This Ride Ruined Movie World.

[wikiverse]

1 hour ago, Levithian said:

operational decisions to reduce ride capacity based on cost reduction or staffing levels, not purely because of maintenance issues

 

For those old enough to remember, all of these types of staffing/budget/licensing complaints are identical to what happened to Australia's Wonderland when Sunway took over.  It took them 7 years to run the park into the ground before closing it.

BGH have zero people experienced in Tourism/Themeparks/Hospitality operations.  They are mostly invested in healthcare and digital businesses.  They choose the management of the parks.  If they don't know how to identify the right people, then the wrong people will get the job and the wrong people will hire more wrong people under them.

I don't think the parks are at risk of closure, but this is a problem that takes a long time to fix. 

[Oofy]

5 hours ago, Levithian said:

Heh. What safety features do you think stopped the car? 

I'll give you a hint, it hit the cross ties in multiple places and ground along the track rails until it stopped.

That’s not the point. What derailed the ride vehicle was a bolt failure from a design flaw which caused one of the wheel assemblies to fall away. This isn’t enough for a full derailment due to the other bolts and the multiple attachment points to the track. All of which has been reported from the investigation.

The safety features which I said prevented anything further from happening is the features that stopped the other ride vehicles. Aka it stopped the next ride vehicle that would’ve been coming behind it which would’ve caused a collision.

So the bolt failure causing the wheel assembly to fall isn’t enough for a full derailment and the safety features prevented a collision which could cause way worse and maybe a full derailment. So no, it was not close to fatalities like what happened at dreamworld as we would’ve heard so from the investigation and the reports from that. What ultimately ended up causing the fatalities at dreamworld was another raft colliding into the raft that got stuck at the lift. There were no safety features to automatically stop the ride (shutting off the water pumps, stopping the lift etc) when the raft got stuck.

[RabbiJody]

7 hours ago, Levithian said:

When he jumps forward to saying guests should be able to experience a minimum of 8 rides per day based on throughput, i switched off. Just couldn't listen to the ramblings anymore. For someone apparently so well traveled, he acts like he has never experienced the 2-3 hour waits for attractions are parks overseas. Where Australian parks let people down is in the queue line experience vs those same 2-3 hr waits overseas. There is nothing to keep them comfortable and ABSOLUTELY nothing interesting to try and keep people amused

I have to disagree here. 2-3 hour waits for rides at a park that’s usually only open for 7 hours a day is a valid criticism. Spending nearly half your day in line for Rivals when it’s running one train ops and slow dispatches will leave a bad taste in your mouth, as evidenced by reviews of the park online. 
This isn’t Disney or Cedar Point where you may wait that long for some of the most popular rides, but the parks are open late into the night and there’s plenty of other shorter wait attractions to squeeze into your day. 
 

[aaronm]

9 hours ago, Levithian said:

For someone apparently so well traveled, he acts like he has never experienced the 2-3 hour waits for attractions are parks overseas.

I consider myself fairly well traveled, have been to 200+ theme parks in my time and 2025 Movie World would be in the bottom 5 for operations. The park management doesn’t seem to care about guest (and possibly staff) experience whatsoever. It’s all about the bottom line. If anyone complains about wait times they are gaslit and told it’s due to safety, which is completely at odds with how almost every other theme park (safely) operates. I’ve seen some 2 hour waits but there would have been 500+ people waiting in a queue. Movie World somehow manages a 2 hour wait for 200, so no wonder guests are fed up.

Edited March 22 by aaronm

[Levithian]

Im not disagreeing with issues with operations. Im talking about the fact if you travel to other major parks around the world you will find similar 2-3hr waits for major attractions at many parks too. The video made it seem like 2-3hr waits were only encountered at movieworld, when the reality is quite the opposite. We've also been over this multiple times before, the simple fact is village roadshow utilise additional safety measures, including operational procedures in the operation of their rides that contribute (not the only reason) to the slow load/unload times. Thats what I was having issue with. 

 

6 hours ago, Oofy said:

That’s not the point. What derailed the ride vehicle was a bolt failure from a design flaw which caused one of the wheel assemblies to fall away. This isn’t enough for a full derailment due to the other bolts and the multiple attachment points to the track. All of which has been reported from the investigation.

The safety features which I said prevented anything further from happening is the features that stopped the other ride vehicles. Aka it stopped the next ride vehicle that would’ve been coming behind it which would’ve caused a collision.

So the bolt failure causing the wheel assembly to fall isn’t enough for a full derailment and the safety features prevented a collision which could cause way worse and maybe a full derailment. So no, it was not close to fatalities like what happened at dreamworld as we would’ve heard so from the investigation and the reports from that. What ultimately ended up causing the fatalities at dreamworld was another raft colliding into the raft that got stuck at the lift. There were no safety features to automatically stop the ride (shutting off the water pumps, stopping the lift etc) when the raft got stuck.

From what you are saying I can tell you don't know what actually failed, or the chain of multiple other failures that occurred afterwards. There weren't multiple bolts keeping people safe, there wasn't any safety feature or component holding it on track. The initial failure was caused by failure of multiple fasteners on a single stressed mounting block that attached the lower section of one of the wheel carriers to the main spindle on the front chassis. When people talk about "the failure" this is "the failure" people talk about (usually this is because they didn't know anything else happened), this is where the "design flaw" existed, this is what allowed a complete set of wheels to separate from the spindle and entirely fall away from one of the cars. In reality, it was only the source of the initial failure that caused the accident, but it was not the only one that happened during the event. Multiple additional failures resulted in damage to multiple wheel carriers allowing the whole car to move off the rails in the process of it grinding to a halt. Multiple sets of wheels came off both chassis and allowed the car to move on the track, with the rear chassis actually hitting the track with such force it leveraged the whole chassis up and tilted away from the track coming to rest against the front chassis completely in the air. You could see the whole underside of the chassis. 

