The Smiler Incident 02/06/15

[dazza4783]

Realistically, a ride shouldn't be built or designed such that any train, full or empty, can stall at any point.

No ride is designed to do that, and I suppose there are a lot of scenarios that you just can't plan for. Like has been said the wind could also have been a factor in why the train stalled. There are lots of coasters that have to be closed if the wind gets too high, The Big One and Jubilee Odyssey are 2 examples that spring to mind.

[sw7nutter]

Saw stalls regularly, The vampire stalls so often that there is a winch always on standby (there was in 2010 when I had a friend on the engineering team). Colossus can stall on the final turn. There was a day 2 years ago when 5 coasters at cedar point stalled. Stalls are very common and can't be avoided. Say something got caught then it would stall.
The smiler likely stalled because of winds.

[SkuM001]

Speculation disclaimer!

So based on the speculation so far in this thread, here is a summary of all the speculation and eye witness accounts, including the multiple points of failure likely to have occurred. With so many possible points of failure leading to the collision, you can understand why it has been described by Varney as a "unique circumstance".

The sequence of events below have differing reliability when it comes to sources, some facts are near certain, while others are only according to a few eye witness accounts.

-"The 16" board a Smiler car during normal operation. A ride shutdown occurs for an unknown reason and they must leave the car and wait on the platform.
-During the shut down, a new car is introduced. It is possible the shut down was simply to introduce this new car, or maybe another routine reason.
-Several cars are cycled around the track empty during the shutdown.
-The last car to be cycled around the track empty is the newly introduced car.

-Failure point 1: The new car is sent around empty without weighted dummys. As it's wheels are cold this increases the chance of a stall. It is not clear what the regular procedure is for introducing a new car during normal operation, a fact which has not been discussed in this thread. We know water dummys are used in the morning, but when a new car is introduced during regular operation, is the normal procedure to send it empty, with dummys, or with passengers for its first circuit? The answer to this question will determine if this is a failure to follow procedure by staff, or a case of inadequate procedure.

-Following the new car being sent around empty, the ride is declared back in operation.
-The next car is loaded with "The 16" passengers again. At this time it is not clear whether loading began before the stall, or after the stall. In theory, the car destined to stall could have still been on the lift, or approaching the batwing at the time loading first began. As the ride is a multi-car multi-block system, it will be normal to load a car while an empty car still goes around. Speculation about why the empty car wasn't allowed to come back to the station first is meaningless, as it is normal for the Smiler to have multiple cars out on the circuit. 5 cars don't all fit in the station at once!
-It is likely that the loaded car was dispatched before news reached the console of the stalled train. By this time the empty car had probably already stalled. The time margins would have been tight, and news of the stall almost certainly wouldn't have reached the console yet, or they wouldn't have dispatched a loaded train.

-Failure Point 2: A car stalled. This is a clear point of failure in itself. The stall occurred on a stretch of track notorious for stalls. Even with a safe block system, a stall during normal operation is a disaster, and would have resulted in days of shutdown.

-Failure Point 3: A car is dispatched full of passengers with a stalled train on the circuit. It all likelyhood there is little which could have been done about this, unless the ride op is looking at the correct CCTV view at the moment of dispatching the train. Communication of the stalled train may have taken a minute or two to reach the console, at best. This isn't even a complete failure, as the block system should prevent collision.

-The loaded car now makes it journey towards the lift hill, with the empty stalled car in the batwing.
-The loaded car correctly stops at the top of lift hill, the only reason to stop in this position in normal operation is because the next block section hasn't been cleared, or because of an estop. Either situation is possible, as we do not know what was going on in the console at this time. We do not know if they had spotted the stalled car or not at this point.
-Somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes pass, as described by multiple eye witnesses including those on the car, where the loaded car stops at the top of the lift hill.
-After this time has passed, the lift hill starts to move again, and the occupied car moves into the same block section as the stalled car. At this point a collision is unstoppable.
-The collision occurs.

-Failure point 4: A car moves into the occupied block section of track, leading to the collision. This is clearly the most hotly disputed part of the story, as several circumstances could have led to this scenario, all of which are still speculation at this point. No one has enough knowledge in the media, and even in this thread very little, of how the ride system work for us to be sure what happened.

Here are some of the suggested failure points, for failure 4:
-News of the stall still hadn't reached the console, and system is reset and car dispatched by engineer/ride op.
-New car on the track causing confusion of number of trains that should be in the system, similar to cause above.
-Stall is noted, and engineer tries to bring loaded car back down the lifthill, but sends the lifthill in the wrong direction.
-Block is somehow incorrectly marked as cleared due to system failure, or the proximity sensors being incorrectly set off at the bottom of lift hill 2.
-The lift hill is manually switched on for some other reason.
-The block section is marked as cleared manually for some other reason.

All the best to those recovering from injuries. Typing this all up have made the events clearer in my mind, hope it helps someone else understand too.

Speculation disclaimer!

[langolier]

So is it more likely to be the ride operators' or the engineer's fault that the ride was restarted after an e-stop with a car stuck in a specific block?

[ricardobugsy]

I cant believe that it is not standard operating protocol to let an empty / test train complete its run back to the station
before dispatching trains with passengers in.

The empty / test train did not complete the circuit and therefore failed the test!

