Ouch....

[Freak]

I was sitting around watching TV and as I flipped through, ABC just
reported that Big Thunder derailed....Not exactly a good thing is it?
Anyways, just letting everyone know...Disneyland has yet another
problem...get to have guests make up retarded stories why the train
derailed. Anyways, one guy was severly injured, and they've set up a
field hospital on Tom Sawyers Island.

[BirdMom]

uh oh...

odd thing is that last week while stuck in those enourmous (budget cut)
lines at Fullerton College, I was telling some of my fellow students my
belief that there would one day be a big accident on Thunder. Not so
much because of a train that derails (was it loaded wrong - weight all
bunched up in a weird place???) but because of metal fatigue eating
away interior track. The steam effects...welders in there every
night...it's just a matter of time...

[Freak]

So far there's no comment on what caused it. 10 people were injured
and then that one severly injured person was rushed to ER.

[Freak]

Update-The severly injured rider has died.

[SirWillow]

Apparently somehow the locamotive car on the train separated from the
rest of the train, and part of the train derailed. Not sure of to many other
details on it right now.

But Freak is correct, at this point there is one fatality (an adult male) and
10 injuries, including at least 3 children.

[wheelieman]

You guys are probably seeing helicopter shots, being flooded with news. I
can't find a thing on it here! People get stuck on a lift and CNN is all over
it, people actually die and it's maybe relegated to the "Crawler"!

Dave in newsless Minnesota

[tabacco]

MousePlanet is keeping a breaking news page going:
http://www.mouseplanet.com/more/bigthunder_breaking.htm

KNBC has photos, as well:
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2459380/detail.html

[cheshire]

Does anyone know who the thunder crew was? :( This must be really
hard for them. I wonder if they will close all the Thunder Mts. until the
investigation is over.

[mahaihai]

Just an update..Jay Razzulo has said that Thunder is closed indefinitely
along with Thunder Trail (Frontierland to Fantasyland). Encouraging news
though OSHA and Anaheim FD are still on scene and have allowed the
closed stores to reopen so things are returning to normal. Also it seems
that management park wide is being very good about this so those of
you who need ADO's get them now while there hot. From the accounts i
have heard it is bad though. :cry:

[CujoSR]

I have moved this to the front page. This is a tragic event but it also
makes you think about how much the park is in disrepair and needs
some serious overhauling, but at least space mountain is getting fixed.

Please take a moment to think about the victims of this accident and the
families.

[Zazu]

Cheshire wondered,
I wonder if they will close all the Thunder Mts. until the investigation is over.

Big Thunder at WDW closed in mid-August for a long-scheduled 3-month rehab.

[BirdMom]

Something to consider about this accident: the cab that disengaged from
the train cars was about as old as the park itself. They kept the cabs
from the old Mine Train ride and refurbished them to used as the lead
cars on Thunder. So this could very well be a case of cheaping out to
save money (not having to fabricate new locomotives, plus a historic tie
to the area's past) ending up costing them big in PR and liability issues.
Maybe the metal coupling gave way (which is what the news reports
sound like to me) - the locomotive went on and the passenger cars fell
back down the incline at C-lift. Of course, unless you're actively working
there, the majority of us won't hear any of the gruesome details - which I
suppose is just as well for outsiders...

I feel bad for the families involved, and I know that the crew that was
working at the time of the accident will probably be having nightmares
for months. I can remember Dolly's accident over at the Matterhorn -
the guys who had to pull the sled off of her had some pretty vivid
descriptions that they tried to impart in a humerous manner, but bad
accidents are just that - bad. We had a problem over at Mansion where
a happy heart wandered out of his omnimover in the graveyard - the ride
was stopped and the lead prepared the crew beforehand for blood and
guts - thank goodness it didn't come to that.

[Freak]

Something to consider about this accident: the cab that disengaged from
the train cars was about as old as the park itself. They kept the cabs
from the old Mine Train ride and refurbished them to used as the lead
cars on Thunder.

