Jr gemini derails. (also: Maverick restraint design)

Well, at least the first car.

On thrs night as I was walking near jr gemini, they were in the process of doing a walk down of guests on the lift. The front end of the first car was raised up in the air about 6-7 inch off the track. It looked as if the up stops were gone. It did not look like anyone was hurt.

Later in the night, maintnance was looking at the base of the lift with flashlights.

Not a good month for cedarfair....first magnum, now jr gemini and raging wolf bobs.

To put 2 and 2 together:

Maintenance Budget

+

Department Cuts

=

Maintenance Department Budget Cuts

No wonder why it was not running during coastermania, but that is a real down for Cedar Fair.

The company will not get a single crumb of pity from me. They are getting what was coming to them.

Hearing about a coaster derailing is pretty upsetting, hearing about a childrens/toddler coaster derailing is just downright sickening. I sure hope they aren't cutting back on maintenance as 'Jump to Conclusions' said.

Is anyone even sure this thing derailed? Or, was the front car rolling against the upstops for some reason, like maybe a chain dog problem, which pushed the bottom of the car up against the stops.

It would be very, very strange if the front upstops on both the left and right sides failed at the same time. Almost impossible I would think. Especially since the cars normally roll on the road wheels. Something does not sound right about the original observation.

And if I can also add, reffering to this "possible/unconfirmed" problem as "sickening" is just WRONG. Coasters are a "heavy equipment"! They break! ALL machines break. Give CF a break.

If this did in fact happen, I feel safe in assuming that no one got hurt, or else we would have heard about it by now.

Jump to Conclusions pretty much summed up my theory about why things keep going wrong. While that's just a theory, it's no big secret that nearly every department's budget is getting smaller each year.

I'm also a little skeptical that both up-stops failed at the same time, but even so CF has been having quite a few incidents lately... Not sure why. Safety seems to be so high up on their list, but the reduced budgets probably doesn't help anything.

I guess budget cuts caused whatever problem there is. We wrapped that up nicely. Who wants to write the official incident report? We need to get it in the mail to Cedar Point ASAP.

So many experts around here, financial and otherwise, all in tune with the budgets and their effect, able to provide definitive answers at a moments notice. If only Cedar Point would hire PointBuzzers and disgruntled seasonal employees to run their park, then finally it'd be a safe place worth visiting.

*** Edited 6/20/2007 12:38:35 AM UTC by Walt***

^ I would love to see CP then.

Inside of a month DT, MS and any other rollercoaster or ride that they see as not good enough in their eyes would be demolished making room for the legendary 500' rollercoaster.

So then Walt, whats the reason Jr. Gemini had problems, since clearly, people like Ralph (a disgruntled employee) and speculation about budget cut backs is purely based on missing evidence, so please do tell us, Walt, whats the reason? I think its high and mighty of you to call people disgruntled simply because they point out CP's budget cutbacks.

So obviously you're the expert, you tell us.

Well, I'm surprised we haven't heard more of these kinds of things. Working all your employees o-c every day can't exactly make them alert and attentive.

I never said Ralph was a disgruntled employee. You're incorrectly assuming that was directed at him.

I don't know what's wrong with Jr. Gemini. That's sort of the point. Do you honestly think anyone here is qualified to make direct connections between budgets and safety? Do you think people hear opinions and/or anecdotes from employees / supervisors / friends / enthusiasts / etc. and then fill in the blanks on their own? There's nothing wrong with open discussion and speculation, but it's a little early for foregone conclusions, especially when it just seems "political."

And because I called someone out on making assumptions, I'm therefore claiming I'm an expert? Huh? Jump to Conclusions made a very strong statement in the second post of this thread. Why didn't you challenge him?

If you don't think people have poor experiences with Cedar Point and then let that influence the tone of their posts, you haven't been around these parts very long. Backstories often go untold.

Hey everyone - don't let facts (or the lack thereof) get in the way of you having all the answers. Have you people never worked in the real world? If only things we so black and white. Guess what - very little in this world has single cause and a single effect. Be critical of Walt all you want, but he speaks from experience and approaches things with a rational, open mide. Try it, you might find a lot fewer black helicopters flying around.
*** Edited 6/20/2007 2:21:12 AM UTC by Spit***

Yes, but there is a proven correlation between the decrease in black helicopters and the decrease in forum enjoyment.

Only when the level of black helicopters is kept consistently high is this forum at its best. ;)

^Jugga - I will give you that. :)

I rarely get involved in these discussions. I find it better to just read an chuckle to myself, but it is frustrating when people are critical when the safety meassure work. There are multiple levels of fail safe measures on these complex machines that protect the riders from injury. The whole goal is to prevent failures, but if a failure happens, fail in a way the protects the riders.

In all the recent cases - no one was injured. The safety measures work. CF should be applauded.

It is just such a cop-out to say budget cuts have lead to all these failures. Put some thought into the discussion.
*** Edited 6/20/2007 2:37:00 AM UTC by Spit***

I think it's all a conspiracy.

Spit: You've got it. Failure is not an option. It's mandatory. The engineering challenge, then, is all in how you deal with the failure.

Does anybody know what really happened or appeared to happen? Please remember that there is a certain amount of permissible 'slop' between the upstop and the rail, if only to prevent the wheel assembly from binding up on the peak of a hill, when the track pitches downward.

Is it possible that something less nefarious happened, perhaps the nose of the train merely got lifted by the lift mechanism into an unusual-but-not-unexpected position? If it did derail, could it have been a catastrophic failure of one of the modified track ties, where the up-stops were allowed to pull past the rails because of a gauging problem?

There are lots of ways for a system to fail, and most of them can be attributed to little more than dumb luck.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.