Eureka Mountain Mine Ride reopening discussion

[New display name]

I think you need to do some more research about it. If you check out any government site about it you will see it talks also about deteriorating building products. With my work I have had seminars by qbcc about hazardous materials on the work site. Yes if you crush it or cut it it will spread. If it falls apart by itself the same thing would happen.

[pushbutton]

Wouldn't the mountain be made of fibreglass rather than asbestos?

[BTTF Forever]

I think they are talking about the inside structure underneath the fibreglass... Man if only we had some old structural drawings...

[New display name]

Probably has been posted before but just found this... Didn't realise how exposed the mine carts originally were when it was opened.

EDIT: Also for the people who cant tell where the photo is placed...

The photo you posted does not look like when it first opened. Have a look at the clip and you will see what the carts looked like and the track.

Does anybody know how long it was opened for before the carts where changed?

[Brad2912]

I think the knowledge I have about it is just fine thanks. Don't need to read a website or go to a seminar.

What evidence do you have of the internal structure of the mountain collapsing ? I've seen none to suggest it has (or I doubt they would use it for storage) so why would there currently be an asbestos related issue? The issue will only arise when it is broken up in demolition. The only visible deterioration is the external fibreglass shell

Edited February 10, 2015 by Brad2912

[Jakev8]

^^^very cool find mate. Never new that to?

[New display name]

This is a pointless discussion because you can't show me that asbestos was ever used in the mountain? If dreamworld felt they needed to close it due to asbestos then what has changed since it has closed that now makes asbestos safe? Dreamworld have never released that information so where Did you get that information from?

Around the same time of the mountain going up asbestos was being stopped.

[Gazza]

Besides, if there was asbestos in the mountain there would be signage warning of the presence of it at the building entrances.

[Brad2912]

Signage is only required when there is exposed asbestos or the risk of being exposed to such. If the structure is sound then there is no - therefore no signage required.

Any building with fibro built pre mid 80s would likely have asbestos, you don't see warnings on their entrances unless they are being renovated or demolished

This is a pointless discussion because you can't show me that asbestos was ever used in the mountain? If dreamworld felt they needed to close it due to asbestos then what has changed since it has closed that now makes asbestos safe? Dreamworld have never released that information so where Did you get that information from?

Around the same time of the mountain going up asbestos was being stopped.

I never claimed the ride was closed due to asbestos, I don't believe that is true at all. I'm saying it may point to why it hasn't been demolished previously.

[dbo121]

What is the structure underneath the fibreglass? Is it made of bricks like the imax?

[Richard]

The track shown in the original format of the ride (two two-seater cars linked together) looks to be a very different gauge than what exists right now. Wider track and thinner rails.

Clearly the ride was completely rebuilt at some point very early in its life. The postcard above is evidence that the new track and the accompanying four-seat cars appeared pretty early on-- that postcard looks to be late 80s/early 90s. If I had to guess, given the ride was engineered locally, they got a few things wrong the first time around that warranted a complete overhaul of the ride system. In particular, that original track looks to be particularly flimsy.

Outdoor sections of track were slowly enclosed over the course of the ride's life. The last remaining section of outdoor track wasn't enclosed until 2002.

[joz]

Watch again, are the two cars linked together?

[dbo121]

Looks like it?

[Richard]

Watch again, are the two cars linked together?

You're right... I did initially think the gap between the cars looked a bit wide and strangely devoid of couplings. Looking through the clip, it would seem that a few other sections show the distance between the cars varied. Which means someone in their wisdom decided that the safety of blocks wasn't needed in this case. Perhaps only in the first half, separating the two cars for the series of drops and bunny hills at the end? Or they set the ride up like this just for filming TVC, which seems unlikely.

Another interesting thing is that the original track looked to have a track configuration like a wooden wild mouse, whereby instead of upstop wheels on the main rails there's a smaller set of rails in the centre of the track under which there would be a steel flange or sets of wheels. There's no evidence in the TVC of the cars tilting, but this is generally the case with this style of upstop. Do any early riders recall any slight tilting around the hairpin turns in the two-seat configuration?

Also note the large spring bumper on the front of each car. Again pointing to a very primitive ride system.