The cabs were from the Nature's wonderland trains? Wow. I think the
company involved with this (Vekoma, same people who are making
Space Mountaing) and Disney should have made replica cabs of
them....That could be a contributing factor of why it happened.

[Freak]

Okay yah I know its a double post. Anyways, I read the OC Register and
read some eyewitness accounts of what all went on. Seems that
BirdMom may have been right. The train somehow derailed and the
track was found broken. So it either could have been that the track was
very fatigued and finally broke away, or that the cab's impact was so
great that it damaged the track. Either way, it seems like Thunder will be
down for a year, if not more. That's all the paper really said. I think we
now have the actual accident. It did derail, and then after derailing, it
detached. The cab was found some distance away from the passenger
vehichles. So I think that really closes the book on "what" happened, all
we need to find out now is "how" and "why" it happened.

[cheshire]

did you see on kcal 9 that a retired facilities guy came forward? He
claims that he had written numerous letter to Disney regarding cutbacks
on maintaining the rides and that he was ignored. He said that this
accident was bound to happen sooner or later and that he tried to make
disney see.

[Dante101]

Okay yah I know its a double post. Anyways, I read the OC Register and
read some eyewitness accounts of what all went on. Seems that
BirdMom may have been right. The train somehow derailed and the
track was found broken. So it either could have been that the track was
very fatigued and finally broke away, or that the cab's impact was so
great that it damaged the track. Either way, it seems like Thunder will be
down for a year, if not more. That's all the paper really said. I think we
now have the actual accident. It did derail, and then after derailing, it
detached. The cab was found some distance away from the passenger
vehichles. So I think that really closes the book on "what" happened, all
we need to find out now is "how" and "why" it happened.

Where did you read this? Are you referring to this quote from an article
in the OC Register:
The safety zone is inside a tunnel, which is where the train was found.
The front car, which looks like an engine but does not pull the train, was
slightly derailed and disconnected from the other cars. The trailing cars
were behind it in a U-shaped dip on the track, Nicoletti said.

Where did you read that the track was broken, or that the engine
was "some distance away." If it's on the net, please give a link.

[Freak]

Hmm. I'm sure I read that the track/rail was broken. I'll have to go
back to my newspaper and look what "brand" it is. I was almost positive
it stated that the cab was away from the train also. I'll go and look for it
and post it here when I find it.

[Space Man K7]

I was getting trained on the Canoes when it happened. I know some of
the crew members, I've toaled to a couple, and it's a interesting item we
try avoiding. It's sad to see your first attraction or any attraction for that
matter have an accident and take a life.

[Dante101]

I've toaled to a couple
Is this a typo? I can't figure it out...

[VonSeegs]

Talking to a few people that know Thunder, they seem to think that there
was a track crack in that general area about 1-2 weeks before. (This is
neither conformed nor denied.) I do know that one day they were having
air pressure problems and when fac came to check it out it just turned
out that a hose had come unplugged so they just reattached it. I don't
know the ride but knowing another coaster gives me a little knowledge
considering I knew a lot about how and what made Space work.

I was there for both the 2000 and the '02 accidents at Space. No one
died but they were tramatic experiences for me (more so the first one)
so I know exactly what the Thunder crew is going through. It's going to
be a long tough road.

[Freak]

I've also heard that the cab has no brake fins or rollback dogs. In
essence, the cab is unidentifiable by the sensors (or so I've heard). Is
this true? Because that might be why the coaster didn't try and e-stop
itself...and led to all of this.

[Space Man K7]

So It's now oh the 14th of Sept and not much has changed. I've got
several friends guarding the wall around the Thunder Entrance. I've
pulled all my old training info from Thunder and am trying to put together
my own theory of what happened. Using what I know of the attraction
and what I've been told. But I do know that as soon as this happened,
The 2 other operating Mountains (Tokyo and Paris) closed for a day to
test and inspect. Keeping in mind that BTM at WDW is down for rehab.

