Thunder Mountain Crashes Again

CujoSR · Post by **CujoSR** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:31 am

Today at about 5:05 a train on Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad collided with another train near the loading area.

NBC is reporting that an 11-year-old boy was treated for a neck injury. A 35-year-old man may have also been treated for neck injuries.

Disneyland spokesman Bob Tucker said only that the ride had been closed and state safety regulators notified.

"In an abundance of caution, the attraction is now closed. ... We are investigating the situation and will report back once we have more facts."

Thunder Mountain was involved in a de-railment in which 22-year-old, Marcelo Torres, was killed last September. The cause was determined to be poor maintenence.

Thunder Mountain also had an accident last April where two trains collided into each other. The cause was said to be human error. No one was riding at the time of this accident.

BirdMom · Post by **BirdMom** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:51 am

I suppose the old adage that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it applies to Disneyland maintenance...

CujoSR · Post by **CujoSR** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 1:09 am

This seems more like the April crash than anything else. Human error? Maybe.

Jungle Vanessa · Post by **Jungle Vanessa** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 6:22 am

CujoSR wrote:This seems more like the April crash than anything else. Human error? Maybe.

It's a very good possibility, though I kinda hope not.

Grumpy · Post by **Grumpy** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 1:51 pm

CujoSR wrote:This seems more like the April crash than anything else. Human error? Maybe.

What it sounds like. Either that, or some type of electrical malfunction, or brake malfunction. I guess it just needs to be given extra attention. .

GMC · Post by **GMC** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:03 pm

the april crash was human error, and the guy saved his job by taking off his name badge in the adventure frontier office, and asking who was going to escort him out of the park.

What happened last night would have required at least two humans doing it on purpose, and more than likely an override malfunct. It is hoped by all in the adventure frontier main street department that this is a simple sensor malfunction, and not a computer bug.

I dread seeing the maintenence lights comming from behind the emporium from main street station, but if i will be down for a while, maybe i'll get to meet my fellow conductors, that have been at thunder for a while.

BirdMom · Post by **BirdMom** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:04 pm

after I read the details on the NBC4 website, I was wondering how on earth one train could rear end the other if the sensors are supposed to indicate two trains being too close together then shut the system down?.... manual override? why do something so clearly stupid when the trains are loaded with guests? or are they still allowing 16-year-olds to be r.o.'s?

IndyandMarion · Post by **IndyandMarion** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:49 pm

Wait? 16?

Geez. Here at WDW, if they found someone working an attraction (as in sending the cars, ect.) at 16 they would fry your ass on the spot.

And this is true they want you to be 18 that way when you do encounter that one tourist that pisses you off, when you "accidently" kill the person, they want to throw you to the law as an adult.

lady ulrike · Post by **lady ulrike** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 9:24 pm

Thunder Mountain also had an accident last April where two trains collided into each other. The cause was said to be human error. No one was riding at the time of this accident.

I had heard that this one was not human error. I heard that it was while they were powering up from a downtime and they were in manual mode (for those of you who don't know, that's the maintenance/fix the ride mode and it's not operated in this mode) and the train failed to detect a train. I had also heard that it was something that couldn't have happened in normal mode. I have no idea what happened this time, noone (except those there at the time) will probably know the truth until several months later, that's what happened with the first one.

hulkcoaster · Post by **hulkcoaster** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 2:31 pm

It seems like the fault of the problem was the switch, which sent a train ito an occupied station. If the switch is the fault of the problem maybe this wasn't human error. After the first accident all the functions were switched to computers, so the switch is definitely not manually operated now and I'm pretty sure it's never been. Sounds like a faulty sensor or switch mechanism. But some blame could lie on the operators who failed to notice the switch was in the wrong position and still pressed the load enable button, unless the brakes failed. Also the heads up display in the tower should have shown the position of the switch, unless the sensor showed it was in the right position.

And also, you have to be 18 to have basically any job at the resort.