Trains on New England's Superman collide

it probably wont open soon. they have to replace the cars. it will probably open in 1 or 2 weeks

damn im going there wendesday I hope they let people ride it. Its gonna begin my coaster season got to beat my record of 36 in one month.


Best Coasters
1.Millenium Force
2.Magnun xl 200
3.Alpengiest
4.Apollos Chariot
5.Superman ride of steel
6.lightning racer

A ride operators first priority is that of safety. Too many times, I've seen the people who are working in the stations, not paying as much attention as they should be(10 times this year I've had my restraint NOT checked). Any operator inflicted injuries, are intolerable. No matter how good a park's safety record is, one accident is one too many, especially due to negligence or error. Chances are minimal, but I don't want to be the victim of one of these stories ever, and you shouldn't either. The people on Superman never thought it would happen to them, but it did!

This is reminding me more and more of the Firestone tire/SUV scandal. One peeve I always have is misreported statistics: let's see the news not only report on an accident (they're never insignificant), but also quote the numbers of safe rides, trouble-free runs, etc. that a park has at the same time. While I do feel that this is news and should be available to the public, so should the other information to put it into it's proper perspective. Am I going to stop visiting parks because of sensational journalism? Not a chance.

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Po!nt of View: A different look at Roller Coasters.
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/

Intamin Fan is the most logical... face it, ACCIDENTS DO HAPPEN and people DO get hurt! I was injured nine years ago and have been crippled by my experience... why havent you heard about me? Beacause parks are not required to report accidents or even DEATHS!!! and the media has picked up on that!
That DOES need to change! We as the public have a RIGHT to know what the track record is on the ride(s) we choose to go on, ( pun intended ) the ride(s) that we place our trust into, and the ride(s) that could and HAVE repeatedly hurt innocent patrons!
I will never go on another ride again in my life, partialy because my body cant facilitate the forces, but that doesnt mean I dont want YOU ALL to enjoy yourselves...what I do want is an accurate understanding of the real dangers and hopefuly from you all... some comapssion for those of us who have been the 1 out of 22 million and suffered an accident. And NO- to your questions about money, we are scheduling trial this fall.. so I havent recieved a penny.. YET.. but if you only knew how they crippled me at the age of 22 from an ongoing hydraulic fluid leak in the restraint bar system, that wasnt repaired, yet they KNEW of it...8 weeks before I even attended the park.. documented ; I have their maintenece records!
it was the park's fault and a completely AVOIDABLE accident...it was NEGLIGENCE in the highest order! I will live the rest of my life in severe pain and my ability to have children has been tampered with from the broken back and pelvic damage...( it is very hard for a woman to carry a baby with these injuries)
so please.. be kind and reasonable..there is a way to have equalibrium here...REPORT accidents and deaths so that rides with poor records are identified to the public, and YOU the riding public, request those rides to be removed!

WE can co-exist in peace.

BTW-My accident happened at a Six Flags park, and the ride is still operational.

*-BB-*

How do you spell L-A-W-S-U-I-T

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http://expage.com/rollercoastersurvivor The ONLY website dedicated to Roller Coaster Survivor! Wildcat is gone, and now it's time to vote off a steel coaster. Come vote for which one you want voted off! VOTE NOW!

I was just listening to NECN, local cable channel in New England, and they said all the injuries were minor. It makes it sound like CNN over exagerated (sp?) the injuries. There is also another link to the associated press story with a brief video clip of the news story. No pictures of the actual crash.

http://boston.com/news/daily/06/roller_coaster.htm

If you goto the CNN story on the incident:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/06/roller.coaster.crash/index.html
It appears to be a lot more severe than the original story shows it.

Some of the injuries include broken jaws and noses as well as a couple people knocked unconscious... plus one injury that was near critical condition!!

The CNN story also said that at 20mph for the crash to have taken place... it also dented the trains pretty bad at the point of impact.

I am guessing that the ride will be closed for a couple of weeks at least to get the trains to be fixed up again (they certainly aren't going to run dented up trains).

Man, I guess I am kind of relieved that i cancelled my trip to the Adirondacks, since I was to be going to SFNE as well during that trip this week!!! phew. I don't feel so bad.

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The Great Escape... Soon to become Six Flags Adirondack Escape!!!

I hate it when this stuff happens. At least it wasn't critical, we can be thankful for that.

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CDNSN

I think broken jaws are a bad injuries because it will take months to heal.
I hope no lawsuits are filled.
Trust me, S:RoS wouldn't be open any time soon.

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Current Favorite Coasters:
1)Raging Bull 2)Millennium Force 3)Medusa (SFMW) 4)Vertical Velocity (SFGAm) 5)Incredible Hulk, The

I just had a thought (radical at that)...how could this happen? I mean, wouldn't there have been a block violation?

If Intamin knew that this could happen with this type of ride design, maybe that's one reason Cedar Point opted to build 2 stations...just wanted to throw that idea out at you guys.

