News Another El Toro Incident

[warfelg]

All i can say is I hope they put in the money to bring it back to safe operation and running like it used to, still wooden. It is (was?) an amazing coaster and I will hate it so much if we lose it either to being torn down or being changed into a steel coaster

I hope they do something. I really was the precursor to topper track, I-beam, Titan track.

I'm not saying size is the only thing to blame, I'm just trying to draw parallels with the other big woodens going extinct and this one. It is a fact that size = more wear which generally equals more maintenance. Not sure how you can disagree with that.

The issues El Toro faces are probably exacerbated by it's size, it's more likely for larger wear issues to come about given it's size and forces than compared to something half it's size. Who knows, maybe the methods they have chosen wouldn't really be that much of a persistent issue if the track wasn't as worn hard as it is.

Again, a much smaller coaster had the same issues. In terms of the wear an tear due to the size, the prefab does well with that. Colossus never got regular maintenance to know, but it held up well for a long time without that. T-Express in China is doing fine at its size. All evidence here points to how the track is made more than anything else.

 

[GoHokies87]

I hope they do something. I really was the precursor to topper track, I-beam, Titan track.

I resent your comparison. Might as well stuff Kumba full of sawdust and wood glue and call it a hybrid/woodie at this rate.

The hybrid discussion didn't exist when the prefabs came around, Because El Toro is 100% a wooden coaster, rides like a wooden coaster, and nothing RMC has done fits that.

 

[bill s]

El Toro has rubberized wheels and runs like a steel coaster, not a wood coaster except when it gets rough, like now. The only way it will run like new is completely retrack it with wood including rehabbing the structure, or put a steel track replacement on it. If they do the latter, it won't age like wood though. Since it has rubber wheels already, no layout changes are needed except possibly for the extra friction of the newer dual-wheel style RMC trains. More accommodating trains would definitely be appreciated -- my first response to the closure was to get a cheeseburger and fries for lunch.

I'm not sure what "pothole" really means here, but wondering/hoping if the term is maybe appropriate with regards to comparing this to a car. A pothole can be uncomfortable, but usually doesn't do anything worse to your car than mess up the alignment or damage a tire. The past accident was more like a sinkhole or the car falling apart on the road.

 

[warfelg]

I resent your comparison. Might as well stuff Kumba full of sawdust and wood glue and call it a hybrid/woodie at this rate.

The hybrid discussion didn't exist when the prefabs came around, Because El Toro is 100% a wooden coaster, rides like a wooden coaster, and nothing RMC has done fits that.

I think you are really misreading my statement if that's what you are taking away.

 

[I305Evan]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Direct Link to Embedded Media Source

Six Flags El Toro coaster getting repair to part of sub-structure after injuries

JACKSON, NJ (PIX11) — The El Toro roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure remained closed on Monday as investigations continued into the Thursday accident that sent five riders to th…

pix11.com

It does seem as if Six Flags did make a 2nd comment confirming that a "part of sub-structure" needs repairs and will reopen El Toro once repaired and inspected.

 

[b.mac]

The part of the substructure that is in the most stressful part of the ride in terms of forces after 15 years of use.

 

[I64 Trekker]

I rode Kingda Ka 3 times in a row at open today, and then ventured over to the El Toro area, and there is a wall up. Note that I didn't see anything going on with El Toro when I hopped on the skyride, but with the wall in place I doubt it reopens prior to the 2023 season.

 

[CoasterTalkBob]

Of course they aren't keen on it! Intamin isn't making any money if SFGA does everything themselves. To quote a guest lecturer at a business school, "Companies need to make a profit, fancy word for money, in order to have a... PayDay"

I think it's a little more than that (though that it an issue as well). Since Intamin does push innovation and their name is on all of their products when a park makes repairs on their own and those repairs resort to an accident then people start blaming Intamin. We're currently seeing this with TTD, we saw it with Volcano, and even this thread has examples of the "Oh look, Intamins unsafe, blah blah blah" when Intamin is actually far removed from the situation.

According to this interview, employees had reported a rougher than normal ride to maintenance on what sounds like multiple occasions yet nothing was done. But I'm sure there is much more than what this employee is aware of.

I had actually heard from grapevine level sources that the park requested funds to perform repairs that they had deemed were needed and corporate rejected the request.

