It felt like quite a few bits of the park appeared to be SBNO - the skycoaster, flow rider, what I assume are ziplines, all of Mammoth Falls - pretty visible stuff. I'm sure there's really good reasons - but I'm just telling it like it looks. - The tubes at Calypso need some love. Many are under-inflated, or just in very poor visual condition. - The Whirlpool Springs thing needs to be torn up - it looks bloody awful. All of the grout and tiles are badly discoloured, the surface around the spas is badly chipped and missing in many places which leads me to believe it's not been run in the non-spa configuration in some time, and entrance and exit to it is a pain in the arse, and there is no shade. Depressing stuff. - If you assume you're a single rider and you're at the Aqualoop you will need to walk across very hot and rough brick path to Mach 5, or to the Surfrider, or to Calypso in order to find something you can participate in. It was bloody awful. - The surfrider is a good ride for what it is, but badly misses the water effects. It also seems particularly temperamental. - There's bugger-all choice of lunch options at this park. - The Tornado looks pretty filthy, although I'm sure it's just weathering. - The kids area was okay, and I thought the miniature slides were a nice touch, until I realised that parents can't take their kids on any of the body slides, and the raft slides have a not-inconsiderable height requirement to them. The water play structure is almost identical (with slightly less options added) to the one at Paradise Resort in Surfers. - The wrist-band system for lockers is a pain in the arse if you're sharing a locker with anyone, for example your spouse. Maybe I've outgrown WNW in my later years? All I know is I don't remember ever being as dry at a water park as I was on this visit. There didn't feel like there was a lot for me to do for the day, and by midday I was too sore in the feet to want to walk around any more.

Something that interested me this week was watching the TX3 bus still going by, and more than that - seeing people on it. Online says it won't stop at Dreamworld, but will stop at MW and WNW? Seems strange.

Rode this on Monday. The peppers ghost at the first turntable seemed significantly improved, but the rest of it was pretty meh. The ghost town was pretty depressing - looked like not much was working there. I thought I remembered a video clip at the top of the final drop but must have been mistaken.

Just on that, I recall reading somewhere on the internet an in-depth post about the operation and condition of the pumps at WS, particularly the issues with the pump casings becoming porous throughout their life span and allowing the windings on the pumps to become wet. As I recall from the post this required a pump maintainer to come and crane the pumps out of their casings to dry out. If I remember correctly it also detailed how due to the parlous state of the pumps they frequently ran one pump down and had techs had been sent into the channel to board up the sides of the guide channel to direct more of the flow through there, and remove obstruction elements on the bottom of the channel to cope with the lower flow. Would anyone know whether this post still exists? It was an interesting read.

I also tend to agree, which is why I found the immediate appearance of the AWU rep in the media to be a bit on-the-nose. I think if anyone believes we will find a singular cause for this incident they are dreaming. It's rare for a single cause to lead to something like this, instead you'll find a combination of unlikely factors creates a highly unlikely outcome. Singular cause a pump failure? No, because the pump will have failed before without incident. Singular cause a sensor failure? It would be highly irresponsible to design a ride system that could not account for a single sensor failure. Staff member failing to correctly discharge their duties? For the most part ride systems are designed to account for an operator becoming incapacitated. That of course says nothing for situations that have never been conceived before, but there are some elements that I can only assume have been. For example, I'd have said; Likelihood of risk to life in the event of a pump failure; I'd have said this one was highly unlikely. Likelihood of risk of fatal drowning in the event of immersion in water channel; high. Likelihood of risk of fatal injury in the event of patron separation from raft on conveyor lift; high. Likelihood of risk of raft roll-over in the event of collision with another raft; low. Likelihood of risk of raft roll-over in the event of collision with object fouling water channel; moderate. Now, start to combine a couple of those lower risks and you have some scenarios that perhaps you wouldn't ordinarily consider. For example; what if you had a pump failure, which caused a collision with another raft causing a roll-over in the vicinity of the conveyor lift? All of a sudden your highly unlikely risk is combined with a low risk and a high risk. That's not to say you couldn't manage most or all of these risks to a level that you're comfortable with (since it's not practical to completely remove them in many cases).

The facts in isolation are true, but I get the feeling you think they suggest a conclusion that they don't.

ROI = Return on investment. Personally, given the likelihood of having the area closed off for so long it would be too tempting to use the time to remove TRR and the SBNO mine ride and start fresh with the area.

Quite true, although as in this situation that is often not known immediately.

It's not. It's to bring it in-line with their overseas business dealings which have become more of their focus.

You're not forced to anything. You're going there by choice. Your only connection to these people is an interest in the manner in which they died. Your heart is in the right place, clearly, but I'm not sure your head is right now.

