Cedar Point's VertiGo suffers partial collapse

The only sensible explanation is that muffleheads chewed through the tower.

S&S will most likely change the basic "pole" type tower to the better triangle-box shape supports of sky-coasters. This would not only increase structural intergrity, but it woulnd not take much more engineering to get these puppies up and running at all new destiations. 

But didn't Stan Checketts say he wan't the tower to sway?
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CP! Still the coaster capital of the world in 2002!
My fellow Americans; Let's Roll!
WoodenCoaster.com

bet you it sank
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HurricaneGeauga- Just in case

I am looking at the live park cam and I am not seing any damage. The tower closest to the cam is leaning a little bit but not much. Is this it? There really isn't that much damage
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Son Of Beast, better than the dad!!

Just an Idea.......What if Cedar Point operated the attraction this past summer in High Winds, when the ride should've been shut down, might this have weakened the structure and caused the partial collapse? The closest Wind Meter is on the Magnum Lift (205 ft), and that's over a 60 ft difference between the lift and the tops of the VertiGo Poles (268 ft). I would imagine the fallen pole damaged the RipCord/VertiGo Ticket Office, cause that's the only Ticket Booth near the attraction.
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Lagoon Park, America's SAFEST Amusement Park 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. *** This post was edited by RidgeStone Park on 1/15/2002. ***

Does anybody have access to pictures of the damage?
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"I'll bet that thing hits 5 Gs going through that loop.....faaar ooouut!"

Newbie, what is the URl for the cam you're looking at?
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My fellow Americans; Let's Roll!
www.woodencoaster.com

No No No if you would have read you would have saw that, and it was warm yesterday by jabuary standards so it's not like things froze yesterday, and it wasn't that windy either been a lot worse this summer.
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Does CCI know how to make a bad coaster?

Here's the webcam that captured the collapse:

http://www.13abc.com/index.cfm?Article=463&SecName=85

Not suprisingly, it's offline. But the camera was still operating, and CP has the pictures on their computer. But you didn't hear that from me.

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Wind, ice, expansion and contraction, lakeside property... these are all things that are factored in when building these rides.  These pieces of machinery are made to withstand these elements.  There's no way that I can see any of these having an affect on this collapse, unless the engineers at S&S are completely inept, and I highly doubt that that is the case.

My educated guess would have to be either material failure or faulty construction.  The steel should have been tested before it was erected, perhaps it wasn't.  It was installed fairly quickly, maybe the contractors or even the park rushed too much.  We'll probably never know.  Why would they tell, after all?

Just thank God that it didn't happen in the summer... who knows how many people it could've hit on the ground in addition to those on it.

(Also thank God it didn't happen at a Six Flags park because we'd never hear the end of it!)

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"When I was growing up, we were taught something called manners. You'd understand that if you weren't such an idiot." - Jack Handey

I heard a rumor that CP's new tower ride broke while some people were riding it and that these people, well, they were flung into an oncoming Magnum train, and like, well, they were hit by the Magnum train, and were like killed by it, and they had to take them to the hospital, where they died cause Magnum is sinking.  But then again, maybe not. *** This post was edited by PointMan on 1/15/2002. ***

Would people really be injured if they were on it? The other two towers would support the pod.
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CP! Still the coaster capital of the world in 2002!
My fellow Americans; Let's Roll!
WoodenCoaster.com

i think two towers would still hold it up,but what abotu people in line for tix when the thign came crashing down on em. That is if this would have happened in the summer.
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Does CCI know how to make a bad coaster?

I noticed that the upper portions of those towers are round and don't have much sticking out from them.  On an object like that you can get vortex shedding at a critical windspeed.  Eddys of air form on alternating sides on the cylinder forcing it back and forth.  If the frequency of these eddys matches up with a natural frequency of the tower it's bad news.  Now I have no information available with which to do the calculations to know if this is really likely, but engineers usually put strakes on anything shaped like those towers to break up the eddys and prevent this from happening.

This isn't necessary on round coaster columns since they are tied together at the top.

I wouldn't be too concerned about SFMM and the high mountain winds. Rides in that part of the country are required to be earthquake proof to a point so that should a quake occur while people are riding they will be safe. If it can withstand tremors up to 5.0 then I don't think that high wind would be a problem. Of course any structure that has been exposed to freezing rain, coupled with high winds, has a disadvantage. When I worked for the Shedd Aquarium here in Chicago we had some problems with fatigued steel on the Ocenarium frame. Now the winds off Lake Michigan Can reach up to 70 mph but we don't genrally get as cold as Lake Erie does. So if cold and high wind could weaken steel that is only about 20 feet from the ground, and is a small part of a much larger structure, it's highly probable that a frestanding tower of that height would be doomed in those conditions. However, engineers are supposed to take climate into consideration when designing and constructing new rides. Regardless of the cause, the fault lies in S&S's hands.......or perhaps it was terrorist.

*** This post was edited by Wolfy on 1/15/2002. *** *** This post was edited by Wolfy on 1/15/2002. ***

Hey Jim, are you a scientist, teacher, etc? If not, you should be :)

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CP! Still the coaster capital of the world in 2002!
My fellow Americans; Let's Roll!
WoodenCoaster.com

Those poles look like wind couldnt of  blew it over they look circular.

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i play when i wanna play

But like Jim said, if eddys off the tip start vibrating at the tower's natural frequency, the shakes get bigger and bigger and blammo...this is what happened on the Tacoma Narrow's bridge 50 years ago.
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"I'll bet that thing hits 5 Gs going through that loop.....faaar ooouut!"

Here is the last pic from the 13abc webcam... it was taken at 8:50 am on Tuesday

www.13abc.com/images/cpcam.jpg

I just did a bit of guessing on their site to figure out what the image name would be :)

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probie