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[palallin]

JJH, you persist in insisting that all accidents can be prevented.  This assertion is not true.  All mechanical things fail.  It is not possible to predict the failures all the time no matter what inspection is done or how much management hounds the people who actually know what they are doing (i.e. the train crews).  Your assumption that the people have failed is not only unjustified, it is insulting to those dedicated crews. 

[shavethewhales]

No one wants to come down on the maintenance staff and we all understand they work hard and do what they can. However, the stakes are extremely high here. You can't just go "oh well, sh*t happens" when something like this happens. Kids could have died if things had been slightly different.

I mean, its like any other mass transport system. You don't just say "well, they tried their best" when an airplane falls out of the sky due to a faulty component.

There will be freak accidents and acts of god, but the scrutiny is always justified. Obviously SDC can't just shrug this off and hope the train doesn't tip over again while full of passengers.

It's not about denigrating the park, it's about noticing where things need to improve. Not all criticism comes from being snide. We obviously love the park or we wouldn't be posting on a fan forum.

Like I've said before, I'm sure the train will be the safest ride in the park when it re-opens.

[MCLFLN]

I don't know why I am going to jump into this and arm chair quarterback...but here goes....

Safety is the responsibility of everyone working at the park - the leadership and the workers.

1.) Workers/All: See something - Say something (leadership cannot address issues they are not aware of)
2.) Leadership: Must look at every incident and every report from workers and take action to remediate however possible.

A proper culture fosters safety and does everything required to improve.

Obviously I have oversimplified the issues and safety is a struggle everywhere to varying degrees. (This is not just a Theme park issue)

[JJH]

Pallidin, I am sorry you interpreted my comments in the way you did, no malice was intended.  It has already been reported, and I repeated this in my response, that the team operating the train and the maintenance crew had been cleared of doing anything wrong.  Currently, I see no reason to believe this not to be true.

As for believing every accident (outside of Act of God) is preventable, yes absolutely, and I would hope everyone else would also believe this.  If the root cause of the train derailment is not found, then its recurrence cannot be prevented.  The state will not give an operating sticker, and OSHA will not allow employees to operate it.  So yeah, I really, really, really hope that this accident was preventable. All evidence shows this to be the case, the park is spending an enormous amount of time and money to get the train back.  They wouldn't be doing this if they did not think it could be operated (and it can only be operated if the accident recurrence can be prevented).  The time this is taking points to a cause that was not a single simple maintenance issue, further evidence that the operation and train maintenance crews were performing their job correctly.  And to beat a dead horse, this most likely points to a failure of leadership and management for not having people that have the experience and knowledge on board to prevent the accident.

[mg]

Probably shouldn't jump into this either. 😂

It has already been reported, and I repeated this in my response, that the team operating the train and the maintenance crew had been cleared of doing anything wrong.

And to beat a dead horse, this most likely points to a failure of leadership and management for not having people that have the experience and knowledge on board to prevent the accident.

I guess I'm confused why in one sentence you say that it appears as if all people were cleared of doing anything wrong, but then you say that leadership/management failed.

No way that leadership can be superior experts in everything happening on property; even more so than those that are hired to deal with it day in and day out. However, that seems to be what you are saying they should have been doing; how else would they know that they have 100% hired the expert that will catch every possible thing before it happens unless they themselves have that knowledge?

While yes, all accidents should be able to be prevented from reoccurring, there are for sure accidents that are just that; accidents that had no obvious or reasonable way to be prevented in the first place. Hindsight is 20/20.

Firing management/leadership is often the easy and quick way out and is something that some places do so that they can point to it publicly as "fixing" the problem, when in reality the problem is never truly addressed. I am happy that it doesn't appear to be what is happening here.

Unless there is proof that a warning or maintenance request was repeatedly ignored by higher ups, calling for their firing is just looking for a scapegoat to make it appear as if the company did something about it.

[Okiebenz]

Exactly.  Businesses that claim they can't get anyone to work should more accurately say they can't get anyone to work for the wage they want to pay.  I have seen some fast food type places around here crying about that when they are still trying to pay minimum wage or close to it.  I think even McD and places like that are paying $12-15 a hour which seems crazy for those types of jobs.  The way the prices are going up, places like SDC should be able to afford to pay quality employees.

