Wild Thing @ Valleyfair Crash

From KARE news from Minneapolis, the back car of Wild Thing somehow uncoupled and derailed. 13 hospital transports.

http://www.kstp.com/kstpimages/IMG_40051.jpg

Edit: Wrong station name. Link: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S16428.html?cat=1 *** Edited 5/21/2006 10:58:54 PM UTC by pkidelirium***

Yikes!

From WCCO - 11 injured :(

Wow. Too bad theres not much information yet.

I'm always worried that a coaster will derail, and I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

If Raptor's wheel fell off in the station last season, what's to keep other wheels from falling off during the rest of the ride?

That was not a train wheel that fell off on raptor. It was one of the black trie-like wheels that pushes the train out of the station to the lift hill. That wheel has absolutely nothing to do with holding the train to the track.

As for this, it's going to be very interesting how this all piles out. It's a Morgan ride. Everyone knows of the Steel Dragon 2000 incident in Japan. All though SD has a different track structure design and different trains, it makes you wonder.

The Intamin fatalities were all restraint issues, where in my opinion, it was not Intamin's fault, but the ride operators and lack of guideline following.

Both Morgan issues have been mechanical, which makes me wonder. What's up with their trains.

Does anyone know if Wild Thing's trains are articulated or not? That's my fear of articulated trains...one car detaches...there's no way it's going to keep balanced and moving.

Thanks for clearing it up about Raptor.

Wild Things trains are NOT articulated.

Intamin's mega/giga coaster trains ARE articulated.

Wild things trains have articulated rear axels.

I think the term your looking for is trailered where there are only wheels on the back of all but the front car.

Chuck

I don't think you can call this a manufacturer's defect considering that the ride has operated for ten years without incident.

Whoa...not good. Last 2 uncouplings/derailings I remember are King Kobra back in the 80s and Big THunder Mountain last year.

Nope - not good at all. Makes my heart sink when I hear something like this.

I hope we hear a reasonable explanation, and it's something easy to remedy.

First, I truly hope that there are no serious or long term injuries to anyone involved.

Second, does anyone know, has Mamba or Steel Force been closed?

Third, I hate to say this, but it seems very fortunate that the last car of the train came to a rest they way it did. If it had leaned the other way, away from the fence, this could have been worse.

Phantom's Revenge uses Arrow Looper chassis. They just took the Steel Phantom trains and put new fiberglass shells and lap bars in.

So, after I am thinking about this some, my mind is starting to wonder a couple of things. Doesn't this have to be caused by a defective wheel and/or bogey type of situation? I ask because if the car's 'connecting rods' had broke somehow, wouldn't the car have remained on the track?

Also, Mamba has a horrible tendency to get 'flat tires' all the time. By that I mean that the urethane (or whatever the exact scientific name is) type of coating on the wheels crack, and the train starts making a 'popping' type of sound. Normally, the ride ops hear is at the train passes the station, and call for the mechanics to change the wheel. Being that this is early in the season, is it possible that some 'new' ride ops couldn't identify that sound as easily, and a wheel failed?

Obviously, this is ALL speculation on my part. I am just surprised that this is happened, especially considering how early in the season it is.

I can see Sea World closing Steel Eel.

As for Superman at SF Mexico...I doubt it will close.

First off I hope everyone will be ok.

Second, I don't see why everyone needs to close their Morgan tomorrow morning?

I remember shockwave (Arrow) having problems with wheel assemblys failing.

Honestly I wonder if the parks are magnafluxing the metal of these every winter to check for stress fractures.

Chuck

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Marky Mark said:
First off I hope everyone will be ok.

Second, I don't see why everyone needs to close their Morgan tomorrow morning?

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Not everyone will, but Dorney and Mamba are "siblings" of Wild Thing (aka the Morgan 3 back in the day) and they are owned by Cedarfair, the same company that owns Wild Thing. If (heaven forbid) the exact same thing happens to Mamba and/or Steel Force CF will be facing a boatload of slam dunk lawsuits for neglengence. They also have a history of doing this (see the MA Chaos incident) so I wouldnt be suprised at all if they close them.

I posted this under the news but my first thought was "Please don't close Steel Eel!" as I'm visiting SA next week.

I'm glad all the injuries were minor, but I hope they can quickly investigate the cause and determine it isn't something with morgan trains/track in general.

Matt

And Steel Force was just closed the last 2 weeks with a broken lift chain, it finally opens and now this.

Thank god this happened in the brakerun and not out on the course doing 70mph. If that happened, we would probably be looking at a horrific situation like that Scharzkopf derailing up in Canada.

Seems all the injuries were minor and everyone was treated and released from the hospital.

^ What happened to Scharzkopf derailing up in Canada? How many faitallitys were there (if any)?

Can you post a link? Please.