Pretty much what I heard too about the prefabs and what was supposed to be an advantage to them. So when you do track replacing, it’s harder because of the way the contours were designed to work together made it difficult to replace one without the other. So when those tight tolerances get messed with, problems arise. Add in that the structure was designed with the milled wood and smoother ride in mind then the more shake and impact from not having the tighter tolerance can cause structural issues in the long run.

The promise of the prefab was to cut down on this. It didn’t. It actually ended up costing more because of the process not the size.

But did it? Here's why I say that..... Maintaining a wooden coaster properly means replacing wood at intervals so that over the course of 10 or 15 years most or all of the wood is replaced. Now, I get the "oh we need to fix this piece of track now" situations being an issue but what if the plan was for Intamin to prefab parts of the track for replacement in stages..... The ride still is running but the next section of track is being prefabbed and prepared to ship so that sections can be replaced in the off season. In that situation would we ever get to this point?

 

[warfelg]

But did it? Here's why I say that..... Maintaining a wooden coaster properly means replacing wood at intervals so that over the course of 10 or 15 years most or all of the wood is replaced. Now, I get the "oh we need to fix this piece of track now" situations being an issue but what if the plan was for Intamin to prefab parts of the track for replacement in stages..... The ride still is running but the next section of track is being prefabbed and prepared to ship so that sections can be replaced in the off season. In that situation would we ever get to this point?

Based on ElToroRyans video on the subject, the promise of the prefab was to not have to do that for a long time.

 

[Thrills & Chills WQAQ]

Based on ElToroRyans video on the subject, the promise of the prefab was to not have to do that for a long time.

The problem with that is that toro had to have a bunch of track replaced because of last years incident, and also look at colossus, the park had to retract everything because of the rotting.

 

[Diamond Dave]

You just cannot have an intense smooth wooden railed (just go with it) coaster that operates for years without needing refreshments.

Crucify me, but they're better off replacing the running rails with solid steel. Would be a refresh of titanic proportions.

 

[b.mac]

Based on ElToroRyans video on the subject, the promise of the prefab was to not have to do that for a long time.

Which to be fair, they technically *didn't*.

The amount of maintenance El Toro has gotten is considerably less in terms of labor compared to other wooden roller coasters that have gotten large portions of their layouts retracked (or in Timberwolf's, Beast's, and Boss's cases, reprofiled). Voyage basically gets retracked completely in a 5 year cycle, Beast portions of the ride get redone every other year, hell the Rose Bowl got completely redone this past year. Toro basically lasted 3+ times longer than some of the best maintained wooden coasters in the world before the *major* trackwork needed to be redone. Balder and Colossos did the same, though not for a lack of trying on the latter's part. The pre-fab track held up considerably better than traditional stack and bolt wooden coaster work, it's just we hit the end of the substructure's service life at almost the same time another incident that was not related to the track itself falling to pieces.

Keep Toro closed for a year, replace the entire substructure and track, buy some new trains, and have semi-annual inspections of the substructure to make sure it's holding up properly and we'll deal with all of this again in the mid 2030s.

 

[EdK]

I remember watching a video (I think it was from ElToroRyan) that went into some pretty good detail on the track. Basically the track was prefabbed and laser cut using marine lumber which gave it such a smooth ride initially. The lumber isn't treated but has some outer protection so the wood is prone to water damage if exposed. I don't think there is any way in replacing the track that you could get the same tolerances as Intamin did in the manufacturing process unless Intamin does the work. That would be too expensive so RMC would be the next best thing.

 

[Crunchewy]

I remember watching a video (I think it was from ElToroRyan) that went into some pretty good detail on the track. Basically the track was prefabbed and laser cut using marine lumber which gave it such a smooth ride initially. The lumber isn't treated but has some outer protection so the wood is prone to water damage if exposed. I don't think there is any way in replacing the track that you could get the same tolerances as Intamin did in the manufacturing process unless Intamin does the work. That would be too expensive so RMC would be the next best thing.

I will stop going to to SFGAdv if they RMC El Toro. If they are considering that, I'd rather they just tore it down and built a new wooden coaster. Doesn't have to be as huge or as aggressive. Give me a new GCI or GG on a smaller scale. Every park needs at least one good wooden coaster.

 

[EdK]

I will stop going to to SFGAdv if they RMC El Toro. If they are considering that, I'd rather they just tore it down and built a new wooden coaster. Doesn't have to be as huge or as aggressive. Give me a new GCI or GG on a smaller scale. Every park needs at least one good wooden coaster.

