Track "seperates" on The Smiler

[MouseAT]

If you had a 3 month old car that started overheating would you start talking about how it is 90 degrees today or would you say the car is a piece of crap?

The weather was not outside the normal design parameters of the ride so even if the heat played a roll, it only exacerbated an existing issue.

That's petty much exactly what people are saying. Given the misalignment of some of the track during construction, the chances are that sections of track were/are already under significant strain from where they've essentially been forced together. Add in the track expansion from the warm weather we've been having, the strain potentially increases and bolt go snap.

The root cause is probably a fundamental problem with the way in which the track has been installed. The heat is probably a significant factor in why it's happened now.

“Yesterday morning, in line with our standard procedures, Alton Towers Resort closed The Smiler to investigate a small piece of debris that had allegedly fallen from the track,” she said.

Dear Merlin,

We know you have a team of people that are capable of producing some downright ridiculous PR. I'm sure that works incredibly well for you when you're trying to market your attractions to the general public, even if it annoys the hell out us enthusiasts when they start spouting ridiculous, implausible crap. But please, for the love of $deity, don't let them handle an incident like this.

The ride wasn't closed because "a small piece of debris had allegedly fallen from the track", it closed because it suffered a mechanical failure that could potentially put riders at risk. Photos are widely circulated, this is being widely discussed on enthusiast sites, and the information on what actually happened is quite widely visible on Google. Now is the time for honesty and reassurance, not spin. People who are interested enough to check out your press release are also going to find enough information to know that you're lying to them, and trying to sweep the whole thing under the carpet.

Find somebody competent to handle your PR over this before it backfires on you. Quickly.

Yours sincerely,
A Mouse with a highly tuned BS detector.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Official word from Alton about this (thanks to Ride Rater: http://riderater.co.uk/2013/smiler-inci ... of-debris/ )

“Yesterday morning, in line with our standard procedures, Alton Towers Resort closed The Smiler to investigate a small piece of debris that had allegedly fallen from the track,” she said.

Love "allegedly". Yeah, there are photos all over the internet dear showing a bolt missing and track split - that's a little more than allegedly.

Just like when the Monorail allegedly crashed last year!

Like with anything though, a company isn't gonna go out and say that something that would cause business to drop dramatically... Hence the 'debris' (which technically once it came apart it can be termed as such) and the allegedly makes it more open as to that they were unable to prevent the situation...

Saying their rides come apart is actually a worse bit of PR to put out... All about spin...

 

[Robbie]

Official word from Alton about this (thanks to Ride Rater: http://riderater.co.uk/2013/smiler-inci ... of-debris/ )

“Yesterday morning, in line with our standard procedures, Alton Towers Resort closed The Smiler to investigate a small piece of debris that had allegedly fallen from the track,” she said.

Love "allegedly". Yeah, there are photos all over the internet dear showing a bolt missing and track split - that's a little more than allegedly.

Not just photos - according the public's posts on their Facebook page the bolt hit about 165 people on it's way down.

 

[lisadj]

Well, the bolt landed in the queue and IIRC, the article seemed to indicate that three more trains completed the course... Were any trains unloaded at either lift? (I'd have e-stopped the ride if I was told a structural bolt had come out of the track.) I'm guessing they stopped it pretty quick.

Hi again (I'm the one who posted the photos).
Three trains did complete the course after the bolt fell. I was shocked because I thought it would be stopped straight away but either it wasn't possible or not noticed. Nobody was unloaded, the last train was stuck at the last bit before the station for at least 45 minutes before the people were rescued.

 

[lisadj]

I see the AT facebook page is full of people complaining the ride is closed. No mention of the closure on Twitter or Facebook, the TV ad running constantly, and a mass e-mail - going to be a lot of very angry visitors to Alton Towers this week.

The hashtag was deactivated VERY quickly after the incident, and tweets were being removed. My friend tweeted and saw lots of people tweeting about it but then they were disappearing. I posted on facebook with the hashtag but it didn't work.

 

[Robbie]

I see the AT facebook page is full of people complaining the ride is closed. No mention of the closure on Twitter or Facebook, the TV ad running constantly, and a mass e-mail - going to be a lot of very angry visitors to Alton Towers this week.

