Busch Gardens Railway
- Thread starter ParkFans Knowledge Base
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I would not be surprised if we have just seen the first truly noticeable incident resulting from a shrinking maintenance budget.
I rode the train around 1:30 yesterday and everything seemed fine. But when I tried to ride again later, it was closed. When I asked why, they just said a "malfunction". Had no idea about the derailing. I have never thought twice about riding the train. Not liking this!
Here is just a THEORY.
In really hot temperatures, rails are subject to deflection and warping. Knowing that BG has a shrinking maintenance budget, it could be possible that the rail spikes and the aging ties could not hold the rail in place. The rail may have flexed and a derailment resulted.
This is pure speculation and not to be taken as fact.
In really hot temperatures, rails are subject to deflection and warping. Knowing that BG has a shrinking maintenance budget, it could be possible that the rail spikes and the aging ties could not hold the rail in place. The rail may have flexed and a derailment resulted.
This is pure speculation and not to be taken as fact.
If anybody took a video or photo, park security probably would have pinned them at a wall and demand that they erase it. That is what scares me the most. We may never know and the park may never know, if they don't know what happened already.
I was thinking lack of maintenance myself. I wonder if the rails have ever been replaced in the history of the park?
Guys its the first time in 40 years the train had a real problem. Stop acting like years of neglect suddenly caused this to happen. In the last few weeks there has been an incredible amount of rain in the area. A probable cause for derailment was a small part of the track moving from the saturated ground beneath it. It also wasn't some high speed crash or was serious enough for there to be any injuries at all. If this had been big, it would have been on the news. The park wouldn't be able to keep hush an event like that. Odds are a small section jumped track. The train conductors stopped the train and people were escorted off back into the park. So why all the fuss?
Red train did derail once in the 90's during a maintenance run, no harm before park season opening. Rails and ties have been replaced over time.
At the park, only Alpen's Express is running. Found derailment site, Nazi train locomotive is in pieces. I'll have more and pics later.
So there wasn't a whole lot to take photos of, as I wasn't about to commit a misdemeanor and walk backstage. But from what I gathered, there is only a mud track at the scene of the derailment which was just before the brick wall next to Drachen Fire's old site. It also looked like the track had been shifted in that area. Der Hochbeinige's locomotive was in pieces, none of the cars looked damaged. For some reason Balmoral Castle was out of service as well, maybe there were issues when they (most likely) used it to tow Der Hochbeinige. Out of 23 employees, only one (an engineer) would confirm that something happened. They said that something very out of place happened, and they expect that Der Hochbeinige will be fixed by the end of next week. Anyways, here's what I got.
[flickrset=72157652665996353]
[flickrset=72157652665996353]
That dirt looks more like where a truck tore up the wet grass. If the train had gotten that far off we would be talking about a much bigger deal here.
I went to Busch gardens today and saw that the front of the red train was disconnected from the rest of the train. I wonder if they are working on it so it doesn't derail again?
I don't believe that Der Hochbeinige will be running again this season. And since this was unearthed I might as well share what I know about the situation since there was so much speculation about the derailment.
So everyone knows, it wasn't caused my a lack of maintenance on the tracks or even the engine for that matter. From what I have been told the drive axle snapped due to the torque of the train. It was a physics thing and not a maintenance thing. The stress of pulling the weight of the train took its toll on the axle and caused it to break. There would have been no visible signs for maintenance to see to expect this to happen as this is apparently a common situation in rail-roading.
So everyone knows, it wasn't caused my a lack of maintenance on the tracks or even the engine for that matter. From what I have been told the drive axle snapped due to the torque of the train. It was a physics thing and not a maintenance thing. The stress of pulling the weight of the train took its toll on the axle and caused it to break. There would have been no visible signs for maintenance to see to expect this to happen as this is apparently a common situation in rail-roading.
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