[BirdMom]

I don't know if this can be verified by anyone in the area who is currently
employed, but I heard from a reliable source that Thunder is still
technically considered a crime scene, secured by Anaheim P.D. After
Anaheim P.D. finishes up, they're supposed to be turning the site over to
Cal OSHA. I've also heard that former R.O.'s and maintenance people
are going to be testifying to the grand jury and that the county is
considering subpoenaing Pressler. According to this source, park
management is in deep sh** for allowing maintenance budget cut backs.

[Space Man K7]

In my previous post... there was a typo... it's TALKED to... not what ever
I put, my appologies. To answer BirdMom, I believe that it is still a crime
scene... there is police tape across the exit. You can see it from the
Wheelhouse on the twain. "Freak": you are right, there are no fins or anti
roll backs on the loco, making it just a show piece. I've heard that when
Thunder reopens... there's a good chance that the Loco won't be there.

[SirWillow]

Birdmom, it may very well still be considered a "crime scene
investigation", but that's going to be as far as it goes at this point. They,
as well as DOSH, have to finish their investigations and determine causes
before they can even attempt to put together a case outlining anything
that they could present to a grand jury. And until they know what they
would even be presenting, or what charges they could even potentially
file, there isn't anything to present to a grand jury. And to be entirely
honest, I really doubt that there ever will be, since proving anything
criminal would be extremely difficult if not impossible. Civil charges very
possibly, but I really doubt it'll ever go criminal Sounds to me like your
source is jumping way ahead of themselves and hoping for something
that's not going to happen.

Additionally, if it was in the process of going to a grand jury, then the
investigation would have been completed, and it would have been
handed off to the DA, who would then have to proceed from there,
including filings stating that there was a potential case which anyone
could look up.

[BirdMom]

My source is a ride designer who used to work at WED who has a family member still employed by the evil empire...

[SirWillow]

OC Register has a new article out which gives a lot more details about
what happened. You'll find the full article here:

http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=59898§ion=LOCAL&subsection=LOCAL&year=2003&month=10&day=3

In short, they heard some sort of noise on the wheel assembly of the
locomotive car when it came into the station, but decided to remove it
from service after one more go around. Unfortunately, it didn't make it
back around. The rear assembly, or something related to it,
disassembled so violently that it sent the back of the loco airborne,
actually hitting the top of the tunnel, then coming down again on top of
the one passenger who was killed. He was sitting alone in the front row
according to the article.

Also, birdmom, your friend was incorrect on at least one thing. To quote
from the article:
Anaheim police found no evidence of any criminal activity but did not
come to any conclusion about the cause of the crash.
So if they didn't find anything they thought was criminal, there certainly
isn't anything for a DA to take to a grand jury. I think that might have
been wishful thinking from a possibly disgruntled ex-CM.

[Polar33]

More information that you probabaly want to know about the accident:

911 call and radio transcript: http://www.anaheim.net/911/document%20one.pdf

Incident reports: http://www.anaheim.net/911/document%20two.pdf

I'm supprised that they are releasing this much info. I've been reading for almost an hour and still haven't finished.

[cheshire]

I just finished reading the report (and it is long) :cry: :cry: It is so
strange to see the names of people that I work with and that are my
friends on a police incident report. I was told that it looked like a war
scene at the accident site but reading the report gives a much more
detailed image. I really don't blame the cast members that have said
they never want to go back to that ride....I don't know if I could after
seeing all that. It's just a very sad thing all around....for cast and
guests :cry:

[Dante101]

Another big article in the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disney9nov09,1,1979925.story?coll=la-headlines-california-manual) today.

[SRT_GB]

Another big article in the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disney9nov09,1,1979925.story?coll=la-headlines-california-manual) today.
I read it....very interesting, esp for a stores cm who knows almost nothing about what goes on in attractions.

[CujoSR]

Can you post the article? Don't feel like signing up for another mailing list.