Surely none of the staff will go back to work in light of the comments their union has made in the media in the last couple of days? I mean, to listen to these blowhards you'd have to assume they are all of the belief that they are in imminent danger.

Bang-on. If grieving for people you did not know in private is important enough to you then you have absolute discretion to not go to the one place in the state that you can guarantee a very high concentration of media.

The only thing you need to know about (particularly current affairs) reporting you can learn from Working Dog's classic 'Frontline' program. Truly magnificent, and every bit as true today as it was when it was made. Example;

Well, yes, what can you expect? Their industry lives and dies on eyeballs. If one has the exclusive interview are you going to see it?

I reckon the Premier would do well to concentrate on more important matters.

Precisely how dumb are these AWU bastards? I get that they are getting on the front foot to make enough noise to ensure the media narrative doesn't turn towards the potential failings of one or more of their members, but have they not considered that their fear-mongering and management-bashing has the very real potential to affect the popularity and therefore viability of not only Dreamworld, but that of the other parks? Their other members rely on the continued success of the parks to sustain on-going employment. I would suggest that their attitude is pretty on-the nose, particularly to front the media and somehow suggest they knew this was going to happen. If we're going to line up to head-kick the media for doing their job, surely these cretins deserve worse because they should know better?

Not concerned enough to ban operation of the ride though, it seems. Hindsight is beautiful, especially when it gives you mileage to stick it to the man.

Let's not forget that this isn't without precedent. After all, Disney killed a guy with Big Thunder a little over ten years ago in an accident that was directly attributed to poor maintenance work, yet people still line up for hours to ride it. In a world where people die in industrial accidents (and more) every day in equally tragic circumstances have we considered why this is so newsworthy? I believe it's because amusement parks have such wide appeal among the public and therefore the stories have a lot of cut-through because "it could have happened to me". There's amusement parks all over the world which makes the story locally relevant in most regions, and there's also an element of "the appeal of this is meant to be the illusion that they are dangerous, but this one actually was". With that said, I really, really wish people would stop trying to insert themselves into the narrative (eg; POP). If you didn't know those directly affected, or had no personal involvement in the incident there's little need to ramp up hyperbole about how badly affected you are, and how it's been giving you nightmares. I'm also at a loss to understand the logic behind attending vigils and tributes for people that you don't know off the back of little other than an interest in theme parks. I mean, come on - look at this objectively; how do you think somebody would feel whose loved-ones were involved if the "theme park enthusiasts" at Parkz were all over them with condolences? Literally the only thing binding you apart from humanity is an interest in the manner of their death. Sounds awful - but it's the reality of it. Pump the brakes, take a deep breath, and come back when you're no longer as emotionally invested.

I'm not across the design of the control system for it, but one would assume there's some degree of interlocking and redundancy involved. For example; should there be a condition where the gates are closed but the conveyor motor is active? That would be a potential place where you might consider the need for interlocking given the risk of capsize if a raft is propelled into another raft that has not cleared the section (for example because the gates may have stuck). Then again, could you be looking at something like a motor contactor failure where it has failed closed? I'd have thought if that were the case nothing short of an e-stop would have stopped the conveyor.

C'mon guys, you're surely smarter than this. @Hiisi25 is clearly being as tactless as possible in espousing beliefs that are all but guaranteed to rile you up. That ends when you let it end.

Nailed it, Richard. If you're having trouble coping with what people are writing remove yourself from the situation until you can. Some are going to be asking about the future of the park and the ride - these people weren't involved, don't have a connection to the people involved, and and no reasonable way of helping those involved - there's no need to treat them like they have no compassion simply because their only connection with the incident (outside of basic humanity) is with the park and the ride; precisely the things they will be curious about. The folks here are theme park enthusiasts as much as anything else, and this is exactly the place for them to be curious about these matters. Much better here than via phone or email or social to someone at the park who would undoubtedly be feeling the effects of having been much closer to this disaster than most.

I'd be surprised to see it jump. I've not checked based on past incidents, but I would be more inclined to think that incidents like this also hurt other parks resulting from the loss of confidence in the punters who often do not discriminate.

Long term effects on the park are something that's going to have to remain to be seen, however short-term effects are something that will effect people imminently. Because it's been so long since something this awful has happened at an Australian park what's the appropriate protocol for the park? Do they remain closed tomorrow out of respect to the victims? I assume they will close off the TRR area and any area that substantially looks into it for at least the period of investigation, but have no idea how long that would be in this case. How was the Smiler incident handled? I understand that was not fatal, but is it perhaps likely to have parallels in handling by the park here?