Raging Wolf Bobs derailment today

Super7, that is an entirely incorrect statement all together.

"Maintained rides don't fall apart, unless they are poorly designed."

There are so many uncounted-for contributing factors into anything failing. Thats like saying that if one car having a transmission problem, all the same model cars will have the same problem. You can't generalize like that.

Am I saying that it wasn't at fault of maintenance, no. There is a chance at everything. Who knows if something was missed during inspection, but then again, who is to say that it wasn't something so minuscule that it couldn't have been noticed in routine inspection.

But to continue to say that it was poorly designed is entirely wrong without any proof of fault that can't be related back to either routine maintenance error or a random outside factor.

Thankfully this sounds to have been a minor incident for the people on the train. For once, then, we can correctly say that a roller coaster hit the breaks hard.

Well said, Shaun. We don't know anything at this point other than the rear car somehow derailed, damaging some portion of the track. What caused that derailment is something we can speculate on all we want, but until an official report comes out that's all we'll have -- guesswork. *** Edited 6/18/2007 4:45:17 PM UTC by GregLeg***

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super7* said:
Maintained rides don't fall apart, unless they are poorly designed to start with. Given the age of this ride, it would seem that it was maintenance.

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Guess again. That area of track is less than two years old. The trains are refurbished every off-season.

Based on the information we have, it looks to me like a completely freakish track failure, which is very surprising given the quality of The Canadians' work.

Was the train on a section of track that was worked on THIS off-season?

I find it really hard to believe that M-V could have worked on the track and then THAT portion of track had a failure so soon...my initial guess was trains, but Dave also makes a very valid point. Will be interesting regardless...

For all we know the derailment happened in the section of the track that was first performed by Six Flags (first drop to s-curve under first drop) and the train ultimately stopped in the section worked on by The Canadians, so their work might be at fault. Again, all speculation but possibilities to consider.

I wonder what impact the RWB breakdown will have on Kennywood. KW has been promoting the park aggressively in NE Ohio during the last two years but it still has that road access problem that has been aggravated by construction on I-376 in Pittsburgh.

The reason that I mention this is because both of these parks have 3 wooden coasters among their main attractions (normally) and with GL having one out of order and KW offering good price promotions in Ohio, maybe some people might decide to go to the PA park instead of GL. Of course that construction bottleneck may still be the overriding factor for many people in the Cleveland and Akron areas.

As for CP, that is a different kind of park and if you want to ride a lot of big coasters, that is where you will most likely go regardless of the situation at GL or KW.

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BogeyMon said:
Thankfully this sounds to have been a minor incident for the people on the train. For once, then, we can correctly say that a roller coaster hit the breaks hard.

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I said that maintained rides don't fall apart UNLESS they are poorly designed. Poor design should be the only reason a maintained ride falls apart. One or the other. Son of Beast was a design issued, too much force for wood. Perhaps there was a design flaw on the retracking, but giving the years that this ride has operated without incident, that shouldn't have happened. If wood snapped or the train fell apart, maintainence should have caught that.

It's funny how coaster lovers want to claim that it is just a "freak" accident every time one of these things fall apart. It doesn't seem like rides were falling apart at this rate 10-15 years ago, when quality was more important than profits. Just an observation.

Regardless, when are these parks going to realize that saving pennies costs dollars? Ride removals, ride failures............................

I just don't want to see any coaster or park end up as an episode of Seconds From Disaster.

If it was a track failure, could it be possible that the weight of trains comes into play again as it did with the collapse of the lift hill a few years ago? Just another possibility to throw out there.

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Arthur Bahl said:
I wonder what impact the RWB breakdown will have on Kennywood.

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Zero. Nobody here in Cleveland seems to have heard about it, so I doubt anyone did in Pittsburgh.

*pittsburgher raises hand*

Nope. Not a peep on any local news outlet.

I havn't heard anything on the news in Cleveland either.

I only heard about it from someone who happened to be there that day. Go figure.

The reason why it wasn't a news event was because nobody got hurt. Compare that to what happened on SOB last year at KI which got news attention because of the injuries. The main thing I was looking at wasn't negative publicity but the situation that now exists: one less coaster in operation at GL. That could cause some potential visitors to stay home or go to a different park.

Nice backtrack on top of even more ridiculous speculation.

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Arthur Bahl said:
That could cause some potential visitors to stay home or go to a different park.

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I'd say that list would consist almost entirely of enthusiasts. And even then I'd say if people already made the plans to come, most would still be going. Especialy since it didn't even make the news.
*** Edited 6/18/2007 9:07:44 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

Arthur, you really don't need to bring Kennywood up in every thread. As much as I love my home park, sometimes it isn't relevant to the discussion at hand.

This is one of those times.

Agreed. The three to five dozen visitors GL gets on weekdays won't be stopped by this set-back.

Let's be honest, look at how many people have gone there so far this season without X-Flight or Superman/Steel Venon. I'd be willing to bet that the attendance fiugres are only slightly less than last year this time.

How many weren't happy to have those two coasters gone, it's hard to say. Now that it's three down, it's anyones guess.
:) *** Edited 6/18/2007 9:47:07 PM UTC by FLYINGSCOOTER***

Of course, many beople go to GL for the waterpark and if that is what they are looking for, one coaster down isn't going to make much of a difference.

As for coasters being down, that happens at many parks and it isn't necessarily a reason to stay away especially if there are enough other major coasters in operation.

In 1996 I went to PKD and their new attraction (Flight of Fear) was not operating when I arrived. My main interest, however, was some of the other coasters especially Rebel Yell, Grizzly, and Anaconda. What may have happened because of the FOF closure was that the park wasn't overly crowded and I was able to ride all of the other coasters with multiple rides on my 3 favorites. Later FOF opened and I got to ride the new attraction. End result: 8 new credits and a great day overall.