[Dante101]

November 9, 2003

Disneyland's Ride Upkeep Criticized by Park Workers

Longtime crew members say a push for efficiency has affected safety. Experts insist modern methods work and are effective.
*
By Mike Anton and Kimi Yoshino, Times Staff Writers
As state investigators probe why a wheel assembly came off a ride at Disneyland in a fatal September crash, many park workers worry that a six-year cost-cutting effort to make ride maintenance more efficient is ultimately to blame.
In 1997, Disneyland moved to what is known in aerospace and other safety-conscious industries as "reliability-centered maintenance." The system uses repair histories and failure rates — rather than the intuition of experienced workers — to determine how often a procedure needs to be performed.* *
* *
* *
*Consultants hired to map the change said the move would save the Anaheim theme park millions of dollars a year in maintenance costs and allow hundreds of jobs to be eliminated.
It's unclear how many of the consultant's recommendations were adopted and how much money the park saved. But a review of internal company documents, court cases, government records and interviews with 18 current and former park workers shows that Disneyland's push for efficiency over the last six years led to an upheaval backstage, where the park's "magic" becomes a matter of nuts and bolts.
Outside experts say the maintenance changes confirmed Disneyland's reputation as a safety leader among amusement parks, using the latest techniques to protect visitors. Along with adopting reliability-centered maintenance, Disneyland hired better-educated workers with more sophisticated skills to maintain the rides and transferred many to the night shift, where they would could work without interruptions. But many workers say the changes also gutted workforce morale and employees' sense of ownership of the rides. Employees once wedded to a single ride for years now floated among several attractions. Parts became difficult to obtain quickly, workers said, and when rides broke down, they stayed down longer — especially when the problem occurred during the day. Staffing and maintenance procedures were pared back — along with, some workers say, redundancies that provided an extra margin of safety.
*
Safety Is Top Priority
Leslie Goodman, senior vice president of strategic communications for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, wrote in an e-mail that "a safe environment has been and remains our top priority."
But she declined to discuss details of the park's maintenance procedures. "Given the status of the state's ongoing investigation [into the Big Thunder Mountain accident], it would be irresponsible for us to respond," she wrote, because comments could undermine the probe.
Disneyland officials also have described many of the former and current workers who complain about maintenance as disgruntled, and point out that some lost their jobs as a result of the change in procedures.
Nine visitors have died in ride-related accidents at Disneyland since the park opened in 1955, in most cases because of their own mistakes. The two fatalities that occurred after 1997, however, were in accidents in which maintenance arose as an issue for investigators — including the recent crash on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. A nonfatal accident in 2000 that injured nine on Space Mountain occurred after a bolt broke on a wheel assembly.
"I have a lot of loyalty to Disneyland, but I feel that somebody's got to say something about how they're operating out there," said Bob Penfield, who worked on the park's rides from opening day until his retirement as a supervisor in 1997. "When Disneyland opened, safety was the No. 1 thing. Now they say that today too. But I think over time, profit became more important."
Another worker, in an interview with state investigators after a parkgoer was killed in 1998 by an iron cleat that broke off the Columbia sailing ship, said the change in maintenance procedures made it difficult to get rides fixed quickly. He and a second worker told investigators that wood around the cleat was weak, though this was never formally identified as a cause of the accident.
"The climate that we're operating in here has changed dramatically in the last few years," said veteran ride operator Tom Bugler, according to a recording of his interview with investigators. "I am one that calls routinely every week for things to get repaired, and normally they aren't repaired." Bugler still works at the park. He would not comment for this story.
In one instance, Bugler told investigators, a railing collapsed on a bridge leading to the Columbia. He said he was forced to close the attraction because maintenance had no carpenters to fix the railing. And when a worker finally arrived, it was a machinist who left the rotting wood intact and made a makeshift fix with metal.
Before 1997, Bugler told inspectors, each ride had its own maintenance crew and supervisor. "People were just sitting in the back just waiting for something to happen," he said. "Everything was maintained in such pristine condition, we never had to think about anything deteriorating. If something was falling apart, they would come out almost instantly to fix it."