And yes, the few times we were there last year, most, if not all, of the ride operations seemed to be lost and not sure what to do.  Seemed to take longer to get rides loaded and dispatched that in the past.  At least that is how it seemed the times we were there.

JJH my thoughts are similar to yours, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

There is not a labor shortage as much as their is a shortage of people willing to work at the rates SDC is paying, if they had significantly raised their hourly rates, they could have filled the open positions and been very selective about who was hired.

The 2022 season,I noticed several rides where pre-ride safety instructions weren't given. I'm assuming that's was related to short staffing and maybe they had people filling in from other areas of the park, but that should be written down in an operating manual for each attraction and someone operating the ride should know they have to read it. It raises questions of if the operator is skipping that step what other steps are they skipping, do they know how to respond if x happens? X being an abnormal condition but one that happens and needs to be responded to correctly for safe operations.

If you're disciplined and making safety a top priority it's very rare to have 3 freak accidents in a couple years. It's not impossible but it's rare.

[Jesus4me]

Whats the hold up? I mean really.

[pintrader]

Whats the hold up? I mean really.

I think that is when the train is stopped in the middle of the woods and Alfie & Ralphie try to steal the passengers valuables........just kidding!

[sirwillow]

Note that none of this is official, and frankly anything that anyone is saying here has to be taken as speculation until official reports are released as the park has not said anything as of yet, nor have official reports been released.

However, having worked on the train, and knowing the people, processes and procedures, along with some off the record discussions with people that do have information and experience, I hope that I can offer a little bit of an informed guess about the train situation. I should make clear that I am not speaking in any way, officially or unofficially, for the park, inspectors, employees, or anyone that has worked or currently works on the train at Silver Dollar City.

First, I don't believe, and I expect the reports to confirm, that the train derailment was not the fault of any of the train personal- engineers, inspectors, etc.  The work they do on the trains is meticulous- which I actually documented in a video I produced a couple of years back, and that includes daily track inspections.  Furthermore, I believe that they will be cleared of mechanical issues actually being the cause of the derailment (though I'm not sure on contributing to what happened).

For those that don't remember, the area a week before the derailment was in a rather strong drought condition.  It had been quite a while without rain. Then in the couple of days beforehand we had rain.  A lot of it.  Flood condition amounts of it.  Lots of rain on very dry ground on top of rock (e.g. Missouri) can soften the ground and make it shift in a way that is nearly undetectable, particularly on a hill similar to where the train derailed.

The train had run without issue several times that day, and the issue happened near the end of the day, which means it was a condition that grew over the course of the day until the point where it actually caused the accident.  They aren't checking that track after every trip, so if it's something that progressed, if there wasn't some sign of it they wouldn't have seen it.

I'm fairly convinced (and I'm waiting for the official reports to confirm it, which I'm fairly confident they will) that the cause was dry ground that had become saturated and then started slipping over the course of the day under the weight and strain of the operations that then caused the rails to displace just enough to cause the derailment.

That's something that is generally inspected for and worked on in the off season, as it's pretty much never an issue during the season.  As witnessed by 55 years of it operating without incident, as well as all of the numerous theme park trains that have also not had a derailment incident like this.

To blame this on a "sudden failure of management" is uninformed at the best, and comes from a lack of knowledge of park and/ or train operations.  And if that's you, I would suggest that you wait for official reports before speaking and speculating.  :-)

That said, I'll step back into the shadows and let those that think they know better continue to speak.  I've had other times where others tried to tell me how and what I and others did on the train, and I see some of that starting here again.

[Coaster]

Thanks for your well thought out and explained insights, sirwillow. I tend to agree with you and your contacts and your theory makes a lot of sense.

I just hope that the situation can be sorted out so the train can open and safely operate again.

[tmstephe]

I just noticed that the SDC app list the train's operating season as March 16 - October 29.  Hopefully that's a good sign that it's returning this week.    🤞

[Fury Fire Chief]

It looks like those dates are 2022 dates unfortunately. 

[sirwillow]

Train crew had no ETA yesterday on when they might start operations

[tmstephe]

Train crew had no ETA yesterday on when they might start operations

I see what you’re saying now - the app doesn’t list a year but the web version does.  Sorry!

For what it’s worth, the conductor at the station today said “a couple of weeks”.  I also saw an employee walking the tracks picking up branches.

[Cseeley]

I've heard the train has started to test again, is this true?