Guide and upstop wheels are the only thing tracking the car and essentially holding it on track. The design of S&S cars places the wheel carriers outside the track rails with nothing inside, so if you lose one wheel carrier, if the chassis moves away from the missing side, the other remaining carrier slides off the track and the car is no longer attached as there is no sacrificial point of contact like a pin or spindle that can ride along inside the rail to hold it in place in the event of catastrophic failure like what is found on a lot of coasters. The front and rear chassis are tethered together through what are basically very large pillow ball joints allowing the front and rear chassis of the car to flex during operation as it passes through things like inversions. Neither the front or rear chassis (row of seats) that make up the car were still attached to the track and had to be mechanically anchored (ratchet straps) to the track and supports to stabilise the car before rescue as it was at risk of slipping and falling. It was only the friction of the front chassis that was stopping things from moving. So, yes, it was more than enough to cause a complete derailment because one actually happened, and in addition, hundreds of kg of steel fell from a large height that could have very, very easily fallen into the occupied queue line or onto the track at unload/entrance to unload. It was a miracle nobody was seriously injured or killed. 

The difference in reports between the dreamworld accident and the green lantern one is simply the coroner. In the event of a death, the office/court of the coroner investigates the deaths and the mechanisms of failure and any contributing factors that lead up to the accident. This includes everything, business operation, management, culture, work histories, not just the event or the ride itself. Frequently, if accidents are too gruesome and/or determined not to be in the public interest, the reports are often withheld. By comparison, investigations by worksafe are not released, with only compliance notices or prosecutions being made public. The coroner basically decided that even though the accident contained details of some horrific injuries, the failures were so systemic and such wide spanning, that it was in the publics best interest that the report be released. 

FYI. Even without any operator pushing any buttons, until a car passes through the current brake block zone, the car behind it cannot enter. So even if the operators did not respond fast enough, the stranded car still occupying a block would have caused a backup and the car behind it would have been held by the friction brakes at the previous brake block. It had nothing at all to do with the damaged car though. That is a fundamental difference between both rides. One operated entirely without a block systems, with only conveyor operation being controlled when fully loaded allowing rafts to bank up at the bottom of the conveyor, while the other is a roller coaster with a fully operating block system that monitors car position on the track at all times. 

Edited March 22 by Levithian

[Oofy]

48 minutes ago, Levithian said:

Im not disagreeing with issues with operations. Im talking about the fact if you travel to other major parks around the world you will find similar 2-3hr waits for major attractions at many parks too. The video made it seem like 2-3hr waits were only encountered at movieworld, when the reality is quite the opposite. We've also been over this multiple times before, the simple fact is village roadshow utilise additional safety measures, including operational procedures in the operation of their rides that contribute (not the only reason) to the slow load/unload times. Thats what I was having issue with. 

 

From what you are saying I can tell you don't know what actually failed, or the chain of multiple other failures that occurred afterwards. There weren't multiple bolts keeping people safe, there wasn't any safety feature or component holding it on track. The initial failure was caused by failure of multiple fasteners on a single stressed mounting block that attached the lower section of one of the wheel carriers to the main spindle on the front chassis. When people talk about "the failure" this is "the failure" people talk about (usually this is because they didn't know anything else happened), this is where the "design flaw" existed, this is what allowed a complete set of wheels to separate from the spindle and entirely fall away from one of the cars. In reality, it was only the source of the initial failure that caused the accident, but it was not the only one that happened during the event. Multiple additional failures resulted in damage to multiple wheel carriers allowing the whole car to move off the rails in the process of it grinding to a halt. Multiple sets of wheels came off both chassis and allowed the car to move on the track, with the rear chassis actually hitting the track with such force it leveraged the whole chassis up and tilted away from the track coming to rest against the front chassis completely in the air. You could see the whole underside of the chassis. 

Guide and upstop wheels are the only thing tracking the car and essentially holding it on track. The design of S&S cars places the wheel carriers outside the track rails with nothing inside, so if you lose one wheel carrier, if the chassis moves away from the missing side, the other remaining carrier slides off the track and the car is no longer attached as there is no sacrificial point of contact like a pin or spindle that can ride along inside the rail to hold it in place in the event of catastrophic failure like what is found on a lot of coasters. The front and rear chassis are tethered together through what are basically very large pillow ball joints allowing the front and rear chassis of the car to flex during operation as it passes through things like inversions. Neither the front or rear chassis (row of seats) that make up the car were still attached to the track and had to be mechanically anchored (ratchet straps) to the track and supports to stabilise the car before rescue as it was at risk of slipping and falling. It was only the friction of the front chassis that was stopping things from moving. So, yes, it was more than enough to cause a complete derailment because one actually happened, and in addition, hundreds of kg of steel fell from a large height that could have very, very easily fallen into the occupied queue line or onto the track at unload/entrance to unload. It was a miracle nobody was seriously injured or killed. 

The difference in reports between the dreamworld accident and the green lantern one is simply the coroner. In the event of a death, the office/court of the coroner investigates the deaths and the mechanisms of failure and any contributing factors that lead up to the accident. This includes everything, business operation, management, culture, work histories, not just the event or the ride itself. Frequently, if accidents are too gruesome and/or determined not to be in the public interest, the reports are often withheld. By comparison, investigations by worksafe are not released, with only compliance notices or prosecutions being made public. 

FYI. Even without any operator pushing any buttons, until a car passes through the current brake block zone, the car behind it cannot enter. So even if the operators did not respond fast enough, the stranded car still occupying a block would have caused a backup and the car behind it would have been held by the friction brakes at the previous brake block. It had nothing at all to do with the damaged car though. That is a fundamental difference between both rides. One operated entirely without a block systems, with only conveyor operation being controlled when fully loaded allowing rafts to bank up at the bottom of the conveyor, while the other is a roller coaster with a fully operating block system that monitors car position on the track at all times. 

