Fury 325 closed due to fractured support
https://www.wbtv.com/2023/07/01/carowinds-rollercoaster-shut-down-after-crack-discovered/
I don't think "crack" does this one justice.
Last year ACE took out The Steel Curtain. This year Fury. Norcal might wanna use the next year to reinforce their coasters.
Considering B&M coasters are among the safest and most reliable, seeing a crack this massive in one of their supports is actually quite shocking.
Man I’m so upset. Was supposed to go to the park on Wednesday to finish my every Giga in the US in 4 days trip and that’s not happening…
That sort of crack appearing is worrying but what is more worrying is that there are photos of it from over a week ago looking just like that but the ride has continued to run.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
The VP there constantly cut’s employee hours with early park closures. It looks like all this cost cutting has now translated to neglect of ride maintenance and safety.
There is no way that ride should’ve been running with that kind of damage. There’s a video of it running with the cracked support. With all of the cost cutting there, I wonder the condition of the other rides.
Rememder that the focus on cost cutting at Disney is what got that kid killed on big thunder mountain railroad.
Will be curious on the root cause of the failure. I guess if it is some type of design issue (not likely?), we will see modifications once it's repaired to the support itself. But if it's just a lack of maintenance that did not detect this, could be repaired much more quickly once confirmed.
Depending on the investigation portion by the park/state/B&M, I can see it only being down a few weeks best case (but is that likely?). I work with Clermont directly on some large fabrications, and those guys have really quick lead times, let alone urgent/rush jobs. I can see them having the replacement column/support fabricated and painted, on a truck within days. Not exactly a difficult part for a fabricator to produce once they get the go-ahead.
Will be interested to see what comes of it, though.
The image of the support from a week ago, with the start of the crack clearly visible speak volumes on the lack of visual inspections by the ride maintenance staff.
Someone clearly wasn't doing their job, but this is what you have to expect when park maintenance isn't being paid much more then minimum wage. I'm sure they are having trouble finding qualified people for the wages they pay and are probably just hiring anyone somewhat mechanically inclined.
I mean … how mechanically inclined do you need to be to look at that and think, “that looks wrong”? I have no idea who they’re hiring, but that ain’t the issue here.
The video that shows the train filled with guests on that section of the course with the crack is definitely one of those videos that's a bit uneasy to watch.
That said, today the Cedar Point ride operations team is using this example to look for another form of inclement weather that will now unnecessarily close their rides.
hambone:
I mean … how mechanically inclined do you need to be to look at that and think, “that looks wrong”? I have no idea who they’re hiring, but that ain’t the issue here.
Well the crack was there for almost a week and that's a pretty major part of there job. So someone clearly wasn't capable.
The fact that a crack formed isn’t surprising or concerning to me. The supports are subjected to repeated stress, so stress fractures are probably inevitable.
The fact that the ride operated for a week in that condition, I find very concerning. I would assume a visual inspection of the entire ride would be part of the daily inspection. Given that there were no injuries shows how well engineered the ride is. However, with that support broken increases the stresses on the other supports, and would probably lead to more stress fractures there. Given that this is a B&M, and nothing B&Ms safety record, It’s a reasonable assumption that they may have cut some corners on the inspections.
It's also a testament to the fail safes in engineering these rides have. So often when I think of ride safety and fail safes and over engineering I think of brakes and blocking systems. But the fact that there were no issues with the ride running even one cycle with that crack actually seems to be a win for ride safety.
CoasterDude316:
Someone clearly wasn't doing their job, but this is what you have to expect when park maintenance isn't being paid much more then minimum wage. I'm sure they are having trouble finding qualified people for the wages they pay and are probably just hiring anyone somewhat mechanically inclined.
When there is an employer, that constantly cuts employee hours, because of low attendance, it’s difficult to find qualified people that want to work there. The VP has chased off a lot of good employees by cutting their hours. This is total neglect on the part of the VP. With his style of cost cutting management.
But even still, you would hope that even the least paid least qualified person would see that crack and immediately report it and not just shrug their shoulders and go "oh well, that'll be fine".
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