Theme parks are fucked. If something like that happened at the carnival I worked for, we'd have schlepped that coaster back to HQ so it can get fixed before anyone goes on it.
No it's not in operation. They released a statement, the ride will be closed for about a month, maybe a month and a half. The replacement column is being manufactured and will be brought to the park this week.
that does make me wonder exactly how this could happen in the first place, I've never heard of this happening before. Structural failures in steel coasters are so rare.
This one is a newer design by the company that makes these. They have a really good track record and this is one of the first big issues they've had in like 40 years or something.
They also made the Intimidator and 4 other coasters at the park, but this one was designed to use less support members I think. The Intimidator has about 1.5 times as many support columns for an almost identical ride design, just like 25% smaller.
The crack showed up on the first big banking turn right after the 325' drop that puts you at like 100mph, so what probably happened was the column they used at the apex of that bank had a combination of welding issues and possibly a steel grade issue.
Luckily that section of the coaster is one of the most reenforced, there's 3 more columns holding up the turn, meaning this section was only unsupported for about 30'. So I don't think anyone was ever in serious danger during the likely 2-3 hours of operation between the crack forming and the ride being shut down.
Carowinds also has an issue where they have wooden coasters that need insane maintenance budgets to keep running. They also have a standing coaster by the same company that is frequently shut down (not for track issues, but other stuff) and they spend a large portion of their maintenance budget on those.
Hopefully this gets the Charlotte City Council and the regulators attention and they can investigate how the maintenance budget of the park is being allocated.
Right, so it's putting literally all force on that top corner every time. It has too few supports. It's too minimalist in its design. Even just one more column would redistribute enough force to prevent this happening in future, it's very lucky nobody was hurt.
The gap between the supports at that point is smaller than the width of a train, so I guess they figured the minimal supports would be okay given that at those points the weight is distributed across 3 supports, but maybe the angle the front of the train hit that bank put like a fraction of a second more strain on the center support before it got re-distrubuted.
They need to add strain gages to all the supports on all the rollercoasters and check for other areas on this and other coasters that are experiencing more strain than expected.
They just repainted Intimidator which is their #2 coaster (also designed and built by the same company). They still have 1 wooden coaster that is terrifying, is got so many bolts on it and so much wood that I'm amazed it wasn't the one to fail.
Everything else seemed okay while I was there, most of the older ones are smaller and have much larger and more frequent supports too. The insanely long hyper coasters like this tend to be engineered more heavily to reduce steel usage because of their size, and that's probably one of the issues here. This specific one is still a record holder, so they don't have other examples to compare it to.
Wait this thing is in operation still?
Theme parks are fucked. If something like that happened at the carnival I worked for, we'd have schlepped that coaster back to HQ so it can get fixed before anyone goes on it.
No it's not in operation. They released a statement, the ride will be closed for about a month, maybe a month and a half. The replacement column is being manufactured and will be brought to the park this week.
Looking forwards to seeing it break again then for exactly the same reasons this one broke.
This one is a newer design by the company that makes these. They have a really good track record and this is one of the first big issues they've had in like 40 years or something.
They also made the Intimidator and 4 other coasters at the park, but this one was designed to use less support members I think. The Intimidator has about 1.5 times as many support columns for an almost identical ride design, just like 25% smaller.
The crack showed up on the first big banking turn right after the 325' drop that puts you at like 100mph, so what probably happened was the column they used at the apex of that bank had a combination of welding issues and possibly a steel grade issue.
Luckily that section of the coaster is one of the most reenforced, there's 3 more columns holding up the turn, meaning this section was only unsupported for about 30'. So I don't think anyone was ever in serious danger during the likely 2-3 hours of operation between the crack forming and the ride being shut down.
Carowinds also has an issue where they have wooden coasters that need insane maintenance budgets to keep running. They also have a standing coaster by the same company that is frequently shut down (not for track issues, but other stuff) and they spend a large portion of their maintenance budget on those.
Hopefully this gets the Charlotte City Council and the regulators attention and they can investigate how the maintenance budget of the park is being allocated.
I do wonder if their B&M standup will get the Mantis treatment. It was a very rough ride when I went to Carowinds, which was ~2018 IIRC.
It's awful, a fun weird experience the first time, but not something you want to ride a bunch.
Has to be designed wrong. Too much force being applied repetitively to the exact same point?
That or it's bad steel I guess but I'd think that unlikely.
That's the one that broke, right after the drop. That's where the max speed is reached.
Right, so it's putting literally all force on that top corner every time. It has too few supports. It's too minimalist in its design. Even just one more column would redistribute enough force to prevent this happening in future, it's very lucky nobody was hurt.
The gap between the supports at that point is smaller than the width of a train, so I guess they figured the minimal supports would be okay given that at those points the weight is distributed across 3 supports, but maybe the angle the front of the train hit that bank put like a fraction of a second more strain on the center support before it got re-distrubuted.
They need to add strain gages to all the supports on all the rollercoasters and check for other areas on this and other coasters that are experiencing more strain than expected.
If it's not in operation, then that's fine. Hopefully they can have inspectors do a one over on everything else while they're around.
They just repainted Intimidator which is their #2 coaster (also designed and built by the same company). They still have 1 wooden coaster that is terrifying, is got so many bolts on it and so much wood that I'm amazed it wasn't the one to fail.
Everything else seemed okay while I was there, most of the older ones are smaller and have much larger and more frequent supports too. The insanely long hyper coasters like this tend to be engineered more heavily to reduce steel usage because of their size, and that's probably one of the issues here. This specific one is still a record holder, so they don't have other examples to compare it to.