Workplace Health and Safety's chief safety engineer Michael Chan literally commented on the accident months after the accident occurred. He confirmed “A bolted joint broke, causing one of the wheel assemblies to fall away from the car to the ground” and that the ride manufacturer - S&S confirmed this. It was further said “they (S&S) have under-designed the bolt” and that “The undercarriage has been strengthened and extra bolts added to prevent the same fault”. I’m struggling to see how you’re trying to argue against one of the actual workplace health and safety officers and the actual ride manufacturer who confirmed the failure and what they did to amend the failure.

There is also no report supporting your statement of the steel that fell ever being at risk to guests. Furthermore, those who rescued the guests from the ride vehicle are the ones who stated that there were multiple bolts that kept the guests safe. Yk the people who were actually as close to the ride vehicle as you could get in the incident. The firefighters who were trained with Movieworld to rescue guests if the ride ever got stuck. Now you’ve argued against those who actually did the rescue and not just the workplace health and safety officers and the manufacturers of the ride.

And yes I’m aware of the difference between a roller coaster with block sections and further safety features compared to a water ride. Regardless, TRRR should still have certain safety features/improvements, like at least having the emergency stop button in reach and actually alerting the ride operators urgently of a water pump failure and taking the appropriate action after the water pump also failed a few days before the fatal incident.

 

[Cactus_Matt]

Too drunk to care what's being said in the meta-commentary about the creator of this video in this thread just going to say my only low-heated take on this whole Movie World palaver is this. If Movie World is "apparently" Six Flags now, I just wish it was as good as Six Flags is in the US, that's all, that's the message. Better rides, better operations, quantity over quality but capacity over art. Honestly, Wonderland Sydney could have been Australia's best Six Flags Park but it's dead and gone now so we're left grasping at straws and the straws right now seem to be sucking down some empty fuckin' cups.  When Australia finally gets a B&M, even if it's a fuckin' 30-year-old piece of shit Batman clone that finally got the chop at some US park I'll lap up every cycle that I can on its sorry old bones. But that's just me~!

[Spotty]

On 21/3/2025 at 7:00 PM, aussienetman said:

Aging myself here... I look back on my employment with Movieworld with extremely happy memories. The team when I was there was fantastic... working the Special Effects Show was definitely a highlight. It's closure marked rhe end of my employment there as the company shifted away from scripted attractions and I wasn't interested in pushing buttons on rides anymore. 

For me, it was the shift away from scripted attractions that I believe marked the different direction for MW.  The OG batman simulator and v2. The River Ride, even to an extent working the Harry Potter or Matrix walk throughs with its interactive scripted elements. 

I can truly say back then there was zero issues for me personally with anyone working there... (although the head male park supervisor was a bit of a cranky ass sometimes 🤣)

Ah yes... I can totally agree with your comments about the Male Supervisor (I'll call him JM) haha. Cranky, but also a great bloke. I will admit I have some fond memories of my time there, and some not so fond ones haha. Overall it wasn't bad, but around the time that I left things were really starting to go downhill slowly.

Glad I left, but glad I had the experience

[Oofy]

On 22/3/2025 at 11:25 PM, Levithian said:

Im not disagreeing with issues with operations. Im talking about the fact if you travel to other major parks around the world you will find similar 2-3hr waits for major attractions at many parks too. The video made it seem like 2-3hr waits were only encountered at movieworld, when the reality is quite the opposite. We've also been over this multiple times before, the simple fact is village roadshow utilise additional safety measures, including operational procedures in the operation of their rides that contribute (not the only reason) to the slow load/unload times. Thats what I was having issue with. 

 

From what you are saying I can tell you don't know what actually failed, or the chain of multiple other failures that occurred afterwards. There weren't multiple bolts keeping people safe, there wasn't any safety feature or component holding it on track. The initial failure was caused by failure of multiple fasteners on a single stressed mounting block that attached the lower section of one of the wheel carriers to the main spindle on the front chassis. When people talk about "the failure" this is "the failure" people talk about (usually this is because they didn't know anything else happened), this is where the "design flaw" existed, this is what allowed a complete set of wheels to separate from the spindle and entirely fall away from one of the cars. In reality, it was only the source of the initial failure that caused the accident, but it was not the only one that happened during the event. Multiple additional failures resulted in damage to multiple wheel carriers allowing the whole car to move off the rails in the process of it grinding to a halt. Multiple sets of wheels came off both chassis and allowed the car to move on the track, with the rear chassis actually hitting the track with such force it leveraged the whole chassis up and tilted away from the track coming to rest against the front chassis completely in the air. You could see the whole underside of the chassis. 

Guide and upstop wheels are the only thing tracking the car and essentially holding it on track. The design of S&S cars places the wheel carriers outside the track rails with nothing inside, so if you lose one wheel carrier, if the chassis moves away from the missing side, the other remaining carrier slides off the track and the car is no longer attached as there is no sacrificial point of contact like a pin or spindle that can ride along inside the rail to hold it in place in the event of catastrophic failure like what is found on a lot of coasters. The front and rear chassis are tethered together through what are basically very large pillow ball joints allowing the front and rear chassis of the car to flex during operation as it passes through things like inversions. Neither the front or rear chassis (row of seats) that make up the car were still attached to the track and had to be mechanically anchored (ratchet straps) to the track and supports to stabilise the car before rescue as it was at risk of slipping and falling. It was only the friction of the front chassis that was stopping things from moving. So, yes, it was more than enough to cause a complete derailment because one actually happened, and in addition, hundreds of kg of steel fell from a large height that could have very, very easily fallen into the occupied queue line or onto the track at unload/entrance to unload. It was a miracle nobody was seriously injured or killed. 

