Shivering Timbers at Michigan's Adventure

Looking at photos of the damage, it is hard to believe that happened with a simple bump. Makes me wonder if the train did actually stop on the final brakerun or slipped through it like another Cedar Fair coaster did in 2007. I am no expert, I could be wrong and it DID pick up enough speed to do that much damage.

I do believe that they will be demanding more than they deserve. But will never know the whole story. If it happened to me, I would expect the park to make the effort to bend over backwards to make sure everything is ok. If fine, then I go on my way. But if the park shows any signs of not caring, then that is different story.

The very beginning of this video shows the train coming back to the station with a bit of speed. Unknown if its coming from a complete stop on the brake run or not (I imagine it was though based on ops). But, I thought I'd share.

I watched the entire vid and it’s interesting that the final brake is so far back. Usually in that situation the train is allowed to move forward to the next block, closer to the station before it clears. But in this case (and if you watch to the end) the train stacks right there and then has all that space to develop speed into the station. (And it’s clear the video is sped up as a time saver, but it’s still evident what leads to the fast approach to the loading gates.)
The majority of coaster accidents happen in the station.

Indeed. Either way, it seems like the park is negligent in the way the accident happened and their response to the involved guests.

I'm not sure that I would call their response "negligent." To Fun's point, what are you really entitled to?

That train is insanely heavy, and the speed at which it comes back from a cold stop on the brakes seems reasonable to me. I'm not surprised it did the damage that it did.

I'm not surprised it did the damage it did either.

I agree that there's no good "if X incident happens then Y is the appropriate response" matrix. However, after having worked in restaurants/hospitality for the vast majority of my career, a "have a nice day, glad you're ok" doesn't seem proportional to the incident here. If some one finds a piece of broken glass or sharp plastic in their meal, you bend over backwards for them because of the potential harm that could have been caused. I'm sure passengers on that train likely feel similarly.

Sounds like in her comments they did get a refund and an offer to come back at a later date. We really don't know the whole story. It's also possible once she started threatening them with lawyers any sort of comp discussion goes away. Given that the press didn't even pick up on this makes me think there is more to this story (or I guess less to it really)

Is there even exit passes for Michigan's Adventure? If there are, they probably all say good for any ride at Geauga Lake.

Mulfinator said:

Whatever happened to Timber Rider?

He is blowing his stimulus money on CF Platinum Passes, Fast Lane Plus, and Holiday World.

Maybe the lady was already fuming since she had to park mid-timbers. The collision was the straw that broke the camels back. I guess the real lesson here is that parking is to blame for these poor guest reactions.

I feel bad for Timber Rider. You guys were really hard on him.

Maybe I was too, at some point.

I'd really like to know what's going on with him these days. Last I heard, he was about to lose his house because his mother passed away. That was many years ago.

Anyways...

Travis- He’s on the Amusement Park Enthusiasts Facebook group, still spouting the same nonsense. But now he’s rolling out to different parks, too. No mention of Tighty-Whitey Twister in a while though.

I miss timber riders gripes and foibles. We need some more characters around here like that. They make things interesting.

Easy to spot too. I have no idea who he is IRL, but on one comment thread, the complaining was just so familiar and tired that I just replied with "You're Timber Rider aren't you?" To which he replied something along the lines of "Yes, was it that easy to figure out?"

I think I was a member of that group for about 2 minutes.

I am still around. And I was at the park before and after this accident happened. They had a very rough start to the year, with larger than normal crowds. I mean packed.

Shivering Timbers opened not long after the accident, and ran only one train the rest of summer. The last time I was there the lot was almost full. With the wait for Timbers at a hour and half. Even an hour for Thunderhawk with two trains running.

Their open weekend was a huge disaster. Huge crowds, and not much open. An hour and half wait just to get into coasters to eat.

Welcome back. Good to see you're doing OK.

... And now we can resume teasing you :-)

Tease away. I am a big boy, I can take it. It's also great winter entertainment.

See, you’ve been away so long that you’re confused. I’m bigboy. You’re Timber-Rider.

Welcome back.

So now that we know Timber-Rider is OK, I'm wondering why the ride remained as one train op for the rest of the season. Was it damaged that bad, or some sort of reaction/response from CF to limit it to one?

Or was this enitre event engineered by Timber-Rider to give us a reason to talk about MA?

SVLFever said:

or some sort of reaction/response from CF to limit it to one?

What would ever give you the idea that Cedar Fair would be reactionary to a one time fluke accident?

:checks notes, we're coming up on 15 years since Magnum bumped trains in the rain and Cedar Point still closes all their coasters if there is a passing shower over Port Clinton:

Carry on.