[New display name]

Yes Richard from what I remember (being around 10 or 11 at the time) it did tilt to make you feel like you are falling off the cliff and there was no safety harness to keep you in the cart.

The seat inside was like the log ride and the person in front squished the person behind.

Going to Dreamworld back in the day was a massive family event that we would save up for to go once a year “No cheap passes back in the days”.

So between sometime in the first year of opening I think it was changed because I only remember riding it like this the first time I went to Dreamworld but I would like to know how long it lasted for.

I also remember paying to ride the thunderbolt when it first opened.

Edited February 11, 2015 by skeetafly

[New display name]

Sorry can't re-edit it. To clarify the tilt it was not like the whole thing went over it just felt like the cart had just lost contact with the rail on the inside. It gave a feeling of being on a knife edge.

[Richard]

It would appear that the track is the same design as B.A. Schiff & Associates, who built wild travelling/semi-permanent mouse coasters in the 1950s and 60s. The front bumper also matches their cars.

http://rcdb.com/362.htm

The possibilities as I see them:

1. Eureka Mountain was originally an off-the-shelf Schiff or Schiff-licensed wild mouse that Dreamworld purchased and partially enclosed.
2. The track design was licensed or "borrowed" from Schiff and HyFab built a custom design using this crude 30-year old style of track.

The only reason a company would choose such an outdated track style for a custom ride is that it would perhaps be much easier to fabricate than a more modern tubular two-rail style track. But if this were a custom built ride (by Brisbane's HyFab), then we are to assume something went wrong with the design in its early years and they went back to the drawing board to redesign it. If that's the case, then this company very quickly learnt how to build a modern tubular steel coaster where only years before they had to resort to a very dated track design... seems a stretch.

Gary86 last year a crude schematic of Eureka Mountain's layout that's on the wall in the cinema:

That layout is noticeably different from what's in the TVC; the ride that exists today has none of the tight hairpin turns shown in the video.

The most logical conclusion I'd draw from all of this is that Eureka Mountain was originally an off-the-shelf, likely second hand, B.A. Schiff wild mouse coaster when it debuted. At some point very early in its life the ride was closed and completely replaced with a new ride with a different layout. i suspect this is where HyFab come in. And possibly where the 1986 vs 1988 discrepancies come in. Station, lift-hill and brake run remain where they roughly were and the course still follows a pretty standard wild mouse layout, but the patchwork on the mountain indicates they used what they could but had to make a lot of changes to the facade with the new version.

[BTTF Forever]

That layout of the track is a really interesting find!... but rather confusing though... I am assuming the lines that overlap on the far left of the ride map show the track at different heights within the ride?

[New display name]

Richard that is the best detective work I have ever seen on this site.

I totally agree on what you are thinking. Dreamworld purchase a second hand ride and for some major reason it had to be removed. A local company was engaged to replace it.

This puts lots of thoughts in my head about how Dreamworld was operated when it first opened.

I have always had the idea that if one of our parks built a ride to the scale of what we see overseas and charged us for it, I would be willing to pay a small price to ride.

When Dreamworld first opened due to very few people travelling overseas. Dreamworld only had to compete with the local competition. Now that more people travel overseas we are wanting more.

I have family that live in the USA so every two years I travel over for a visit. I do not visit any Australian parks in that year because I am saving my money for what I will see and do.

My first coaster at Dreamworld was an upcharge and I paid for that. I would be happy to be charged if I knew that when it was paid off they would remove the charge.

[BTTF Forever]

I wonder if the original Mine Ride coaster (B.A. Schiff & Associates) was actually a pre-owned coaster that was built in the 70's or something? And maybe they started having problems with the track and the carts in the 2 or so years that followed that caused them to completely replace the ride? Hmmm... It gets more and more interesting

[dbo121]

That map makes no sense!

[Reanimated35]

Looking at that, it seems to make sense.

Start with red, move to blue, finish with green......

Edited February 11, 2015 by reanimated35

[dbo121]

Got it thx!

[New display name]

Looking at that, it seems to make sense.

Start with red, move to blue, finish with green......

Capture.JPG

I don't think what you have shown is right because I don't think its a complete drawing. Edited February 11, 2015 by skeetafly

[Reanimated35]

Maybe not, I'm just going by what it looks like in that pic.