The difference in reports between the dreamworld accident and the green lantern one is simply the coroner. In the event of a death, the office/court of the coroner investigates the deaths and the mechanisms of failure and any contributing factors that lead up to the accident. This includes everything, business operation, management, culture, work histories, not just the event or the ride itself. Frequently, if accidents are too gruesome and/or determined not to be in the public interest, the reports are often withheld. By comparison, investigations by worksafe are not released, with only compliance notices or prosecutions being made public. The coroner basically decided that even though the accident contained details of some horrific injuries, the failures were so systemic and such wide spanning, that it was in the publics best interest that the report be released. 

FYI. Even without any operator pushing any buttons, until a car passes through the current brake block zone, the car behind it cannot enter. So even if the operators did not respond fast enough, the stranded car still occupying a block would have caused a backup and the car behind it would have been held by the friction brakes at the previous brake block. It had nothing at all to do with the damaged car though. That is a fundamental difference between both rides. One operated entirely without a block systems, with only conveyor operation being controlled when fully loaded allowing rafts to bank up at the bottom of the conveyor, while the other is a roller coaster with a fully operating block system that monitors car position on the track at all times. 

Workplace Health and Safety's chief safety engineer Michael Chan literally commented on the accident months after the accident occurred. He confirmed “A bolted joint broke, causing one of the wheel assemblies to fall away from the car to the ground” and that the ride manufacturer - S&S confirmed this. It was further said “they (S&S) have under-designed the bolt” and that “The undercarriage has been strengthened and extra bolts added to prevent the same fault”. I’m struggling to see how you’re trying to argue against one of the actual workplace health and safety officers and the actual ride manufacturer who confirmed the failure and what they did to amend the failure.

There is also no report supporting your statement of the steel that fell ever being at risk to guests. Furthermore, those who rescued the guests from the ride vehicle are the ones who stated that there were multiple bolts that kept the guests safe. Yk the people who were actually as close to the ride vehicle as you could get in the incident. The firefighters who were trained with Movieworld to rescue guests if the ride ever got stuck. Now you’ve argued against those who actually did the rescue and not just the workplace health and safety officers and the manufacturers of the ride.

And yes I’m aware of the difference between a roller coaster with block sections and further safety features compared to a water ride. Regardless, TRRR should still have certain safety features/improvements, like at least having the emergency stop button in reach and actually alerting the ride operators urgently of a water pump failure and taking the appropriate action after the water pump also failed a few days before the fatal incident.

[Gazza]

So just on this, in the industry theme parks should aim to provide 1.5-2 Units of Entertainment per hour. That is, guests want to experience some form of attraction about every 30-45 mins

On some days this will drop because "you cant design the church for Easter Sunday" and on certain days you'll get 2hr waits because its too expensive to build out capacity if you only get smashed a few days per year.

But if a park is routinely getting 2hr waits on more than say 10-14 days per year then that might indicate there's not enough capacity for the attendance.

[New display name]

Are we all agreeing, Disney doesn't have "enough capacity for the attendance."?

[Gazza]

^In my experience I thought it was fine. Yeah I had to wait 60 mins a couple of time for rise of the resistance and for Slinky Dog Dash, but then on the other hand I got on pirates of the Caribbean in 10 mins.

In fact, here is my trip report from 2023

I stayed at Magic Kingdom 9am-4pm and according to my trip report I took 16 rides on attractions. 

So that's more like 2.2 units of entertainment per hour. Granted I skipped the line on Tron and 7 Dwarfs, but even without doing that, 14 rides in 7 hours is still very good.

I don't think I've ever had a day at a Disney park where I "only got on 5 rides all day". Statements like that are cope, they are well run parks.

[New display name]

I will check out your report when it doesn't take 5mins to load a page.   @Gazza   Has MW taken over the operations of Parkz today @Richard?

[downunder]

I think Disney actually cares about throughput, at least that's my anecdotal observation. I went to Disneyland in September last year, unfortunately it was the first day of Anaheim resident's half price (I didn't find out about this until after) and the park was smashed - my poor friend from Illinois was like "but the crowd calendar said low" lol. I did most things on Lightning Lane, but the ones I didn't, the lines moved really well - Indiana Jones especially take a bow. That's one thing about long lines, it's a lot more bearable if they're constantly moving, it may be a perceptive thing psychologically, but it makes for much less dissatisfaction.

Movie World, speaking as a consumer, does not seem to care; and it's real simple for me: don't go.

[Ashley Jeffery]

20 hours ago, New display name said:

I will check out your report when it doesn't take 5mins to load a page.   @Gazza   Has MW taken over the operations of Parkz today @Richard?

Oh good it's not just me having issues with loading the site.

[Ash]

3 hours ago, Ashley Jeffery said:

Oh good it's not just me having issues with loading the site.

I’ve noticed this has happened a few times. 

[Levithian]

On 23/03/2025 at 12:18 AM, Oofy said:

Workplace Health and Safety's chief safety engineer Michael Chan literally commented on the accident months after the accident occurred. He confirmed “A bolted joint broke, causing one of the wheel assemblies to fall away from the car to the ground” and that the ride manufacturer - S&S confirmed this. It was further said “they (S&S) have under-designed the bolt” and that “The undercarriage has been strengthened and extra bolts added to prevent the same fault”. I’m struggling to see how you’re trying to argue against one of the actual workplace health and safety officers and the actual ride manufacturer who confirmed the failure and what they did to amend the failure.

