Small toboggan/coaster crash

http://www.break.com/index/roller_coaster_accident.html

What coaster is this & where is it??

It looks like one of those new "Alpine Coasters" that have been built within the last few years. I have no clue which one it could be.

oops.

Something similar happened to me on a ride they used to have at a small, insurance trap waterpark (you know... the best kind!) in North Myrtle Beach. The operator was just pushing the cars out as fast as he could, and the one behind me came and slammed into us after going around a curve. I just laughed and ran up for another round, but it wasn't quite as much of a bump as the one in that video.

EDIT: I was also like 8 years old at the time. *** Edited 8/12/2006 6:31:07 PM UTC by RollrCoastrCrazy***

That was a pretty good crash. Good chance those folks got some whiplash from that.

Definitely one of those 'alpine' dealy-o's. No idea which one.

I always wondered how they kept people from doing that being as the rider controls the speed. I suppose even a huge lag between dispatches doesn't help if someone decides to crawl their way down (as I suspect the mother and small child did in this case).

*** Edited 8/12/2006 6:52:52 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

That did not look like that bad of a crash. It looks like the amount of whiplash you get when rideing psyclone SFMM. After rideing that 4 times in arrow even the roughest coaster does not look so bad.

That is definately NOT the alpine coaster in Glenwood Springs. That's rather obvious considering the foreign language on the tape, but just in case you were wondering if maybe they were tourists, now you know.

Having been on the one in CO I can shed a little insight on the operation. In CO the coaster sits on the side of the mountain with the station at the top. You ride down the mountain and catch the cable lift back to the top at the end of the ride.

On my first ride they gave me the normal spacing and I did catch up with the car in front of me about 2/3 of the way down the hill. Ever since then I've requested some additional space by telling the op that I plan to ride brakeless and they have always obliged. Since then I've yet to catch up to the car in front of me.

This accident appears to have occured at one of the areas on the course where you cannot control your speed. These areas are the lift, station and brake run preceding the lift.

When the car hits one of these sections of track the handles are forced into the brakes off position. The car is then moved along by a conveyor system.

This accident appears to have happened right where the front car has hit one of these areas and slowed considerably and the second car hits the first just before it would have been slowed. Talk about perfect, or NOT perfect, timing.

If a similar accident would have occurred somewhere else along the track it most likely wouldn't have been so bad since the first car could have absorbed some of the impact by being accelerated by the collision.

That accident appears to be about as bad as it could get on one of these, although it could have been worse had the second car had 300 lbs. worth of occupants as opposed to the two small girls.

*** Edited 8/13/2006 12:37:54 AM UTC by Incidentalist***

Judging from the dialect this is either in Bavaria or Austria where alpine sleds are popular since the 70ies. Back in those days you would have a nice and healthy asbestos trough with a simple sled made of cloth and polyurethane. People would fall out of these things like flies if they were too fast.

Nowadays the Wiegand slides are really popular. I think the longest is around 9000 ft long and even "themed" slides are now popping up:

http://www.alpinforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12238

The scariest part of the video was when it suddenly went into reverse. I thought the riders were getting something extra special.

OUCH! I got whiplash just from watching that!

-Tina

At least it looks like nobody got hurt. Not that bad of a crash, really. Seems the belts did their job.

That definitely is not the one in Colorado, or the one in Kentucky.