The hashtag was deactivated VERY quickly after the incident, and tweets were being removed. My friend tweeted and saw lots of people tweeting about it but then they were disappearing. I posted on facebook with the hashtag but it didn't work.

Yes, I know but regardless of the hashtag a tweet from @AltonTowers along the lines of "Sorry, The Smiler is closed today for technical reasons" would be a good use of social media and at least give them the chance to say "we told you" when the hundreds of people turn up and complain. Pulling the TV ads would also be a good idea.

 

[furie]

It probably took some time for them to realise there was an issue - it would have had to have fed up from the queue line, either through Chinese whispers to the station, or to the staff by the entrance. So four trains getting around (considering two were already "in motion" isn't too unrealistic.

The trains will pass sensors, so the operators can see where on the track a train is. If it's making it to the right places in the right time, then there'll be no cause for concern as far as the operators go. It sounds worrying, but...

While the track is obviously under strain and has "split", it's not moved too much, not to the extent that would cause the train to derail. The bolts holding the track in place will each be massively over tolerance, so the remaining two should be strong enough to hold the track together on the remain two points for at least a short time before the stress is too much. The track itself will also be relatively stiff so won't shift too far from the position it was meant to be in.

Essentially, the engineering is good enough to allow for a bolt to be thrown - though you certainly wouldn't want to run it like that knowing there is a fault and the movement is cause for concern.

The last train will have been evacuated from the brake run, as the station and subsequent "blocks" couldn't hold any more trains without releasing another one onto the track.

As for Alton deleting Tweets? I can understand that as you don't want hysteria, but I didn't know you could disable hashtags? The Tweets by private individuals to others couldn't be touched.

And Robbie, there's always people willing to take advantage of a situation, but I'll bet there was a degree of "metal spray" that turned from small fragments of a shear into cannonballs according to people looking at compensation.

It's worrying about the report of the boy being hit with the large bruise though, that's not the kind of thing than could/should be hidden away and health and safety would need to see the reports of that.

 

[lisadj]

I see the AT facebook page is full of people complaining the ride is closed. No mention of the closure on Twitter or Facebook, the TV ad running constantly, and a mass e-mail - going to be a lot of very angry visitors to Alton Towers this week.

The hashtag was deactivated VERY quickly after the incident, and tweets were being removed. My friend tweeted and saw lots of people tweeting about it but then they were disappearing. I posted on facebook with the hashtag but it didn't work.

Yes, I know but regardless of the hashtag a tweet from @AltonTowers along the lines of "Sorry, The Smiler is closed today for technical reasons" would be a good use of social media and at least give them the chance to say "we told you" when the hundreds of people turn up and complain. Pulling the TV ads would also be a good idea.

I just meant that there seems to be a massive coverup from the park and they didn't actually want people to know.

 

[Ian]

It's finally got in the press.

http://www.itv.com/news/central/story/2 ... wn-smiler/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-st ... e-23415889
http://news.sky.com/story/1119353/alton ... -over-bolt

 

[Mysterious Sue]

It's growing, lol

"We turned around and there was a metal bar not even a metre away on the floor behind us. It was just under one foot long and about two inches thick."

 

[furie]

^LOL! It'll be the entire train by Friday. Then everyone will bored of it

Official word from Alton about this (thanks to Ride Rater: http://riderater.co.uk/2013/smiler-inci ... of-debris/ )

“Yesterday morning, in line with our standard procedures, Alton Towers Resort closed The Smiler to investigate a small piece of debris that had allegedly fallen from the track,” she said.

Love "allegedly". Yeah, there are photos all over the internet dear showing a bolt missing and track split - that's a little more than allegedly.

Just like when the Monorail allegedly crashed last year!

Like with anything though, a company isn't gonna go out and say that something that would cause business to drop dramatically... Hence the 'debris' (which technically once it came apart it can be termed as such) and the allegedly makes it more open as to that they were unable to prevent the situation...

Saying their rides come apart is actually a worse bit of PR to put out... All about spin...

