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Accident on Alton Towers Smiler


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From that:

 

An ex-employee at Alton Towers said: “They need to investigate if the accident was down to human error rather than mechanical failure. There was the ­operator and five technical service guys in that control cabin.

 

“Apparently ­another member of staff called the cabin to warn of the stranded carriage. They have phones, known as A-phones, all around the ride with a button direct to the ­operator’s cabin.

 

“I believe someone saw that carriage and rang the operator but, for whatever reason, they appear to have dismissed the information.”

 

Disclaimer: The following is purely speculation, based on the above quote.

 

According to this, there were 5 "technical service" people in the control booth. Now, I don't know what kind of lingo Alton Towers uses among its employees, but "technical service" sounds like what we would call "maintenance". If there were that many maintenance people in the control booth, then that brings a few thoughts to mind.

 

One, that as discussed earlier, the ride may very well have been in maintenance mode, which in turn may have been the cause of the block system not working properly.

 

Two, that I think the blame for this accident is more likely to fall on the shoulders of someone (or two) in "technical services", rather than on the normal ride operator.

 

Three, that they obviously knew something was wrong with the coaster, yet apparently sent a loaded train anyway with safety systems quite possibly still disabled (see point #1), and thus I would not be surprised to see criminal charges against the person(s) responsible.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm sorry to hear that.

On POVs of the Smiler ride, I've noticed the bumper on the back of the carriage is a relatively small round disc.

This perhaps is what V buckled the front of the loaded carriage and cost these poor girls their limbs.

Leah Washington lost her left leg, Vicky Balch her right. Look where they were sitting.

The carts' bumpers didn't seem meant for crash potential, just the polite bump action that occurred with Les Taxis.

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Theme Park A Ghost Town, Two Hour Usual Lines 5 Minutes, Fast Track Booths Closed:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alton-towers-theme-park-ghost-6175760

Terp Read the comment section of this article. The people commenting have mentioned that the park is as packed as usual. If you notice the photos almost everything (trees, Buildings, etc) has long shadows in them which to me means they were taken in the early morning. I can take some photos at Cedar Point during the ERT session that would make it look like a ghost town in the middle of summer if that was my intention. Now do I think attendance has dropped off a little bit yes. But this seems to be a story that is highly sensationalized for clicks and comments.

Edit: it appears the comment section was removed from the article (at least on the mobile version). I was linked to this article when it first came out at the beginning of the month by a friend. The comments were saying that there wasn't a noticeable difference in attendance or wait times and that this was a slander piece. That might be why the comment section is not available anymore.

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I guess it was a copy and paste article with the same photos from another website. Here is the link to it and check the comment section under 'best rated' and there are plenty of people talking about how the park was packed and high ticket prices haha.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3180987/Heading-Oblivion-Alton-Towers-quiet-thrillseekers-barely-queue-popular-rollercoasters-park-shuts-early-hardly-s-there.html#article-3180987

I knew I wasn't going crazy about seeing a comment section on this article.

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Article writers hate it when you correct them. I remember a few years ago I went to an Indians game and the attendance was low. The next day Yahoo had an article up saying that not even John Adams (the dude who beats the drum out in the bleachers) showed up. I posted a comment saying that he was in fact there, and the next day the comments section was gone, and the article still said he wasn't there.

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Does anyone know the theme of The Smiler? From pictures, it seems like they themed it to a machine-like construction.

From reading and looking at videos, it was a "Marmalizer"; a 'machine' that was invented to disorient and confuse it's victims that they were happy and not complaining and would accept things as they were. I suspect the designer wanted it to be like a government plot.

The roller coaster was built around something that looked like a spider, that had effects on each arm to make it more frightening, barrels of toxic 'smile' gas, and signs. Then there was a creepy laughing Willy Wonka-sequel theme song.

I got this from the net- there's and actual architectural out there about what spider arm went where and what it did.

To be blunt: I wouldn't enjoy being the ride operator.

As to the article about the empty park and the suspicious photos, I've been noticing that many modern reporters write what they wish to have happen, not the facts as they happen. I conspiratorially think they are part of the Marmelization process.

Edit: after posting this, I realized my avatar doesn't seem immune to the process.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Never said that attendance wasn't down or going to be lower due to the accident. I just said it wasn't as dramatic as the article mentioned. It wasn't a "ghost town" as the article tried to present it as. The news article and their author used hyperbole to try and sensationalize a tragedy and generate clicks. A reasonable person would assume that attendance would drop after an accident of this magnitude. But one would also suspect that the park being closed for close to a week during peak visiting season while shutting down its marquee ride for the time being would also affect the bottom line. If KI closed Banshee or Diamondback for the year for mechanical issues would attendance drop? Or if KI or CP was shut down for just one weekend (Alton Towers was shut down for 5 days after the accident) during the summer would profit numbers for the park take a hit? I would assume yes for both of those questions.

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