West Edmonton Mall retiring Mindbender roller coaster after 37 years

I'm surprised that they continued on with this ride after the 1986 accident. I mean, it was particularly gruesome and maybe the worst mechanical failure ever on a coaster.

We used to fly into Edmonton to go ski in Jasper and would pop in the mall for lunch and a couple of laps on this before the drive out west. The mall is pretty close to the airport and right on the way out of town. This was a beast of a ride and it beat you up pretty badly but the intensity of it made it sort of worth it.

This one has this weird personal anxiety element attached to it that I've never experienced on another ride. There's an awful newspaper photo from the accident that includes bodies under sheets by the last loop that really can't be unseen. When the train dives into the final loop I've always found myself bracing or holding my breath or something. It's very strange and there's a weird sense of relief when the train exits the loop and goes into a couple of banked curves after it before returning to the station.

We've not been since 2019 and were kind of put off of it because everything seemed to be really dusty and in sort of disrepair on the last visit. There were a lot of closed rides that looked like they'd been half taken apart.

This coaster and the one sitting at Indiana Beach are very similar and had near equal gruesome fatalities.

Given the history of these rides and the obvious issues that IB is having getting it running, I would be hesitant to ride the one at IB despite my love if Schwarzkopf

Didn’t the Mindbendet incident finish off Schwarzkopf? Those trains have different wheel assemblies than Revolution Sooperdooperlooper etc. I assume to navigate the steeper drops. But that’s what failed.

Not sure if it ended Schwarzkopf but seem to remember the blame being on poor maintenance at the park level. They claimed that the manuals were all in German and they had issues understanding what needed to be done.

This coaster was always one of those bucket list things that I knew would probably never happen, but hearing about its removal is a bummer anyway. I just realized today that it's been SBNO since July 2021.

Supposedly, both improper maintenance and design flaws were cited as cause of the accident. That said, I can't find anything that supports the idea that the accident had anything to do with Schwarzkopf going out of business.

I guess it's still worth a visit to Edmonton, they have a Dragon Wagon.

This is one of the better sites when it comes to all things Schwarzkopf https://www.schwarzkopf-coa...hmenGF.htm

Jeff:

I'm surprised that they continued on with this ride after the 1986 accident. I mean, it was particularly gruesome and maybe the worst mechanical failure ever on a coaster.

The 737 MAX is flying again after a design flaw that killed 346 was fixed. I put the Mindbender accident in the same category – after the issues were resolved it operated for a further 35 years without incident.

Dutchman:

This is one of the better sites when it comes to all things Schwarzkopf https://www.schwarzkopf-coa...hmenGF.htm

Wow, I can't believe that site still exists. I remember finding and scouring that thing well over 20 years ago.