I think the word "allegedly" is quite wrong though. While they obviously don't want to say "yeah, a great big, skull smashing bit of metal snapped and flew into the crowd causing mass destruction, mayhem and the end of civilisation as we know it", it implied that the people there who witnessed it are lying. There are photos of the bolt gone from the section of track and of the track "split". It's not an alleged thing, it has demonstrably happened. You didn't see SFOT saying "a woman has allegedly been thrown from a train" - because it's not alleged if there are enough witness and evidence that's what happened. It happened, just word things better and stop trying to make it sound like your guests are a bunch of over-reacting liars (they're only the former ).

 

[SaiyanHajime]

It's growing, lol

"We turned around and there was a metal bar not even a metre away on the floor behind us. It was just under one foot long and about two inches thick."

This is a description of the same object. Check out this report from Facebook and you'll see what I mean...

"...metal bolt which came loose from The Smiler Ride structure, whizzed down and landed on the floor right next to my son who was in the queue on Sunday Morning. The bolt was a significant size approx 30 CM long and heavy."

The bolt was around 2 inches thick and a foot long.

 

[bladeboy]

The use of the word "allegedly" is to ensure they don't admit liability in case someone were to hypothetically claim for something.

 

[lisadj]

It's growing, lol

"We turned around and there was a metal bar not even a metre away on the floor behind us. It was just under one foot long and about two inches thick."

This is a description of the same object. Check out this report from Facebook and you'll see what I mean...

"...metal bolt which came loose from The Smiler Ride structure, whizzed down and landed on the floor right next to my son who was in the queue on Sunday Morning. The bolt was a significant size approx 30 CM long and heavy."

The bolt was around 2 inches thick and a foot long.

1 foot = 12 inches.
12 inches is approximately 30 cm.

I would've said it was 8 inches and 2 inches thick, but I didn't see the actual bolt. I only saw the hole it had come out of.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Allegedly the ride is ready to go again...

Unfortunately, it needs to be signed off by Gerst, who are for some reason tied up in Texas atm...

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Ohh dear, such a bad week for Gerstlauer.

I don't really see a problem with the press release - it's just covering themselves. I'm sure it's standard practice to use the word 'allegedly' until an investigation has been carried out. Imagine if it was your company and you had to draft something - I think I'd end up writing something similar.

 

[furie]

Nah, I still think it's a piss poor choice of word.

It would have read much better as:
“Yesterday morning, in line with our standard procedures, Alton Towers Resort closed The Smiler to investigate reports that a small piece of debris had fallen from the track,”

It's what you're actually doing and you're saying "we've had reports, we believe those reports and we're responding in the correct manner to find out what happened to cause those reports". It commits you to admitting nothing, but also doesn't fly in the face of overwhelming evidence that something did actually happen

 

[lisadj]

Nah, I still think it's a piss poor choice of word.

It would have read much better as:
“Yesterday morning, in line with our standard procedures, Alton Towers Resort closed The Smiler to investigate reports that a small piece of debris had fallen from the track,”

It's what you're actually doing and you're saying "we've had reports, we believe those reports and we're responding in the correct manner to find out what happened to cause those reports". It commits you to admitting nothing, but also doesn't fly in the face of overwhelming evidence that something did actually happen

I agree.

Apparently on twitter they are saying that the marmaliser has been switched on and a queue has been allowed to build. (from another forum)

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Ok, what you wrote sounds much better.
That's why I'm not in PR (rocks don't talk back..)

 

[furie]

Apparently on twitter they are saying that the marmaliser has been switched on and a queue has been allowed to build. (from another forum)

The "fix" is pretty simple so be honest, it's just putting the bolt back in place. I just hope they know why it happened in the first place. Was it a standard "incident", or was it due to too much stress and is likely to happen again?

Also, if anyone was injured and had details taken into an accident book, then H&S may also (are likely) come to examine the ride to ensure that the caging is adequate to ensure another injury can't occur. The report to H&S won't get through for a while though and because there wasn't (as far as we know) hospitalisation or death, it won't be a priority for them. Expect more to come from this though as the weeks go by.

That's why I'm not in PR (rocks don't talk back..)

And also after being formed over millions of years, rocks have enough patience to wait for you to go to the loo?