Intamin Bashing

In the short time that I've been a member to Pointbuzz, I've witnessed a tremendous amount of hatred towards Intamin. I must admit, I've shared in the bashing when it comes to TTD's downtime. But TTD aside (it is the first of it's kind), CP has been investing in this company since the early 80's. Let us not forget the "non-headache" rides that Intamin has given us: Demon Drop, Thunder Canyon, Avalanche Run, MF (aside from it's new seatbelt disaster)... Now I see WT is being nailed, is Intamin to blame? Did we just get stuck with a lemon impulse? Will CP try them again? *** Edited 8/24/2004 5:37:58 PM UTC by DemonDroppin'***

I'm pretty sure that Demon Drop has given it's fair share of problems maintenance-wise. Millennium Force also had some problems early on.

It seems what we are seeing here is that Intamin underestimated the life of the launce/lift cables. It originally manifested itself on the lift on MF, then the launch on Xcellerator, now on TDD. Technically, they may have gone by the specs the manufactuer of the cables had given them, which as we all now know were in error. The problems with the launch drive last year had to do with an inadequete hydraulic fluid cololing system. I've heard conflicting stories on this point. One is that Intamin underestimated how hot it can get in Sandusky in the Summer. The other story is that somebody at CP felt that the extra cooling system wasn't necessary. That problem was corrected for this year.

I think it is absolutelty ridiculous that people bash them in the first place. The folks at intamin are brilliant and about 99.5% of you people probably wouldn't know the first thing about engineering a roller-coaster. So before you go on complaining stop and think eveyone makes mistakes to even make rides like TTD, MF, WT run takes alot of planning and thinking. So what if it has problems nothing is perfect. They design/build rides so people like us can enjoy them. They don't guarentee it is always going to work. My theory is if you complain about this and always think that it's CP's or Intamin's fault then just stop riding it because what they are doing is important. It's just not Intamin who enforces these seatbelt things. It's the insurance companies also becasue their the ones who put alot of money insuring these things and they want them to be safe. So just stop complaining because i'm sure i'm not the only one who is annoyed by all this.

Well raptorrocks there have already been two answers proposed in other threads that will dispel all your worries. The first is that we complain because we care. We want everything to run 100% of the time, and even though that's not possible, when it is the same problem resulting in downtime over and over there IS A PROBLEM. Engineers make mistakes, but they shouldn't. A problem that occurs repeatedly shows that someone is not doing their job and Intamin should fix it. Also, it wasn't the insurance companies who said shorten the belts. It was Intamin and its already been discussed to death as to why it is a pointless knee-jerk reaction that provides no added safety benefit.
The answer to your second problem about being "annoyed by all this" is simple. Say goodbye and don't come back. We're glad to have your input, but if ours annoys you that much, you can leave.

I guess your right JuggaLotus I appologize for that stupid post I made..I should've thought about it before I just went off like that..Once again I'm sorry.

I don't think CP should buy anymore Intamin products. I think CP should stick with B&M for the duration.

Nobody should be angry with Intamin. All ride manufacturers have had problems with one ride or another. It's just Intamin makes the tallest and fastest, which can and will bring up more problems. Like B&M, if they were building Hyper, Giga, and Strata coasters like Intamin, they would have their own share of problems.

You should just be happy that there is a ride manufacturer out there that is willing to build these rides.

*** Edited 8/24/2004 7:34:40 PM UTC by Huggy Bear***

I agree. Nobody should be angry with a company whose poorly engineered rides cause death or injury and often require re-engineering. It's perfectly okay.

I'm not sure, but wasn't the only Intamin fatality, the man who fell off Superman: Ride of Steel and caused the seatbelt war?

It's true that everyone makes mistakes, but in the amusement industry you can only make so many before people stop coming to you for business. The cable snapping on Millennium Force could have been potentially fatal if anyone had been under the station at the time the catchcar came slamming back down the lift hill. When the cable snapped last year on Dragster I believe there were reports that it actually came out onto the midway in spots. This, too, could have seriously injured someone. This year it snapped again (various times) and, had an employee been walking under it at the time, the outcome could have been disasterous.

The point I'm trying to make is that Intamin and Cedar Point are obviously aware of the possibility of the cable snapping and seriously injuring or even killing someone, yet we have seen no visual modifications to the open areas where the cable is exposed to impede a horrific event like this from happening. It just seems like they are tempting fate with how often the cables seem to wear out. All I know is that a massive law suit would follow and I would be willing to bet that negligence would be a key argument against Intamin/CP.

Intamin rides have tossed people out of Superman at SFDL (non-fatality), and people have died being tossed from Perilous Plunge (Knott's), Hydro (Oakwood, UK) and Superman at SFNE. On top of that, the president of the company told a New England paper that the deaths were statistically insignificant in the context of all of their rides, which to me, is unacceptable.

The Impulses have all required major structural reinforcements. The hypers, including MF, had to go through several wheel formulas before they would operate consistently.

And if you want to go back to Demon Drop, that ride probably had as much downtime as Dragster. One of its clones at SFGAm (now at Geauga Lake) dropped a car on top of another in the shaft, and that particular ride, according to most accounts, still doesn't work right.

I'm sorry, but when you spend $25 million on a ride, it had sure as hell better work, and work 96% of the time like the rest of the rides.

Demon Drop was a maintenance nightmare during the first season. In it's day, it was probably pushing the technology envelope as much as Dragster is today, with the resulting downtime.

The difference is that the internet did not exist as we know it today, so the average park goer was probably not aware of the downtime due to lack of discussion boards like this.

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Pete said:
Demon Drop was a maintenance nightmare during the first season. In it's day, it was probably pushing the technology envelope as much as Dragster is today, with the resulting downtime.

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The fact that it would use "electronic sensors" and that a computer would be used to run Demon Drop was heavily promoted in it's original press release. So I'm assuming the technology was indeed ahead of it's time, although I don't know the specifics of what exactly caused it's down time during it's first season, can't imagine DD was down as much as TTD, especially in it's second season of operation.

But, you don't know if it was or not. I think Pete might of been there.

I think we have every right to say Intamin sucks if we want to. While 99.5% of us don't know how to engineer a coaster, we haven't gone to school and practiced for a good chunk of our lives. Engineering is their proffession, and its a proffession that isn't real open to making mistakes as peoples lives are often being dealt with.

I know it's a bit more extreme than a few fatalities, but what would happen if a large bridge had a design flaw and collapsed, and then the president of the engineering firm that was responsible said "Well, compared to the number of people that cross our bridges every year, 79 fatalities is a very small percentage."

Engineers are payed and trusted to be as close to perfect in their work as humanly possible, and I don't really feel Intamin has done this.

Thanks for that "dripping with sarcasm" post Michael Darling. Jeff made the same point, although without the humor.

Intamin faces huge problems, IMO. And perception is one of them--in the Amusement World, of course.

MrScott

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DemonDroppin' said:
Now I see WT is being nailed, is Intamin to blame? Did we just get stuck with a lemon impulse? Will CP try them again?

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Why is it a lemon??

Because its yellow. Everyone knows that!

If I am not mistaken, demon drop was struck by lightning the year it came out.

I think I remember hearing something about the designer dying right before the opening of dd, and with his death a lot of the insight of the electrical system/computer of dd was not known.

So to make a long story short, cp/ intimin had to redesign the whole electrical system.

Of course I cant confirm this, but I remember hearing this story some years ago.