Cable shavings hit 4 riders

Maybe they need to stop looking at using a "string" to propel this thing and start looking at something much stronger?

MrScott

AF_187

Take your own advise and STFU.You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Last year the cable not only shredded but it broke completely and went flying down the track and wrapped itself around the track. Thank god no one was injured. So this was not the first time there was a problem with these cables. So before you go bashing people learn your facts. Maybe CP should be 120% sure it doesn't happen next time?

Mr Mister,I hope you were not talking to me. I agree with you that CP needs to make sure things work right.

MrScott

thepoint4life23, I am sure we can all be sympathetic to your learning disability, but that doesn't mean you can't first write your post in a word processor such as Word or Works and spell and grammar check it. Then just copy and paste, and we'll get off your back.

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thepoint4life23 said:
and i bet i know all most as much as ever one on this sit. but if i dont know this stuff i want to fide out and know more and more.

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Obviously you don't know how to spell. *sigh*

MrScott

No I was replying to Af_187. It looks like his post was deleted. He told Jeff to shut up because Jeff expressed concern about the safety of this ride. He stated it was the first time there has been a problem with this cable and CP would never let it happen again.

I am also concerned about the safety of this ride.

Ignore the trolls and anyone who isn't contributing to the conversation. It'll be taken care of.

Good. There are many.

So just what happened? Cable Break? Shavings or "chunks in the chest"? Both are doubtful, but one or the other may be the truth. One Newsite says "bee stings", while the other says "major blood".

Just what DID happen? I suspect the bee stings story is closer to the truth.

MrScott

I'm not concerned about the saftey of the ride. Cedar Point has done everything to make EVERY ride as safe as possible. Every great ride has its problems. And since TTD is the GREATEST ride of all, it in turn, has the most problems. The shavings were compared to as bee stings so I'm sure it hurt, but nothing too serious, thank god. Also, I saw on the News that the people on the ride, who got treated by First Aid, said that they were treated horribly by Cedar Point staff. I have a HUGE problem beleiveing this. Cedar Point probably, in my mind, has the best staff. All in all, I hope everyone is okay and I can't wait til I can get on TTD again.

From what everyone else has been saying, I would say the bee string story is closer to the truth also.

All I can say is:

It's a good thing they spent the money to revamp the belts - that way only half the normal crowd will have a chance at getting injured when metal shavings spray the riders on take off!

Yes, I'm still bitter.....

Again, I put on my engineer's hat. Steel cable has a strength and tension rating. If the cable is poorly chosen, it will not last. During the design phase, the number of cycles, the tension on the cable per cycle and the heat produced should have been calculated and the cable specified accordingly.

Now, everyone makes mistakes, but when a cable breaks as it did last year, the calculations need to be re-checked and a new cable specification created. You do not simply replace the old cable with the same thing, knowing it has a very limited life. You mitigate the problem.

CP now has a huge liability issue. If (when) this happens again, the discussion will not be how minor the injuries were, but why didn't CP/Intiman fix the probelm after the first incident. If the lawyers don't get involved this time, they certainly will next time.

Again, working as a mechanical engineer, I have seen this cycle played out, and the owner/designer of the equipment seldom win.

I think that Cedar Point should just refrain from building new rides next year, and just take the entire off season to just try to completely get it running consistently(not that they aren't trying now) I think that a good number of people would prefer TTD to operate without constant breakdowns over a new coaster. I know I would.

I just wonder if TTD wouldn not have had as many problems in the past if this time it would be such a big deal, granted it shouldnt happen and its unfortunate. If this would have happened and TTD would have had good reliability in the past if it would be as bad as people make it out to be?

Does it bother anyone else that the quickest they can get people off the ride in an emergency is 6 minutes?

Why are all the Intamin rides having issues. Well I hope Cedar Fair never builds a Intamin again. People falling out and then this with TTD. Whats next. TTD is a good ride but what issue is it going to have next. Next time are people going to get hurt and if they do how bad are they going to be hurt. If they get TTD up and running again. This year or next. *** Edited 7/14/2004 2:17:47 AM UTC by Ary***

Betty makes a good point - 6 minutes is a long time to sit there if you really were injured seriously.

Aside from that, I'm amazed that there has been no indication of this kind of problem before. I would have expected that "frayed metal shards" would have been found in or around the trough long ago if this really is a cable problem. There have been at least 2 other cables on this ride. Those magnets on the trains are pretty strong too...maybe a close inspection of those would have revealed "shards" stuck to the magnets.

The nagging concern in my mind centers around the possibility that due the horrible reliability of the ride, the round-the-clock efforts to simply patch the nonstop stream of problems has somehow affected the *preventive* maintenance aspects of maintaining the ride - i.e. this whole incident could easily have been avoided if the ride had been shut down completely and truly fixed, instead of CP simply refusing to accept that there really was a major problem present and trying to just keep the thing alive in some form or other.

The persistent nature (18 months now) of the problems this ride has shown are just the sort of thing that can cause a paradigm shift in a maintenance crews' outlook on a project - instead of being 100% pro-active and looking for any and every indication of wear and tear, you just go on until the next major thing breaks and fix that; in other words, the "small" indicators that there are big problems just get overlooked because the big problems seem so obvious. Go and ask NASA about this kind of thing.

I would love to believe that this really was a freak event; I would love to believe that there really was no indication that this could have been a problem; and that the proof that there was no indication of a problem was that there was no evidence for it, and that people were in fact looking for such evidence ahead of the problem.

I cannot imagine how CP are going to prove that this kind of thing cannot happen again - they are surely going to have to do so in order to have the ride approved for re-opening. *** Edited 7/14/2004 2:27:19 AM UTC by Panman***

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Back on Page 3, Coaster Freak said:
.... I believe that the metal must of came from the return cable since that is the only cable traveling the opposite direction of the train. When the return cable makes the turn down into the engine room it creates an angle with the track. Since this cable is traveling the opposite direction of the two pulling cables if it was frayed the angle change would cause loose pieces to be propelled upward towards the riders. These pieces of loose metal would continue on the path or imaginary line the cable makes with the engine room which may lead to them striking riders if these pieces of metal make it through the track structure. Assuming this is what happened a simple shroud placed above the return cable near the turn down could easily fix this simple problem. Of course this is just my thought on the situation and they mean nothing in the entire scheme of things.

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That makes sense, except that the return cable is fully shrouded for almost its full length. The only place where the cables are out in the open is at the point where they go over the sheaves at the downtrack end of the launch, and at that point all three cables are well below the track level.

I wonder, though...both of the rope failures that have previously been reported have involved the haul ropes. Is it possible that the damage this time was to the return cable, and is it further possible that the return cable has not previously been replaced?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Note: Absolutely NO inside information here. It's all speculation on my part.

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Fastball84 said:
If only it was a simple to take it out as hitting the little trash can in roller coaster tycoon, but it isn't. I think we may see it classified as a standing but not operating real soon until they can basically rebuild the inside with new parts. I don't really see CF taking it out completely. Way too costly and messy.

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Okay, forget what I said. After reading the WKYC report there is no way Dragster will be closed for more than a week. I would gladly have a bee sing injury (if this is correct) for front of the line passes. At the time I posted this I pictured showing bones and tons of blood and women crying and...

I think it hard to think that there are no pics. out ther of the people.i just want to get the really facts of this web sit, so i relley know what happed