There is also no report supporting your statement of the steel that fell ever being at risk to guests. Furthermore, those who rescued the guests from the ride vehicle are the ones who stated that there were multiple bolts that kept the guests safe. Yk the people who were actually as close to the ride vehicle as you could get in the incident. The firefighters who were trained with Movieworld to rescue guests if the ride ever got stuck. Now you’ve argued against those who actually did the rescue and not just the workplace health and safety officers and the manufacturers of the ride.

Go ahead and provide a report that details the worksafe investigation, the failure and the "redesign" that followed. I'll wait.  Just for a moment, think about why or how some people seem to know more technical information than is ever usually talked about, especially when it contains specific details or terms even a lot of coaster fans don't know and seem oddly specific to one ride/type. Months after? funny that the investigation hadn't even been completed, it had just been moved behind closed doors. 

Do you know where the car was located? it just made it around the corner before c block brakes. There are plenty of supporting photos that show a wheel carrier in the grass directly next to the queue line. To make it to the grass it actually had to fall off the car and clear the queue line and station because underneath it is the maintenance bay with a load of concrete and gravel. The only place grass is found is the creek side of the queue line.   

But wait, the experts said this never happened and nobody was in danger? Seen this footage before?

Can you see what is located in the grass at 20 seconds in? pay close attention to the shape of the walkway (the queue line) above and think about where guests are standing as the approach one of the unloader consoles. Second thing to pay close attention to is the front chassis, its location (angle) and can you see any wheel carriers on the inside?

Just to note, Movie world never actually commented on the two bolts theory because its not the truth. That rumour apparently came from what rescuers told guests, but its not based on the components that came apart, because, evidently, stuff broken and fallen off suffered complete failure, it is actually something else. The park went with the statement that there are multiple contact points with the track, even though the images and footage clearly shows the car has completely derailed and the rear chassis is suspended in the air, resting against the front chassis.

The joint didn't break, it came apart. It wasn't a bolt at all. It was actually multiple bolts of a stressed mounting block that failed. MULTIPLE.  For a bit of reference, the attached image is the joint being talked about, each carrier utilises one at the bottom for upstops and one at the top for road wheels. The mounting block had no dowel or pins to locate it and movement was found between the mounting surfaces due to a design failure of the stressed joint, not a bolt. In short, it didn't have the required amount of clamping force to hold it together. The movement is a shear force and bolts under tension don't deal with shear forces very well and fracture or shear off. The entire purpose of the 4 mounting bolts is to compress the joint together, generating enough clamping force that will hold it in place and stop movement due to friction. Think the same way a wheel on a car is held in place. The movement in the joint itself caused failure of the fasteners and the joint came undone. It didn't break, it didnt snap and it wasn't a bolt that was the problem. Failed fasteners were a result and a visual warning something wasn't right.  

The problem was s&s didn't adequately analyse and stress test this component when they upsized the capacity of the cars for the 4 person layout. The joint failed because of the stress forces encountered allowed movement which lead to the failure of the bolted joint. The outcome was to machine out the mount and carrier frame to fit larger fasteners, fit an additional one to the middle, generating higher clamping force and ensuring it was capable of withstanding the additional stress of the wider cars with added riders without moving, so it would stop fracturing bolts in service. It always had multiple bolts in place, the notion that a bolt was upgraded because it was the cause of the failure just isn't true. 

Take it or leave it, I don't really care if you don't believe me. Look at the evidence, even speak to people who know these rides and see what they have to say. Or don't. 

Edited March 25 by Levithian

[Levithian]

I needed to clarify something, but I was too late with the edit. 

What he commented on about the failure is not quite the meaning you seem to have taken. See the term "bolted joint"? it's actually the mechanical joint itself they are talking about, how it's designed. They also didn't under design the bolt like it sounds, he is talking about its use. Fasteners are produced with tensile and strength ratings you use in the calculating the compression forces of the mechanical joint you are designing to find out if they can provide enough clamping force to prevent failure and separation of the joint. You basically receive the information from the fastener manufacturer and calculate if your intended size fits your purpose through stress and FEA calculations. If not, you go bigger, a different grade or introduce more of them. There is so much more to it than just selecting a bolt that is tough or strong enough, because, basically, even if it was such a simple overlook there is a safety factor built into every component like this, typically 3:1 or even as high as 5:1 when human lives are at risk, so the fastener should never have even approached it's tensile failure point if their engineering calculations of the joint itself were right and it failed because the bolt failed under tension and came apart. It's actually an insight into how the failure happened without even meaning to be. A more appropriate sounding phrase might be to say the wrong fasteners were used, but you can't say that in a professional capacity like this because it implies someone used the wrong components and deviated from the design, which could have wrongly suggested the park was at fault.

Regardless of all of it. People were very, very lucky and it could have easily resulted in either serious permanent injury or death. It might have even been a completely different industry 18 months later when the dreamworld accident happened if it had of resulted in a death and the whole industry was audited nationwide like what followed after the dreamworld deaths and findings during the inquest. The gross negligence found (but not prosecuted) at dreamworld would likely have been discovered under the heavy scrutiny of government regulators and the overhaul and changes to operating regulations of the amusement industry might have come earlier. 

Edited March 25 by Levithian

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 21/03/2025 at 3:28 PM, Oofy said:

Yes but the rides safety features automatically prevented anything further from happening after the failure. TRRR didn’t have that, from memory, an emergency stop button had to be pressed by a ride operator but it was isolated and the operators were told not to use it

It's been answered already but just want to make sure it's clear - no ride safety features prevented this incident from being worse than it was. It was pure dumb luck - nothing more.

On 22/03/2025 at 5:14 PM, Oofy said:

That’s not the point. What derailed the ride vehicle was a bolt failure from a design flaw which caused one of the wheel assemblies to fall away. This isn’t enough for a full derailment due to the other bolts and the multiple attachment points to the track. All of which has been reported from the investigation.

