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Clearance around The Bat


Vortex_fan
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We all know of the orange suspended roller coaster tucked behind the trees named The Bat. I have noticed there is an accident waiting to happen on it! I was on it the other day with my parents and half of the people on the train were saying the car's are beginning to get really close to supports. So I went on it again and I started to know what they were talking about it's getting close to supports and trees are growing close too. I remember an accident a few years ago at six flags magic mountain a tree caused the ride to derail off the tracks but thankfully nobody died. I don't know if I am just seeing things or is it real? Let me know if you are seeing this ride getting close to objects like these. Here are some photo's of the Ninja accident.Related imageImage result for Ninja derailsImage result for Ninja derailsRelated image

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I mean we are talking about a six flags park known for injuries. When I go to a Six Flags park I say goodbye to my loved ones before I ride. No I am joking that was a freak accident. The Bat has always been close to the supports its that Near Miss factor. The park trims the trees as needed. I see no issue with out Arrow suspended coaster.  

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Also, the park was very aware of the accident that happened at SFMM. Just like when the accident at SFKKingdom happened on the Drop Tower. They often will close similar rides and redo, or rethink safety precautions/ hardwares to help ensure the accident can't happen on one of their rides. Just like when WindSeeker got stuck for 4 hours at... Knotts? They sent out retrieval devices for all the WindSeeker rides across the country.

I won't say an accident couldn't happen, but it's probably low probability, and the Cedar Fair has so far proven that they take ride safety seriously. I think you can ride The Bat and just have fun :)

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The cars are no closer to the supports on The Bat than they were they day the ride was installed as Top Gun (well perhaps you can allow for a little bit of structural settling, but we're talking maybe fractions of an inch)  They may appear to come close to touching the supports, but they are designed with such clearances that it would never happen (baring a major structural failure).  The supports are not bigger, the suspension system is not longer, the cars are not wider.  Functionally its pretty much the same ride as its always been, just a different paint job and theming.

 

You here somewhat similar tails of how The Beast is so much slower today than when it opened, how they've trimmed it to death.  However, there was a side by side POV comparison of The Beast from early in its life span (perhaps even prior to opening) and a POV done around the time that Banshee opened up and the ride paces itself along the track pretty much identical to how it paced itself around the track 30+ years ago.

Now the trees may be a different story, some trees have naturally grown closer to the ride thru the years, however things like this are inspected on a regular basis, trees that have entered the final stages of their natural life and could potential fall and land on/damage the track or supports will be removed.  Kings Island probably removes trees every off season, a vast majority of which we never know about.

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The cars are not any closer to the supports today than they were when the ride first opened in 1993.

The accident on Ninja did not have anything to do with the cars being too close to anything.  A large branch fell on the track.  You can make a valid argument that the trees should not overhang the track.

The title to this thread is INCREDIBLY misleading. 

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3 minutes ago, Browntggrr said:

The cars are not any closer to the supports today than they were when the ride first opened in 1993.

The accident on Ninja did not have anything to do with the cars being too close to anything.  A large branch fell on the track.  You can make a valid argument that the trees should not overhang the track.

The title to this post is INCREDIBLY misleading. 

I agree with this 100%. They shouldn't of have branches hang over track but it didn't hot a tree branch still connected it fell off the tree. The Bat is perfectly fine and still a great ride.

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Not sure if most of the people on here remember this, but The Bat actually had an accident a few years ago during testing where it hit a bucket truck.

As for tree trimming, the incident I referenced was due to tree trimming.

I would find it very hard to believe that the ride is possible to hit the supports without a major catastrophic failure occuring before hand.

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1 hour ago, Vortex_fan said:

We all know of the orange suspended roller coaster tucked behind the trees named The Bat. I have noticed there is an accident waiting to happen on it! I was on it the other day with my parents and half of the people on the train were saying the car's are beginning to get really close to supports. So I went on it again and I started to know what they were talking about it's getting close to supports and trees are growing close too. I remember an accident a few years ago at six flags magic mountain a tree caused the ride to derail off the tracks but thankfully nobody died. I don't know if I am just seeing things or is it real? Let me know if you are seeing this ride getting close to objects like these. Here are some photo's of the Ninja accident.

Wow - are the supports getting bigger like trees as they get older:P:P  Here I thought they were non-living supports...

