Fury 325

Anyone see this...wow...Fury 325 will be down for a while....

Glad I went to Carowinds when I did. (June 19th & 20th). It's a great coaster, I like it better than Millennium Force. - Lisa

That is crazy. What’s more crazy is when did Carowinds extend Fury’s lift hill height another 40ft?

The craziest part was watching the ride running with said crack. Imagine being the guy to approach customer service with that one...

This would have never happened if someone hadn't screwed up and built the thing 40' too tall.

To me it looks like that support is going to have to be redesigned and replaced. All of the force is pushing outward at the top of that support. Needs something coming from the opposite side to help distribute the load better. Just my opinion....

Ive never seen a coaster haul booty more than this thing. Get well soon. Also it’s the best marvel themed coaster out there.

If I didn't know better, I would definitely blame this on Intamin.

Not sure we'll ever know officially what the issue was here, but a ride mechanic on YouTube had a pretty level headed and realistic assessment of the situation and theorized the possibility that the footer at the base of the diagonal support column had sunk a bit and caused extra stress at the top of that weld which formed a crack and things went downhill from there. Lots of other armchair maintenance people and engineers shooting their mouths off about neglect and lack of inspection or a design flaw since obviously they can see that the diagonal support should have been on the outside instead of the inside and whoever designed it must've been incompetent and blah blah. Even saw one guy say they were operating the ride in an unsafe manner because they sent the next train before the previous one hit the brakes LOL. C'mon people!

While having the crack starting to form in pics dating back a week ago isn't a good look, I am not sure it's quite as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. These are big machines and sometimes crap happens. Glad it was caught before anything worse happened, but that honestly might have taken months.

Problem fixed....

JoshBrown:

To me it looks like that support is going to have to be redesigned and replaced.

Why would it have to be redesigned? It's a pretty big leap to assume the design is the problem.

MDOmnis:
...but a ride mechanic on YouTube had a pretty level headed and realistic assessment of the situation and theorized the possibility that the footer at the base of the diagonal support column had sunk a bit and caused extra stress at the top of that weld which formed a crack and things went downhill from there.

That has to be the most plausible scenario I've seen. It's also a scenario that you can't eyeball without equipment.

Jeff:

Why would it have to be redesigned? It's a pretty big leap to assume the design is the problem

Clearly the defensiveness is because only Intamins have issues. How dare someone suggest a B&M could have a design issue. 😎

Look. This is why is said just my opinion. However looking at the way the track is on that support, it APPEARS that the force is transferred directly outward/downward.

But I guess because I dont have the background of rideman or an engineering degree, or a seething hate towards only Intamin...my OPINION isnt valid...however watching the video of the train traversing the track...it definitely pushed outward, away from the support..which tells my "non professional" eye that is the direction most force is exerted...

On the note of footers settling... anyone notice the amount of footing reinforcement done on KI's Orion? Out by the turnaround with the low to the ground laterals, the footings have been reinforced with more concrete. Even to the point the low zone fences were rerouted over some of these new footings.

Certainly plausible that something like this was happening to Fury, but probably not as much as a noticeable rate.

Ascertaining that the force is directed outward doesn't require an engineering degree; it's literally one of the most basic concepts of physics. But as has been pointed out, it's a massive, wildly unfounded leap to imply that there is some design flaw of the support that caused this. And especially so based on the argument that they put the diagonal support on the wrong side, since supports can work in tension as well as compression.

Honest question for the room - do they not teach this stuff in grade school physics?

Good video of the crack while people were riding, scary and glad nothing more happened.

https://www.charlotteobserv...28683.html

That doesn't look scary to me. Quite the opposite, in fact, since it's a testament to just how safely engineered these rides are. One of the fastest coasters around is essentially missing an entire support and the end result was nothing more than the track flexing more than usual.

djDaemon:

Quite the opposite, in fact, since it's a testament to just how safely engineered these rides are.

Good point...guess maybe over time and the flexing might cause more damage. I do notice most rides flexing as they should. But you know how the public will now blow this way out of proportion, are coasters safe, I can hear it now. You know that conversation is coming!

I'm not suggesting that this should be front page news all week, but this is pretty significant. Does anyone here recall anything like this happening...ever? I don't, and I've been following this business a long time. I don't think this should devolve into a "are coasters safe" debate but I think this news is worthy of CNN and others covering it.

djDaemon:

Honest question for the room - do they not teach this stuff in grade school physics?

Not here in Florida. Could lead to dancing or indoctrination or woke mind virus.

Does anyone remember what happened specifically with Raptor, I dunno, almost two decades ago? I seem to recall something in/around the cobra roll had some kind of significant failure. Made quite the noise.

djDaemon:

Honest question for the room - do they not teach this stuff in grade school physics?

I wasn't in that room, must have been in the principal's office.