Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers - carriage collision

That must have been scary as hell especially if you saw the carriage there as the ride set off. Surely the carriages are designed invade this ever happens though.
 
OpenToSuggestions said:
I put a huge post on how bad the Black Hole used to be, but thought I'd best remove it. Anyone wishing to know can PM me.
It was built in 1982 and decommissioned in 2004. I worked on it and it was flipping dangerous. Not because it was badly maintained but just how it worked.
My post is nothing to do with Smiler, but the Black Hole is what replaced it.
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That was the last time I went to Alton Towers, when the black hole was the main ride. 88ish I think. I thought it was amazing at the time, didn't feel dangerous, but I would be interested to know why :)

Didn't they take the roof off it and call it something else for a while and then it stood for years decommissioned?
 
dannyjo22 said:
That was the last time I went to Alton Towers, when the black hole was the main ride. 88ish I think. I thought it was amazing at the time, didn't feel dangerous, but I would be interested to know why :)

Didn't they take the roof off it and call it something else for a while and then it stood for years decommissioned?
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I seem to recall it was identical to the ride 'The Beast' but in the dark?
 
dannyjo22 said:
That was the last time I went to Alton Towers, when the black hole was the main ride. 88ish I think. I thought it was amazing at the time, didn't feel dangerous, but I would be interested to know why :)

Didn't they take the roof off it and call it something else for a while and then it stood for years decommissioned?
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Wasn't the black hole just the Beast with a tent over it.
 
thenewoc said:
I always assumed these rides were controlled by computers to prevent this sort of thing happening.
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It's scary to think that this could have been a life or death situation, you'd have thought those computers would have been extensively tested. I know they probably were, but the amount of times the Smiler has broken down is unbelievable.
 
Tom Martow said:
It's scary to think that this could have been a life or death situation, you'd have thought those computers would have been extensively tested. I know they probably were, but the amount of times the Smiler has broken down is unbelievable.
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The PLCs are extensively tested, hell we have PLCs from the 80s still running today.
Either a level 0 instrument failed and the program wasn't designed to deal with it I.e. the car going passed a faulty proxy when the programme asked.

Its either going to be a maintenance change issue or a freak situation that the original programmer didn't think off.

Most of these systems have pages of interlocks and self tests, wouldn't be surprised if a.key system was left in manual or engineering mode after the down period
 
Apparently the car with passengers in was sent off a good 5 mins after the test car stalled. The ride lasts 3 mins, didn't they wonder why the other car hadn't returned to the station?
 
malachi said:
They are but even the computers need monitoring. Look what happened years ago on the Pepsi Max when their computer crashed.
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I never realised that Pepsi Max one at Blackpool had issues previously as I went on that about half a dozen times a few years back on a mates weekend break. Didn't realise where we were going to go whilst there so never did any research prior to going on it. I remember how terrifying that ride is though, doesn't surprise me it's had issues.
 
Tom Martow said:
It's scary to think that this could have been a life or death situation, you'd have thought those computers would have been extensively tested. I know they probably were, but the amount of times the Smiler has broken down is unbelievable.
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I'm very surprised that given one or more circumstances exist that the ride could manually be started. It seems a lot of responsibility to be placed on a ride attendant.
 
MeatLoaf said:
Apparently the car with passengers in was sent off a good 5 mins after the test car stalled. The ride lasts 3 mins, didn't they wonder why the other car hadn't returned to the station?
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I thought the track was pretty much completely covered by CCTV. So surely if a failsafe didn't activate then the ride operator should have spotted it and pressed the emergency stop button. Surely even complex computer systems such as the one that controls the smiler will have an emergency stop that stops all cars at the nearest brake points.

Why don't the cars themselves have some form of emergency braking system? In this day and age you'd expect those cars to have some of onboard computer that can function independent of the main computer system. So at least if the main computer failed, the onboard computer can then apply the brakes and safely stop the car.

I believe that the computer system was accidentally left in "maintenance mode", as surely the control computer would have detected a problem and stopped the ride.
 
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