The safety features which I said prevented anything further from happening is the features that stopped the other ride vehicles. Aka it stopped the next ride vehicle that would’ve been coming behind it which would’ve caused a collision.

So the bolt failure causing the wheel assembly to fall isn’t enough for a full derailment and the safety features prevented a collision which could cause way worse and maybe a full derailment. So no, it was not close to fatalities like what happened at dreamworld as we would’ve heard so from the investigation and the reports from that. What ultimately ended up causing the fatalities at dreamworld was another raft colliding into the raft that got stuck at the lift. There were no safety features to automatically stop the ride (shutting off the water pumps, stopping the lift etc) when the raft got stuck.

Yeah, nah. The ride vehicle could have ended up in the creek had the failure occurred at a different point in the track. The fact that the car was leaning inwards towards the failed bogey is the biggest factor.

On 23/03/2025 at 12:18 AM, Oofy said:

There is also no report supporting your statement of the steel that fell ever being at risk to guests. Furthermore, those who rescued the guests from the ride vehicle are the ones who stated that there were multiple bolts that kept the guests safe. Yk the people who were actually as close to the ride vehicle as you could get in the incident. The firefighters who were trained with Movieworld to rescue guests if the ride ever got stuck. Now you’ve argued against those who actually did the rescue and not just the workplace health and safety officers and the manufacturers of the ride.

Buddy it's very clear from your knowledge of the ride and it's operation that you don't know the full details. Had there been a death on GL and a coroner's report released, there would be plenty of information out there to support the statements being made. 

I don't often like to 'pull rank' but take a look at the history of the people who are saying GL could have been a lot worse. Consider the possibility that there is more to it than you currently see.

 

On 22/03/2025 at 11:09 AM, Levithian said:

There comes a point where if it was to even continue operation it would need to be completely overhauled. Sometimes the requirements to bring it forward to current standards aren't even possible. Youd have to destroy the ride to do it and it's just not worth it financially. They literally crunch the numbers and look at the boost in attendance new attractions bring. 

You see, the problem with making this argument is that Village used to operate another Flume ride, and in 1993\94 it closed and was refurbished \ rethemed into probably the greatest themed attraction we've ever had on the gold coast. Even Disney Imagineers were gobsmacked over how much they'd done on such a little budget. 

(For those who don't know, Bermuda triangle was a retheme \ refurb of the old Lassiter's lost mine.)

This proves that it can be done - it's having the vision to do it, rather than cave and just buy an off the shelf product, slap a logo on it and call it a day.

On 22/03/2025 at 11:09 AM, Levithian said:

Everyone going on and on and ON about the lack of anything relating to studios/movie magic, etc, just have to face the reality it is never going to happen again. There is NO relationship with the studios next door, they are separate entities, they are booked out by production companies who manage their own site presence and demand control over site access. Members of the public even existing within a working production facility is a risk. Not just to the privacy and all the shit you have to put up with when members of the public try to break onto set and take photos of back of house stuff, but it's a huge safety risk too. 

Universal manages to work this with their Hollywood Backlot. I know we're on different scales here, but the studios could be negotiated around. Granted, USH recently tore out their animal and SFX stages to build a rollercoaster, so there's merit in what you're saying - but it doesn't mean they have to move away completely (I could see showstage easily showing some sort of SFX show the likes of what USH previously had)

On 22/03/2025 at 11:09 AM, Levithian said:

When he jumps forward to saying guests should be able to experience a minimum of 8 rides per day based on throughput, i switched off. Just couldn't listen to the ramblings anymore. For someone apparently so well traveled, he acts like he has never experienced the 2-3 hour waits for attractions are parks overseas. Where Australian parks let people down is in the queue line experience vs those same 2-3 hr waits overseas. There is nothing to keep them comfortable and ABSOLUTELY nothing interesting to try and keep people amused. 

Sorry - no. 8 rides in a day is a metric used by the biggest in the business and plenty of research has shown that guests who have achieved that number of attractions in a day will leave a park feeling satisfied...
As for wait times, worldwide, the longest wait times consistently reflect Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea and Movie World. (I'll give you a hint though - one of those parks is not like the others!)

Now, I can't quote attendance figures for MW, but I know that collectively TDR handles more than 27 Million guests per year. They routinely have 2-3 hour queues for their most popular attractions, including soarin' and Beauty and the Beast. While they do queues better, there are still plenty of 'outdoor' relatively plain queue areas in these rides too. But you can also see cast members working hard to get people through quickly. The wait time isn't 3 hours because it takes 7 minutes to dispatch a rollercoaster - the wait time is 3 hours because there's 6,000 people in the queue.

However, as i've recently shared in another thread - we still achieved 20 attractions in a day when we recently visited TDL - and while we had some advantages, I'll guarantee we still got into double digits without those advantages. On the flip side, I can't remember the last time I got 8 attractions in at Movie World.

On 24/03/2025 at 10:54 AM, New display name said:

Are we all agreeing, Disney doesn't have "enough capacity for the attendance."?

Being obtuse as usual, but you are technically correct on the back of what Gazza said. I think the issue is Disney sees those 1-2 hours waits on the big headliner e-ticket attractions, but there are still plenty of classics with great capacity that round out the day - one can visit Disneyland and ride a bunch of D-and-below ticket attractions (and older e-tickets) and still have a fantastic day. If you go to the park to ride the big shiny thing, you go knowing it will have a longer wait than the rest of the park. When the 20 year old accelerator is also pushing 2 hours, and the family wild mouse, and the space shot, you start running out of other tickets for your guests to go on. MW's problem is they all have shitty wait times, not just the headliners.