IF... it had not been an empty / test train involved and just occurred during normal operations, I could have understood the next train being dispatched.

IF... the lead train had passengers in it, it probably would not have stalled (who knows).

Too many ifs...

[homer22422]

I am sick and tired of the press making up stories to increase the publicity of the news. Look at this article from the mirror as it is trying to portray a small malfunction of TH13TEEN and tried to make it sound as bad as the smiler crash.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i- ... on-5828778" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tgm999]

I am sick and tired of the press making up stories to increase the publicity of the news. Look at this article from the mirror as it is trying to portray a small malfunction of TH13TEEN and tried to make it sound as bad as the smiler crash.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i- ... on-5828778" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or this one also from the mirror. of thirteen being shut for a few minutes yeterday http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/al ... 45#rlabs=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ricardobugsy]

I agree. The press are looking to sensationalize every little thing at the moment.

We all know that BREAKDOWNS are a daily occurrence at every theme park across the world and whereas ACCIDENTS only happen once in a blue moon.

These kind of headlines are just gonna scare the uneducated rider into thinking whenever a lift hill stops or something that something catastrophic has happened.

[NemesisRider]

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but One Direction sent a message to Leah who was involved in the crash and lots of the top tweets about Alton Towers are on the subject of this.

[Ninnut85]

The mirror really seem to love milking this

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/al ... er-5845457" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[MerlinFan]

Oh for Heaven's sake! It's one thing that a national paper has got nothing better to write about other than a ride closing due to technical difficulties for half an hour - but the thing that makes me frustrated is the reactions of the people they interviewed! You 'freaked out' because they had to close the ride for a little bit? (This happens EVERY time I go to a theme park - Saw and Stealth seem to close every time I go to TP and don't even get started about The Slammer!) Have these people NEVER been to a theme park before?? (And if that's the case, why would they visit a theme park just after it's re-opened after a major incident?)

GRRR - making me so mad! I'm dying to get my first theme park fix this year! Got to wait until August though...

[rcopus]

The empty / test train did not complete the circuit and therefore failed the test!

How do you know what the test was or indeed what they were testing? You don't and neither does anyone else on here, so I wish people would stop harping on about not waiting for a reported 'test car' to return back to the station.

By this logic only one train between Glasgow and London could run at any single time.

but the thing that makes me frustrated is the reactions of the people they interviewed! You 'freaked out' because they had to close the ride for a little bit?

Totally agree, they went on a 'scary' ride like Thirteen and then complain they were scared at being stopped on a lift hill. Mission accomplished I'd say! :lol

[homer22422]

OOOOO I was stuck on th13teen for a few minutes.... I must be entitled for as much compensation as the smiler crash victims.
THE MIRROR should be sued

P.S - The worst thing about the mirror is that they do not allow anybody to comment on their reports. Bunch of milking idiots. Who in the world would get terrified by a ride stopping for a few seconds.

[missingaa]

This newspaper is really beginning to sicken me... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/al ... ch-5851620" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For as long as I live I will never buy another copy!!!

I hope, and fully expect that, Alton Towers will compensate these kids outside of the courts of law, and far far in excess of the legal guidelines.... So stick that in your pipe and smoke it Mirror

[ricardobugsy]

How do you know what the test was or indeed what they were testing? You don't and neither does anyone else on here, so I wish people would stop harping on about not waiting for a reported 'test car' to return back to the station.

By this logic only one train between Glasgow and London could run at any single time.

You're right! I don't know know what the test was.
I am just surprised that they don't let the car complete a full circuit before re-commencing normal operations.
Like start of day, they don't send a loaded train out, before the empty train has completed its morning test run.

[sw7nutter]

As a quick side note the national railways run on a multiple block system as well. When something goes wrong they shut down the block and no train can enter it. However they are slowly switching some lines to something called rolling block, which is currently in use on the DLR.
It completely depends on what the issue was in why they only test it a certain number of times. Also there is very little evidence to suggest that they hadn't already tested a train before that.

[tgm999]

But with the railways the whole block is a track circuit instead of having a few sensors either end of the block.

[homer22422]

Has anybody noticed how the mirror keeps on saying the same stuff about the smiler in every news report. They are miking the story to death and the worst part about this is that I think it is even humiliating the victims by caring about how much compensation they get or how alton towers is dealing with the situation than actually caring about the victims well being

[stealthsmiler]

How do you know what the test was or indeed what they were testing? You don't and neither does anyone else on here, so I wish people would stop harping on about not waiting for a reported 'test car' to return back to the station.

By this logic only one train between Glasgow and London could run at any single time.

You're right! I don't know know what the test was.
I am just surprised that they don't let the car complete a full circuit before re-commencing normal operations.
Like start of day, they don't send a loaded train out, before the empty train has completed its morning test run.

But by that logic that would mean only having one train running during normal operation and waiting for a full car to get back before dispatching the next. That would slow everything down and drastically increase queue times. The Smiler has operated successfully for two years like that with this one exception. I think that the fact the first car was empty isn't the most important factor. And it's a good thing it was empty as well or this whole situation would be a whole lot worse.

[SPAD]

But with the railways the whole block is a track circuit instead of having a few sensors either end of the block.

absolute block section signalling isnt always track circuited and is still in use on the mainline network...

im a train guard for a big TOC in the north!