BGW did well without a wooden coaster for a long time and you can argue that the wooden coaster they have now is "good". Back in the day I preferred wood coasters over steel mostly because the steel coasters were short rides (Racer 75 vs King Kobra). The problem with wooden coasters is they just can't do the things steel coasters can. Intamin came close with the prefab track but the maintenance proved to be a problem. It would be a shame to tear El Toro down - they should just recycle it into an RMC.

 

[Crunchewy]

I still generally prefer wooden coasters to steel. I like many steel coasters too, but wooden coasters are more fun for me. And there's plenty of steel coasters at SFGAdv. They don't need to get rid of their one (and great) wooden coaster by turning it another steel coaster.

 

[Jonesta6]

So to better understand the issues - last go round it was a forces vs track vs maintenance issue that caused the incident for the ride to be shut down.

This time the track was fine, but it was a substructure (footer) issue with unclear origins of why it broke. Speculation has it being a maintenance issue again, and perhaps the ride forces were more than what it was designed to carry. I don't recall seeing anything about substandard construction mentioned, but it's another possibility.

It's also unknown at this point if the substructure issues are confined to that one area or all over.

And, because of these last two points, it's especially unclear what options the park has to save the ride.

 

[mikes]

So to better understand the issues - last go round it was a forces vs track vs maintenance issue that caused the incident for the ride to be shut down.

This time the track was fine, but it was a substructure (footer) issue with unclear origins of why it broke. Speculation has it being a maintenance issue again, and perhaps the ride forces were more than what it was designed to carry. I don't recall seeing anything about substandard construction mentioned, but it's another possibility.

It's also unknown at this point if the substructure issues are confined to that one area or all over.

And, because of these last two points, it's especially unclear what options the park has to save the ride.

IMO, Intamin needs to be fully involved with anything that occurs to try and not have another future PR nightmare on their hands. That is only if the ride is going to continue to be a full pre-fabricated woody though.. This ride just feels like the next major accident waiting to happen. It was a one and done for me.

 

[CoasterTalkBob]

I remember watching a video (I think it was from ElToroRyan) that went into some pretty good detail on the track. Basically the track was prefabbed and laser cut using marine lumber which gave it such a smooth ride initially. The lumber isn't treated but has some outer protection so the wood is prone to water damage if exposed. I don't think there is any way in replacing the track that you could get the same tolerances as Intamin did in the manufacturing process unless Intamin does the work. That would be too expensive so RMC would be the next best thing.

I honestly think that Intamin should work with Gravity Group here..... Gravity Group's new process seems to be a very similar concept to Intamin's prefab but executed in a way that's easier to work with in the field.

Man.... just the thought of a Gravity Group and Intamin collaboration gives me butterflies. Not going to hold onto that dream though.

 

[b.mac]

So to better understand the issues - last go round it was a forces vs track vs maintenance issue that caused the incident for the ride to be shut down.

This time the track was fine, but it was a substructure (footer) issue with unclear origins of why it broke. Speculation has it being a maintenance issue again, and perhaps the ride forces were more than what it was designed to carry. I don't recall seeing anything about substandard construction mentioned, but it's another possibility.

It's also unknown at this point if the substructure issues are confined to that one area or all over.

And, because of these last two points, it's especially unclear what options the park has to save the ride.

The derailment incident was not related to the trackwork (besides the damage that was caused) but it was entirely on the age of the trains and Six Flags' general maintenance practices that permitted the situation to get to that critical point.

The substructure issue at least from my understanding isn't necessarily footers being a problem, but more the supports that are directly responsible for holding the running track in line and take the brunt of the positive forces upfront where the reported issue was in the Rolling Thunder Hill. A big thing with the substructure issues with El Toro was that this was a piece of the maintenance puzzle that not even Intamin had a recommended battle plan for, since the other pre-fabs also ran into issues around this same timeframe of 15 years. Colossos's issues were much worse than El Toro's, which was why there was so much work involved in getting it back into its original condition (involving tearing up the entire substructure of the running track and just leaving the supports themselves up). Balder to my knowledge isn't a full substructure work but more just a big refresh that is needed due to the age of the ride.

This is also why I made my post about just shutting the ride down for a year and doing a full Colossos style refurb, to ensure nothing like this crops up again for at least 15 years and requiring some semblance of substructure inspections to ensure it doesn't become a future problem. Will Great Adventure do that? I doubt it, but by doing so they're risking similar incidents happening every so many years instead of ensuring they won't have any problems outside of some minor complaints about roughness until nearly 2040.