 

On 22/03/2025 at 11:09 AM, Levithian said:

Pretty much every suggestion surrounding the visual look, and especially things like merchandising and characters throughout the park is seemingly made with no understanding that even something like a person looking like a director walking around with a bullhorn can be a licenced image. All the seasonal theming, all the specific imagery used in events like fright nights and white christmas exist because of a large number of licencing and production agreements. You can't just build a water tower and stick a WB logo on it. Even without the WB logo, the water tower itself is likely iconic and has a trademark based on its image. Thats the level of detail you start to get into when some of the imagery experienced has been in use for decades. 

Sorry - didn't Morgan Ross (vomit) or the assistant come out at the beginning of HWSD in that getup? A director with a bullhorn needs licensing? fair suck of the sav mate, you're reaching.
As for WB logos, the group already licenses numerous indicia from the company. I'm sure they could ask? Let's not rule out the possibility of building a studio water tower with the WB logo on it because it would need permission for use? (cough DC Comics cough Wizard of Oz cough Scooby Doo cough Looney Tunes cough)

On 22/03/2025 at 11:09 AM, Levithian said:

It's all well and good to make demands costing hundreds of millions of dollars, but where does the operational budget come from? Every time parks even look at rising their entry fees or passes they are crucified by everyone. If they try to maximise attendance numbers during peak season or during events, they are crucified by people for allowing too many people within the park. 

I for one have been quite vocal about supporting the parks increasing their prices - with the caveat that there has to be value in the pricetag - specifically because I would like to see them able to operate with higher prices and lower attendance numbers. Unfortunately they've gone with higher prices and higher attendance...

I watched the video a few days ago and the specific details escape me, and i'm not about to rewatch it to capture the specifics, however I remember thinking during the video some of the suggestions could be easily implemented. Many of the future attraction things would need to be 'as needed' but a couple of cheaper flats could be factored into the budget fairly easily and would boost attendance even if not as much as a big thriller. Doomsday was meant to do that, it was just unfortunate about the chosen ride.

But doing things like involving your senior operators in the ride manual, getting suggestions and considering improvements and that sort of thing don't really cost you anything. 

Case in point:

On 22/03/2025 at 11:55 AM, BNErider said:

Here's some things that would cost Village almost nothing.

- Performance manage and support GOOD staff. Yes, they don't pay a lot. But you do have good people there. Managers need to do their job. That even includes greeting and saying goodbye to guests at the entrance. Be a leader!

- Get some people in that know how to be creative. The Wizard of Oz alley could easily be made to look like a backlot leading to the Wizard of Oz area, or something generic. It doesn't have to be the way it is. Plant some greenery between GL and the carpark, we don't want to see the carpark as we're lining up. Have some shows or meet and greets AROUND the park, even though Main Street is your money maker.

- Back on the staffing point of view, have ride supervisors talk to guests over a microphone. No-one wants to be shouted at in line. I would argue the staff don't enjoy that either.

- Focus on safely pushing throughput. Have managers trained like Greg Yong was who were trained ride operators, to SUPPORT and LEAD staff.

- Shade and water FFS. Guests need to feel respected. Turn on the mist fans in lines. It is not hard!

- Stop pretending your shit don't stink and listen to all complaints. Dreamworld has respect for the guest. Village on the other hand seems to forget that. It comes from the top.

- Don't bring in brands that cheapen the experience. Or at the very least, make sure they theme their food vans (I'm looking at you, Boost Juice).

- The whole comms team need a kick up the ass. Scooby Doo isn't closed for maintenance, so why it is listed as such. Remove it from the ride closures page and create a dedicated website to its new 2025/2026 launch. In park, share some teasers to make it look like it's worth coming back for. That castle should be fenced up or covered in new artwork. Hollywood Stunt Show not showing any more shows that day? I don't remember the wording, but it it's very much along the lines of 'CLOSED'. Say something like "All shows for today have taken place". You need the place feeling ALIVE, not barely alive. Villains Unleashed... you can do SOMETHING there to make it not feel like a ghost town. It is not good enough to leave it barely alive.

Key points:

- Guest experience

- Energy and excitement

- Presentation standards that don't cost $$$$

- Leading from the top to keep GOOD staff, and remove poor performers

- Listen to all feedback

- Improve your comms to build that energy and excitement

There's some great suggestions in there, and most wouldn't cost too much but would be welcome improvements. There should be no reason for ops crew to have to shout at guests either while grouping or providing safety spiel. Pre-record the big spiel items, or give them a PA system... actually, do both anyway.

Two caveats though - I'd heard about there being an issue for mist fans and some concern over legionnaires disease. It leaves me wondering how other businesses get away with it, but if that's the reasoning for it then I can't argue too loudly. Second, Scooby Maintenance - I think they took it away for a while and people were turning up and complaining because the ride (which they knew existed from previous visits) wasn't on the maintenance list so they had assumed it would be open and were disappointed. It needs to be shown how it is now to ensure returning guests are aware it isn't open.

On 22/03/2025 at 12:12 PM, Levithian said:

Same goes for shade and water. Someone, somewhere has decided it isn't cost effective, and it hasn't been implemented. I can imagine the pivot to this would have been to maximise retail options for people to purchase drinks instead.

And that's the devious mindset that deserves to see them castigated online. The other parks around the world with consistent 2-3 hour wait times you pointed out earlier are also parks that provide water and shade in the queues.

The infamous disneyland opening story about a plumbing strike leading to a decision to have water fountains or toilets, and them choosing toilets because people could buy pepsi cola is the tough, but understandable decision you make when faced with a crossroads. But you don't then open the park and go "well, people didn't get water fountains on day one, so they don't need them and we won't bother to do it at all" - you get those fucking water fountains online as soon as you possibly can. 