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11 minutes ago, radishman said:

Thanks for making me slightly worried on all future rides. So that was nice. As unlikely as these things are, I'm always somewhat worried about being part of an accident. Like if Delirium just randomly came apart as we're swinging ha.

You have nothing to worry about. It is more dangerous to drive there then to ride the rides. Now if this was tear down and set up every weekend type of carny rides then I would understand.

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2 hours ago, teenageninja said:

Not sure if most of the people on here remember this, but The Bat actually had an accident a few years ago during testing where it hit a bucket truck.

As for tree trimming, the incident I referenced was due to tree trimming.

I would find it very hard to believe that the ride is possible to hit the supports without a major catastrophic failure occuring before hand.

That was in 2002 and proper lockout protocol wasn’t used, the car that was ripped from the tracks was covered with a tarp that day until investigators from the state had inspected it. 

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28 minutes ago, radishman said:

Thanks for making me slightly worried on all future rides. So that was nice. As unlikely as these things are, I'm always somewhat worried about being part of an accident. Like if Delirium just randomly came apart as we're swinging ha.

 Any time you have this fear, get on the forum, add up the total numbers of rides that people have had on the coasters (a lot of them have them listed in their signature) and then find the average across all of the members on the forum, and then realize that there are people here that have 600 or 700 laps on a coaster, and have lived to add another tick to their tally. I've been riding since I was 6. I'm 38 now. You'll be fine. LOL

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^^^ That is great. I didn't realize I was an enthusiast for the lonest time. Then one day its like well hell yeah I am. I have been riding coasters since I was a toddler haha. I have ridden over 50 different coaster ( so far) and I have been on some coasters so many times before I started keeping count that I have no clue how many times I have been on them haha. Ride on, Ride Warriors!

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^^^ That is great. I didn't realize I was an enthusiast for the lonest time. Then one day its like well hell yeah I am. I have been riding coasters since I was a toddler haha. I have ridden over 50 different coaster ( so far) and I have been on some coasters so many times before I started keeping count that I have no clue how many times I have been on them haha. Ride on, Ride Warriors!
And B&M is your favorite roller coaster company isn't it? Thank goodness it's not Intamin!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

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3 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

And B&M is your favorite roller coaster company isn't it? Thank goodness it's not Intamin! emoji23.pngemoji23.pngemoji23.pngemoji23.png

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

Haha just because I like some coasters over others doesn't mean I wont ride them...………..ugh i'll even ride Vekoma's and old Arrows for new credits. I'm shivering from disgust at those lol

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4 hours ago, radishman said:

Thanks for making me slightly worried on all future rides. So that was nice. As unlikely as these things are, I'm always somewhat worried about being part of an accident. Like if Delirium just randomly came apart as we're swinging ha.

You really have nothing to worry about. Accidents like that are 1 in a million.

There's easily been a few million riders since any bad accidents happened......

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There are several rides where I feel somebody doing something stupid could really hurt themselves and others, but fortunately people are surprisingly sensible the vast majority of the time. The Bat feels very safe to me all things considered. I worry about what other riders will do far more than the steel/trees/etc.

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17 hours ago, teenageninja said:

Not sure if most of the people on here remember this, but The Bat actually had an accident a few years ago during testing where it hit a bucket truck.

As for tree trimming, the incident I referenced was due to tree trimming.

I would find it very hard to believe that the ride is possible to hit the supports without a major catastrophic failure occuring before hand.

 

15 hours ago, pkiridesmaint said:

That was in 2002 and proper lockout protocol wasn’t used, the car that was ripped from the tracks was covered with a tarp that day until investigators from the state had inspected it. 

Ah yes I remember this.  I was a ride op at the park at the time but happened to be off work and in the park as a guest the day that happened.  I was waiting to ride SOB and saw a large tarp over the track of Top Gun (at the time) and remember asking one of my buddies on the SOB crew what happened.

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  • 1 month later...

Okay let me get this straight once again I am sorry for my little Nephew Nick. He didn't know what he was talking about:mellow:. I am so sorry about all this but he was going on about the Original Bat in 1981. He was afraid it would fail once again like it did years ago. But no it won't we have better technologies right now! One thing is I am with him on the trees they are a little far out onto the track. But they are small twigs not branches so it wouldn't be just right to say that yet. I am so sorry about this I should have checked this quicker.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry^_^

Michael 

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