Dorney renames Voodoo to Possessed to avoid trademark dispute

Yet there appear to be no first-hand witnesses to any issues. That sure seems odd as well.

That does seem odd...all the posts are so sure of themselves that there was a problem with the LIMs on the ride while it was still Steel Venom, but not a soul who worked there when it occurred or who worked on the coaster following the crash mentioned anything. However, if you look up Steel Venom on Wikipedia, it DOES mention something about an incident with the LIM's and partial destruction of the coaster car.

I've heard of an incident but I can't confirm anything and I don't know the extent of what happened. What I do find interesting that one car has a different style chassis compared to the rest of the cars on Possessed.

Seats are attached, no bolts above the seats.

Seats that need to be attached using bolts.

It should be noted that when operating as S:UE/Steel Venom all the cars had the seats bolted to the chassis.

Anybody remember when KI's Top Gun had an incident?

~Rob

Carrie M. said:

But I also get a kick out the local grocery chain called Giant. Along with it you have a "Giant" parking lot, "Giant" employees, "Giant" shopping carts, etc.

Not to mention that they bought the naming rights to the new arena in Hershey back in 2001 or so, and now you have the GIANT Center sitting right next to Hersheypark. The same company also sponsered the GIANT Wheel at Hersheypark before it was removed (though the name Giant Wheel goes back decades before the sponsership, the ride did feature the GIANT food stores logo on its "hubs" in its later years).

Anybody remember when KI's Top Gun had an incident?

Yeah, maintenance had parked a truck under the track and when the crew opened up for the day and ran a test train it slammed into the parked truck.

Also, I did find one lone reference to the incident with Steel Venom in THIS thread on Coasterbuzz. I also remember hearing about the launch with a loud BANG and subsequent damage to a train, but for the life of me I cannot find any other information.

Tom

Jeff, why would it be odd that there were no witnesses, or at least none that have bothered to report it to Coasterbuzz? If SV malfunctioned during testing, it would have mostly likely occurred before the park opened for the day, when there wouldn't have been any GP around to see it happen. So except for the one or two ride ops who were on hand, only a GL mechanic or manager could tell you anything happened at all.

Because without first hand accounts or at least some credible attribution, it's just rumor and gossip. You know, like Cedar Point's three-B&M contract.

YoshiFan said:
My post was about when the ride was still at Geauga Lake.

But the post you quoted referred to Voodoo's FIRST crash. It wasn't called Voodoo until it came to Dorney. And saying first crash implies there are others. Kind of like people don't go around saying they're on their first marriage-- it's not till there's at least a second that the original one gets a number.

I can't find the article for the life of me, but I read it about a year ago and there was a photo. The ride was covered up by a sheet after the accident so no one could really see the damage but that it was severe and had people been on it, deaths would have occurred.

What it said happened was something like this: Ride ops were doing testing before opening and one girl heard a strange noise and called maintenance. Maint .ran testing and that's when the accident happened, "tearing half the seats off the track." I can't recall exactly what it said specifically anyore, but I think it said something about magnet issue, something sticking out and tearing the train in half... anyway, all I remember is the visual in my head of it ripping in half and how at least half the people would have been killed. I'm afraid to ride it now. They said they replaced everything that caused the issue and of course the entire train.

So... that just freaked me out a bit.

Clearly something happened to SV. I remember seeing the cars stripped off the track, sometime in July of that year if I'm not mistaken. This wasn't routine maintenance. The ride was down for the remaining three months of the season. Something went went wrong, somewhere.

This is the first I've heard of an actual article. It was pretty 'hush, hush' then and I don't expect any definitive other than being passed off as some crazy gossip.

Based on my observations though I'm pretty sure something happened to the ride and it was fixed, I can live with that. Its not going to keep me off the ride in the future.

~Rob

"Something happened" is a hell of a lot different from the violent catastrophes everyone is implying. I have no doubt something was borken, but I also believe people have really active imaginations.

Borken? That's even worser than broken! ;)

Yes, that was intentional. I was trying to make a funny.

...and it was well played, Mr. Putz! It made me guffaw...out loud, even!

Bork Bork Bork.

I admit I was shaken at this news at first. Particularly when it was reported that fatalities would have occurred had it not happened in testing. But then again, that's what testing is for. Playing out the "what-ifs" from there is more detrimental than anything, I think.

I was there later in the day, or the very next day of the "incident" of Steel Venom. Based on the credible info that I heard about it actually crashing, and the fact that the first 2 cars were completely wrapped in a tarp, leads me to believe that maybe there is *something to that "rumor" - more than some would like to believe.

In any case, I really don't like riding in the front seat of impulses, never really have, because the clearances of those fins in the slots of the LIMs, just seems really small and its intimidating to watch as the ride is in motion.