If the budget has been crunched - it means one of two things happened - either, you didn't budget properly in the first place (and you're incompetent and should be fired) or you allowed another part of the process to run over budget without allowing for this contingency or requiring the partner that caused the overrun to pay for it while happily making the decision that guest comfort elements which were originally included in the budget because they were deemed necessary are suddenly deemed unnecessary. In which case you're a devious asshole, and you're also incompetent and should be fired.

On 22/03/2025 at 12:12 PM, Levithian said:

Problem is, since covid, village parks have been having problems getting ANY staff, leading to major shortages across pretty much all departments. You can't get rid of people you consider underperformers if you trouble attracting anyone. I can tell you with 100% accuracy, that following the reopening period after COVID, a number of ride closures experienced had absolutely nothing to do with maintenance issues and everything to do with not having enough trained, experienced staff to open attractions. I would not be at all surprised if this is still going on today, operational decisions to reduce ride capacity based on cost reduction or staffing levels, not purely because of maintenance issues. 

Since Covid? or since BGH? i'm having a hard time separating these two events and their cause and effect.... if it were covid - why aren't other theme park companies suffering the same basic issues? Hint: it isn't "since covid."

You're 100% right when you earlier talked about their EBA, pay and conditions are a huge part of attracting and retaining good staff... but pay is only 50% of that equation, and conditions aren't just what's written into the agreement - it's also how staff are treated on the ground.

 

 

ETA: this was written yesterday but due to the server dropouts it kept failing to post, so apologies if the above has already been put to bed.

[Oofy]

12 hours ago, Levithian said:

Do you know where the car was located? it just made it around the corner before c block brakes. There are plenty of supporting photos that show a wheel carrier in the grass directly next to the queue line. To make it to the grass it actually had to fall off the car and clear the queue line and station because underneath it is the maintenance bay with a load of concrete and gravel. The only place grass is found is the creek side of the queue line.

The footage you showed show that the wheels are under the queue line as they are in line with a support under the queue line. Basically explaining that the wheels did in fact not clear the queue line but fell before the queue line and bounced/rolled to where it ended up. Unless you somehow think it bounce/rolled backwards… Regarding the other part, that once again could’ve bounced that far from any spinning as it fell. Also the only quoting from a guest regarding the debris only states falling debris and not debris that is launched or going past guests.

12 hours ago, Levithian said:

Just to note, Movie world never actually commented on the two bolts theory because its not the truth. That rumour apparently came from what rescuers told guests, but its not based on the components that came apart, because, evidently, stuff broken and fallen off suffered complete failure, it is actually something else. The park went with the statement that there are multiple contact points with the track, even though the images and footage clearly shows the car has completely derailed and the rear chassis is suspended in the air, resting against the front chassis.

Do you not notice and understand that the rear chassis is attached to the front chassis? How can you not understand that this is why multiple contact points with the track was stated, because those contact points are in the front chassis… Also would’ve been related to what the rescuers were saying as to what saved guests.

Edited March 25 by Oofy

[Oofy]

10 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

It's been answered already but just want to make sure it's clear - no ride safety features prevented this incident from being worse than it was. It was pure dumb luck - nothing more.

Well no because a key part of the incident was the lower water levels from one failed water pump which is what caused the raft to get stuck in the first place. It was revealed that this same water pump failed days before the incident and the correct action was taken following its failure. And then it of course failed again which played a big part in the incident. It was also revealed that they ride operators weren’t notified of the water pump failure quick enough which a good safety system would do.

If you’re referring to GL here then a full derailment was stopped from multiple contact points with the track and only the back chassis derailed and not the front of which the back is attached to. Also, another ride vehicle could’ve collided with the ride vehicle that got stuck as safety features would’ve prevented another ride vehicle entering that part of track as it wasn’t clear

10 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Yeah, nah. The ride vehicle could have ended up in the creek had the failure occurred at a different point in the track. The fact that the car was leaning inwards towards the failed bogey is the biggest factor.

There were multiple contact points keeping the ride vehicle on track. Just because the second chassis derailed doesn’t mean the front chassis did too as that’s where the extra contact points were that kept the ride vehicle from completely derailing.

[TV15]

14 hours ago, Oofy said:

Also, another ride vehicle could’ve collided with the ride vehicle that got stuck as safety features would’ve prevented another ride vehicle entering that part of track as it wasn’t clear

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a block zone is a section of a ride that only one train may occupy at a time. At the end of a block zone there is a method to stop the train, in case the block zone ahead is still occupied. This is the safety system that prevents rollercoaster trains from colliding with one another.

The train disengaged from the lift hill and derailed at the top of the hairpin turn, off the beyond vertical drop, meaning that until it cleared the first mid course brake run, the following train wouldn't be able to enter this section and it would stop at the top of the lift hill. At no point could two ride vehicles collide. 

[New display name]

15 hours ago, Oofy said:

Well no because a key part of the incident was the lower water levels from one failed water pump which is what caused the raft to get stuck in the first place. It was revealed that this same water pump failed days before the incident and the correct action was taken following its failure. And then it of course failed again which played a big part in the incident. It was also revealed that they ride operators weren’t notified of the water pump failure quick enough which a good safety system would do.

If you’re referring to GL here then a full derailment was stopped from multiple contact points with the track and only the back chassis derailed and not the front of which the back is attached to. Also, another ride vehicle could’ve collided with the ride vehicle that got stuck as safety features would’ve prevented another ride vehicle entering that part of track as it wasn’t clear

There were multiple contact points keeping the ride vehicle on track. Just because the second chassis derailed doesn’t mean the front chassis did too as that’s where the extra contact points were that kept the ride vehicle from completely derailing.

In this picture you can clearly see, the front wheel assembly of the front bogie, has separated from the track. 

Edited March 26 by New display name

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Yeah at this point with the number of and degree of explanations and imagery provided, i'm going to go out on a limb and say @oofy is a troll being deliberately obtuse and should just be ignored in all future discussion