Cable shavings hit 4 riders

Very interesting........

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/3527570/detail.html

Just called park operations, They said they are hoping to get the ride back up today. There is no guarantee that it will open today.

Looks like its back on track, I just see this as a pretty bad thing. Im sure they did somthing to the ride, But how much could they have done in 2 days. Replace the cable? and maybe work on the hydraulics. I have a feeling this will happen again. Somebody could get hit harder next time, or even worse lose an eye.

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No, but I wouldn't want to wait 6 minutes to be released from my lap bar in the case of a tornado, cardiac arrest, or terrorist attack...

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Understood, yet the statements were from those that were not injured, so the primary concern were attending to the injured, and there was no immediate danger to other guests already stapled in. I'm sure the 6 minute window would be significantly decreased if an act of god came upon the park.

if there we going to open it dont you think they would put all the trains on the track and not just 2

Neaver mide all the cars are on the track. maybe they will just be doing testing. i think it kind of soon for them to open it

It really doesn't suprise me that they may have it open so soon, this is CP. Like I said in a previous post, the crew was on call starting this morning. I'm sure maintenence worked around the clock to fix the ride, and I'm pretty confident that they figured out what the problem was and will be doing preventative measures in the future.

Yesterday there was a crane on the ride and a few cars near the launch at around 3 am when i checked.

i want to go to cedar point. any one who has been on it more then one time is lucky

Rider whos mad - “We all had our arms up Joel said

Keep your ARMS DOWN head back and hold on. Maybe a little reverse punishment should be in order for these people complaining about the ride hurting them when they didnt follow the rules anyway. Not that I think its fair that they got hurt but...

The guy got a 1 and a half long strand stuck in his EAR. Less then an inch away from his eye. That would cause permanent eye damage or loss. They only got minor bee sting like cuts in their arms. *** Edited 7/15/2004 8:50:51 PM UTC by Big D***

Number one, when I sad "the same cable" I did not mean put the old cable back on, I was aying the same grade/specification/type of cable. If they do this again, they will loose the cable again.

As far as what makes me think I know how lucky CP was in this incident (this is for Pete), I am a Mechanical Engineer (PE) who works for a gas turbine manufacturer (jet engines) and has been involved with accident/incident investigations in the aircraft industry for the last 4 years. So I guess I have a little insight into the area of probability, risk and safety. What is your background?

Has anyone ever seen a twisted metal cable fail? Metal can literaly fly in all directions and the loose ends can snap back with quite a bit of force. This could have been much worse, and CP was lucky (as were the riders). That is what I was trying to say. If you are trying to read anything else into my old posts, you either don't understand or do not want to understand.

People have been hurt at CP before. People get hurt at parks all of the time. That does not release CP from their responsibility of providing a safe experience.

The next time anyone is injured by shards from a worn cable, no matter how minor, CP will not have a leg to stand on legally because they were aware of the problem.

TTDSam, if you truly believe that these riders deserved to be injured because they had their arms up..........Wow. *** Edited 7/15/2004 9:07:26 PM UTC by monster***

Cedar Point will open the ride when they feel that they have solved the root cause of the issue. Do you really think that they would open it if this was likely to happen again--with much worse injuries? Do you think they enjoy lawsuits and the hundreds of dollars spent on legal?

Use your head before you open your mouth (or type).

MrScott

I don't think they'd just happen to have a different kind of cable sitting around that they threw on in just a few days, noticing the other kind didn't work. I think CP should find a different cable or something. But I could be wrong, maybe the problem was so simple, and they had an ingenius idea to fix it. Kind of like the inspectors finding something wrong, and going, "Ohhh... that makes sense."

-Eagle- *** Edited 7/16/2004 12:27:38 AM UTC by sean_s_eagle***

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monster said:
I was aying the same grade/specification/type of cable. If they do this again, they will loose the cable again.

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Most likely. Monster, with your engineering background, what do you think of the diameter of the bullwheel at the launch point? I'm sure you know that if wire rope makes too small a radius curve the strength is degraded. I'm not an engineer (computer programmer), but I've thought more than a few times that the bullwheel seems too small and that is why the cable is failing. As far as the cable specification, I would bet that CP has to use what Intamin specifies.

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Has anyone ever seen a twisted metal cable fail?

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Actually yes. I was standing right next to the ride when the cable failed last year. Loud bang. Most of the cable stayed where it was supposed to, some of it went slack and twisted around the sheaves by the engine house. Brakes came on and the train stopped. The cable seemed to be contained, probably by design. I totally disagree with you that this incident could have been worse. If the cable would have failed completely, nothing would have happened to the riders based on previous experience.

Couldn't have been worse... you mean except if the cable fragments would've hit people in the eye? That alone will keep me out of the front seat for awhile.

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JuggaLotus said:
So does that mean Magnum was a lemon in 1990? If I recall correctly, it spent a good portion of its second season closed because they needed to make changes to the ride.

As for the similarity between this and a steam catapult, there isn't much besides the shuttle. Steam catapults (to the best of my knowledge, and what I've figured out) use one big piston that is pressurized using steam from the ships boilers. There are no cables involved mostly because it would be very costly (and could leave a ship vulnerable to attack) if a cable snapped and they were unable to launch planes.

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What did they do to Magnum in '90...was it the third hill?

As for TTD. I have never rode it before. Hearing how the riders were treated, I don't feel like riding TTD ever in my life or any other Intamin ride with a cable launch system like that.

I don't think TTD will be seeing many more years to come. It's had more problems than any other ride of it's size I can think of. I think TTD is going to be dismantled within the next 5 years because there will be more of these types of accidents, but more severe.

I don't think CP will stop installing Intamin coasters, but I wouldn't expect anything with the safety risks that dragster has. Think about it. Does WT or MF have places where pieces of metal could go flying into your face?

The Launch System for TTD was a bad idea. I saw it from the beginning. It thought it was unsafe for a roller coaster to be launched by a cable like that. Leave it to the aircraft carriers, not amusement rides. I think the only solution for TTD would be to completely change the launch system to something more like WT (thats LIM right?). The only problem is that I don't think a LIM would work with the length of TTD's runway.

TTD is doomed. Enjoy it while it lasts. That's about all I have to say.

Pete, I like your bullwheel idea. I can't remember the exact size of it, but isn't it around 1.5 feet in diameter? *** Edited 7/16/2004 5:59:20 AM UTC by rathofdoom***

TTD is not doomed. They'll figure it out sooner or later and when it happens it will be awsome. This is the first major thing that happened so far this year. Most of June and The first week of July, it was running great. As soon as it gets fixed something like this happens and it closes down. It's totally sucks.

To me the bullwheel looks more like 3 feet or so in diameter. But it still looks very small, especially compared to the wheels on MF, which are much bigger in diameter.

I saw who I think is Sandor Kernacs at the ride Thursday. He was working with about 5 CP technicians at the launch point. They tried to get it open but ran into problems apparently. I would think there is a very good chance that it'll be running on Friday.

Does anyone have ideas as to how the metal shavings got up to the rider's level in the first place? I remember someone saying that maybe the mist propelled them. If that's what happened, the fix would be easy: change the direction of the mist.

MrScott

Hopefully there's an engineer who can back my guess up (I think someone explained this to me recently), but I'm thinking that with the force of the breaking of the cable, those fragments were going to fly wherever. I think that would simply be because of the tightness and particular way with which the cable is woven together. When it frayed/broke, the fragments went where they will. I don't think that spray from the cooling system would be strong enough to affect the metal shavings.

Laura

edited for a typos *** Edited 7/16/2004 12:00:34 PM UTC by raptorgrl***