The Smiler has had two carriages crash - how is that even possible?

http://news.sky.com/story/1494944/carriages-crash-on-alton-towers-smiler-ride

 

Reading one of the comments on TPR's Facebook, the ride had broken down. Shortly after an empty test train was sent out. What's odd is that the next train was fully loaded and dispatched before the empty train had returned from it's cycle. The loaded train then stopped at the top of the lift as the empty train had valleyed (block system presumably). After some time the chain started moving sending the loaded train into the valleyed empty train.

Obviously early to speculate etc etc. but it's almost as if the ride was put into manual and overridden the block system.

I don't see how it could have happened without the ride being in manual mode. Has a block system even completely failed before?

In case you missed this news article today:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/alton-towers-rollercoaster-crash-seriously-injures-four-passengers/story-e6frfq7r-1227380517755

Not good :-(

I hope the passengers are able to fully recover. How terrifying - plus being stuck there while seriously injured. 

Ouch, that would have seriously hurt. Can only imagine what they may have been feeling and thinking if they seen the stationary carriage on the tracks in front of them.

 Found a few pics on FB

Extremely concerning given the other incidents the ride has had in its relatively short life. 

There's a bloke on Instagram who's got a video of the trains rocking backwards and forwards just after the accident happend. https://instagram.com/p/3cB5q4ueaP/

Edited June 3, 201511 yr by Jakev8

The original video is on YouTube. Seeing the two trains rolling back and forward as one is quite surprising and it is lucky the people in the front row of the second train aren't more seriously injured looking at the impact between the two trains.

 

 

Poor people! Hope they all make a full recovery. I wonder what Alton Tower's will do?

Wow, to have that impact, and then be stuck rocking back and forward, that would be a nightmare.

At least you're close to the ground.

Honestly this incident is probably the result of human error. Train collisions should not be blamed on the ride's design.

Yes likely the case but you're saying that ride systems can't fail and they most certainly can. The train crashed into a valleyed train (which apparently is a common occurrence in this section of track) which, no disrespect to Mr Wardley, relates to design. 

Edited June 3, 201511 yr by Flea

California Screamin sent a train through a block brake and into a stationary train... Control system failure big time

It's a bit of a concern if a ride operator has the ability to override the blocking system. 

Former staff are stating that a combination of both human and ride system are likely at fault for this incident taking place: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/03/human-error-likely-in-alton-towers-smiler-crash-former-staff-claim

That video is fairly disturbing. Hearing someone screaming out "STOP THE F&@KING RIDE!" over and over sent chills down my spine ???

The stupidity of the British press is mind-numbing. The overall theme of their questioning to Alton Towers officials is that this ride was an accident waiting to happen, based on a series of minor, anecdotal incidents. It would be nice to see them swap the faux hard-hitting journalist routine for a discussion with independent industry engineers, who could dismiss these previous incidents for red herrings that they are so that the media narrative could focus on coming the the bottom of what happened this week.

The black and white answer is obviously that either a computer or human made a mistake. But in the case of the latter I suspect there are grey areas at play here, such as how or why the computer system was able to be overridden, or if it faulted in allowing such an override to take place.

Reports suggested it had just come out of a period of downtime, so there could well have been maintenance technicians present who do have the ability and authority to operate the ride in a manual mode. Or there may well be policies in place at Alton Towers that allows ride supervisors or operators to make manual maneuvers.

Exactly. The previous incidents were just that. With the exception of the track coupling failure nothing is news worthy (including 16 journalists stranded for half hour). 

The key thing here is, did the ride restart the lift and send that train in auto, or did a person do it in manual. 

 

Thats the key question here, any previous incident is completely irrelevant. 

There's a massive difference between a ride failing safely and what happened on The Smiler. It's not like there's a single scale that you could slide up about how bad incidents are.

Does anyone know whether we'll be able to learn all of the details about this once a report is released? Or will we just be stuck speculating from news articles forever?

Is anyone aware of any roller coasters that use track circuit protection systems?

You mean like on a railway? I don't think any coaster feeds signals through the track and wheels like on a railway, rather they tend to be fixed sensors on the track that the train passes near.

Yeah, railway style.  One potential problem is likely to be that most units use laminated/polyurethane wheels and painted tracks which is likely to present a problem for track circuiting.  I know it's almost universally photoelectric cells but had wondered.  Track circuiting is generally considered to be a more fail-safe detection technology, although it depends on the application.

Sensors tend to be those magnetic green coloured prox sensors, but light beams are used too;