I can't believe this happened! On the news they said it was 19 people. This just gives the press more to talk about. All they do is report the bad things. They never stop to talk about how safe amusment parks are, they only diss them. However, accidents do happen and that is unfortunate, espeially for Superman. What did happen though? Because the train goes so fast into the brakes, I would expect more people to be hurt or even killed! I don't think anyone will know the real story. The media is ready to accuse but can't deal the whole story. All that's important to them is they get out the message that amusment parks are not safe and that accidents happen a lot. Why did this have to happen!? Plus, you can kiss the new coaster good-bye. The park is going to owe each victim a ton of money. Buying new trains are gonna cost well over a million. Why SFNE, why now?! So many accidents latley. Maybe parks are being careless. If rides were checked so well, why have there been so many accidents latley. Anyway, now that my summer has been ruined, I'm going to go get ready for my trip to SF Great Adventure. Maybe Nitro will cheer me up (If it doesn't crash!)

Oh, and for the victim's, I hope you get better. It's too bad that people go to a park for a day and wind up in the hospital. Thank God no one was killed.

P.S. Dawg Byte(The GE isn't changing it's name! SORRY!) *** This post was edited by Rentzy15 on 8/6/2001. ***

Ok here we go again. Why is it when something horrible like this happens a majority of people seem to care more about how long it will be before they can ride that particular ride or ones similar to it at other parks? God forbid your plans be compromised. Would you prefer that they just let you hop on the ride without thoroughly investigating what happened? Then there are the sheep who start invoking Markey's name, yeah he really wants 21 of his constituents hurt to prove a point. Grow up Sheep! SFNE is my "home" park and I really enjoy SROS but I am certainly not going anywhere near that thing again until it has been investigated completely by the park and the manufacturer. Maybe they should close the other two SROS until they know what happened for sure. Is it really worth risking another accident so some people don't have to ride one less coaster on there trip to a park? Man I am not screaming for regulation here, I just thing that this needs to be cleared up so it doesn't happen again. Anyone who has ridden SROS knows how quickly it is still moving when it hits the brakes at the end. If there is a possible malfunction in that system this could be a very serious matter for other parks with similar rides. So stop worrying about having a little less fun one day and start hoping that they fix this so no one else gets hurt again.

CPGenius: Yes, there would have been a block violation. The problem is, the block sensor that would be preventing this very block violation was broken. This is a problem. I wonder why the people who programmed the computer didn't code in a mandatory delay from dispach to block clear? If there was a bad sensor failure, it would appear that the train moved out of the station faster than possible (or faster than USUAL.) The software should have caught this. Magnetic brakes don't have anything to do with it, either. Magnetic brakes SLOW the train, but they never stop the train completely. It's the other braking system that stops the train completely (and the block sensor is part of this system, sorta.)

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A bad day at Cedar Point is better than a good day at work.

If sixflags is correct about the sensor failure (that goes for my last post)...... Two stations wouldn't really help things, anyway. Regardless if the previous train is sitting on the station or stacked outside of it, there still would be a crash if a sensor failed. This actually could happen to any coaster (that has the same kind of programming/sensors). Intamin or the fact that the ride goes fast into the brakes or anything else has NOTHING to do with it. The problem was (was it?) a sensor failure. Every coaster has sensors.

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A bad day at Cedar Point is better than a good day at work.

If there was a sensor failure then the brakes should of been on. The blocks system would of known that the train was still in the station and that it was not clear. The only thing that would fool the system is if the sensors in the station were tripped and the computer thought it was clear. I remember reading that there were multiple sensors, so to have them all fail is a long shot. The other problem could have been the computer thought there were running only one coaster and let the train pass into the station. An operator could of also cause the accident but I don't know enough about the workings of the coaster to know if they can override the block system. We really won't know what happened for a couple of days.

Also, they could take the last car from one train and replace it with the other trains last car. This might be the solution they use if they want to operate the ride for the rest of the season. Otherwise, it won't be open until next year because you can't just go to the locale hardware store and get yourself a brand spanken new Intamin coaster car. *** This post was edited by optoman on 8/6/2001. ***

Is what strikes me as strange is how most coasters have only 1 kind of brake. S:ROSes for example, have magnetic. I think that all new coasters should be built with magnetic, and standard fin brakes. That would in almost all cases keep this from happening, because what are the chances of 2 brakes failing at the same time?
It's too bad that S:ROS SFNE collided, but now I can scare my friend back into fearing coasters! It can't be comforting to find out a clone of something you were just on had an accident.

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Intamin: Steel gifts from the gods.
CCI: Wooden gifts from the gods.

I don't buy a prox switch failure. Generally speaking, they're redundant. I do know you can drop the rides into manual mode, and that could cause a problem if the operator isn't paying attention, smoking crack, etc.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"From the global village... in the age of communication!"

One thing I thought of is what if the brakes never returned to the home position. I noticed on rides like MF and Superman, that after the train is stopped, the brakes fall to the sides and the train rolls into the station. Could the brakes have been stuck in the down position? Is there another braking system?