SD 2000 looses wheels and derails 2 injured

I'm sure Spaland does more than 1 hour of checks on the ride a day.

"The operator says it began running in August 2000 and that it inspects the roller coaster for about an hour every day before the rides begin."

I think what he meant was that every morning there are safety checks like block checks, rachet testing, and test riding that the ride operators do themselves, which can sometimes take up to an hour to do.... Not everyday maintenance checks. When was the last time you saw a ride op change a wheel or check the brake fins for wear? That's the maintenance departments job :)

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Corey
"Afterward, services resumed for about 20 minutes until the congregation realized the church was on fire." - www.channel3000.com

Actually, tricktrack, because Steel Dragon has oversized guide wheels, Morgan moved them outboard of the rails. If the train is designed like almost all other trains I've seen with outboard guide wheels, the loss of a single wheel carrier would be enough to derail the train...apart from the wheel carrier itself there may be no safety device to prevent the train from derailing.

As for the wheels...it is very likely that the coaster uses, as is common in the industry for high-speed coasters, an aluminum wheel with a plastic tire (nylon, urethane, something like that). The news article we're reading is a Japanese news source, and the use of English in that publication may not be precise enough to distinguish between aluminum, steel, iron, brass, or whatever. It's a big hunk of metal, and for the purposes of journalism, that's precise enough. Aluminum, steel, or iron, it's still gonna hurt if it beans you while you're swimming!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Oh boy..... I bet Dana Morgan is rolling over in his grave.

.........oh wait a minute, he's not dead yet.......

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"That's DOCTOR Evil. I didn't spend six years in evil medical school to be called 'Mr. Thank You Very Much.'"

The article really tells us nothing other than that wheels came off and the coaster stopped suddenly. It is interesting that it happened on one of the lowest speed portions of the ride.

I looked at some pictures, and the main running wheels at least appear to be of the convention construction of aluminum hub with plastic tire.

Remember, that inpsections only find what they are looking for. A poorly heat treated component or a hat on the track can defeat even the best inspection program.
*** This post was edited by Jim Fisher 8/23/2003 10:41:53 PM ***

How in the world could not one, but 'SEVERAL' wheels come off a coaster like that? I believe that maintanence weren't doing a very good job.

Remember, you are taking all this information from a single report that may not be translated as well as it could be.

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Without the chaindog, you'd never get up the lifthill...
*** This post was edited by Chaindog 8/24/2003 12:09:35 AM ***

Where did the ride suddenly come to a stop at?

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My top 3 Coasters!
1. Millennium Force
2. Raging Bull
3. Magnum

i hate the metric system.

Yeah, because God knows it's so hard to remember that a thousand meters = one kilometer. The English system is so much better with feet, yards, miles, cups, gallons, etc.!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
DELETED! What time does the water show start?

Units of 10. What will they come up with next.

Not knowing anything specific, perhaps multiple failures were a result of a chain reaction.

Example: One wheel shatters and falls off, putting more forces and stress on the one adjacent to it, leading it to shatter and fall off, and on down the line.

Not a fact, just a theory.

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Rejection is one thing, but rejection from a fool is cruel!
-Morrissey

in my opinion.......yes

Hey Crashmando,

What happened to Desperado last year? Accidents can happen anywhere.

As far as more than one wheel coming off, the second wheel may have been broken off when the coaster derailed and stopped.

Bartman

Yeah but Desperado only lost an upstop & not any road wheels,or did it?

SilverStar said:
They Said it was the tallest coaster in the world! Ha! That's a good one!
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I Hate Little Kids

*rolls eyes Tallest with a chain lift that is.
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"You know its a good ride when you come into the final brake run wiping tears from your eyes."
*** This post was edited by DorneyDante 8/24/2003 11:03:57 AM ***

Iron is a great material for coaster wheels. It's inexpensive, easily cast into shapes, and has good vibration damping characteristics. I do however believe they meant to say steel (which is simply iron with less carbon content). If this is the case, then there is the advantage of the endurance limit. The endurance limit is a property of steel that makes it very unique - at reasonable stresses, the material will NEVER fail due to fatigue. That's a good property for critical components to posses. The wheels are coated with polyurethane for reduced friction and smoother ride.

I'm interested in knowing if the wheel assembly was improperly reassembled after maintenance. It's very odd that multiple wheels separated from the train. After all, the point of using dual road and upstop wheels is redundancy if one fails.

The SI (metric) system rules!

Multiple wheels separating could mean 1 wheel assmebly (road, upstop, & guide) where the whole wheel assembly came off instead of individual wheels.

onceler said:
Multiple wheels separating could mean 1 wheel assmebly (road, upstop, & guide) where the whole wheel assembly came off instead of individual wheels.

I guess this is what happened. Even in this case the train should not derail. The remaining assemblies should be enough to keep the train on track.

Actually I guess the term "derailing" is not what exactly happened to the SD2000. Apparantly it came to a sudden, harsh stop. This could have been a security device. If the train derailed, the casualties would be bigger, even if it happened at a slow spot of the ride (but then the wheel would not fly off for about 30 meters (thats about 100 ft.)

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i was a teenage rollercoaster designer

Here is more updates on accident both people who where injured suffered broken hips.

http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20030824p2a00m0fp022000c.html

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030824a3.htm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0823/rollercoaster.html (this one has a pic on it but i dont know if its the actual coaster that derailed)

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Army Rangers lead the way

Here are 2 more pics from the accident both are japanese maybe one of our members can translate.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20030823-01432581-jijp-dom.view-001

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20030824-00000130-kyodo-soci

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Army Rangers lead the way

Looking at those pictures it appears it never made it to the Mid Course.

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If given the choice I'd choose a hamburger over a hotdog anyday of the week.