Comparing Disneyland's accident rate with other amusement parks is difficult because no one collects comprehensive data. But three industry experts who have worked as consultants for the park all described Disneyland's safety procedures as exemplary.
"I think they have one of the best safety cultures in the country; certainly better than NASA's," said Nancy Leveson, a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "While a lot of companies give lip service to safety, Disney really does care."
Worker complaints are natural after any major change, whether the change is good or bad, Leveson said. "I think that's common everywhere. Nothing's ever the way it used to be. The world is changing … I think it's very hard for some of the old-timers."
Disneyland is the "gold standard for everyone else in the business," said another expert, T. Harold Hudson, a former vice president of engineering for Six Flags Inc., which operates dozens of amusement parks across North America.
Hudson said reliability-centered maintenance is used at other amusement parks and doesn't undercut safety. He cited wheel adjustments as an example.
"As you do that day in and day out, you find out that the wheels never need adjusting," Hudson said. "So why do you want to do that every day?"
*
Pressler Made Changes
The change at Disneyland was overseen by Paul Pressler, a former toy industry executive and former chief of Walt Disney Co.'s retail stores who became the park's president in late 1994. By the time he was promoted to head the company's theme-park division seven years later, Pressler earned a reputation as a cost-cutter who cared deeply about Disney's stock price.
Not long after Pressler arrived, the management consulting firm McKinsey and Co. was hired to reorganize the park's facilities, engineering and construction division, which is responsible for inspecting and repairing Disneyland's rides.
In 1997, McKinsey recommended that the facilities division's budget for 2000 be cut by nearly 25% to produce a savings of $16.9 million, according to a copy of the report summary prepared for Pressler. Eventually, 317 of the division's 738 jobs could be cut, the report said.
McKinsey said the majority of the maintenance staff should be moved to the graveyard shift to improve efficiency. The consultants concluded that entrenched managers were "often the source of change resistance." These up-from-the-ranks craftsmen lacked the skills and formal education needed to create "world-class maintenance" management. They didn't understand concepts such as cost-benefit analysis and break-even analysis. Half of these 68 supervisors should be transferred or let go, McKinsey said, and the number of managers should be cut by nearly a quarter.
"There was a major cultural shift that focused on economics — being as lean an operation as possible to maximize profit at Disneyland," said one former park executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because he signed an agreement not to talk about the company. "The message was: Do more with less."
Pressler, who left Disney last year to become chief executive of retailer Gap Inc., declined to be interviewed. And Disneyland wouldn't comment on how many of the jobs eliminated were directly related to ride maintenance, or what today's staffing or maintenance budgets are. David Miller, a Los Angeles stock analyst who tracks Disney, said the company spends about 3% of its theme park and resort revenue on maintenance — an amount standard in the industry.
What's clear, though, is that the systemic changes at Disneyland after the McKinsey study troubled old-timers who suddenly found themselves marching to a different beat.
Because so few mechanics were left on day shifts, for example, "We could have three rides down at any one time," while the park was open, said a former mechanic who worked on a skeleton daytime crew.
"One time, Indiana Jones went down for a dead vehicle. We responded to that. It was a computer problem. Then Peter Pan goes down. The supervisor said 'Go to Peter Pan — leave Indiana Jones alone.' When we got there, people were hanging in the air on Peter Pan."
David Koenig, a business journalist who has written two books about Disneyland's backstage culture, said these and other changes demoralized workers.
"It's not the number of workers or the size of the department, but the change in feeling among the workers who are there," Koenig said. "Their souls are no longer in their work."
Park veterans recall how redundancies in the old system meant that rides were reinspected by workers who came in behind regular maintenance crews — an illustration, they say, of how costs took a back seat to preventing potential problems.
"There's nothing wrong with saving money," said Mike Goodwin, a maintenance supervisor who went to work at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park after his job at Disneyland was eliminated in 1997. "But not at the expense of your prime objective, which is to keep the place running safely."
*
Old Versus New
Goodwin recalled a confrontation that typifies the old thinking and the new: Bob Klostriech, a supervisor who was fired in 1999, was quizzed by a McKinsey consultant who was reviewing records for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Why, the consultant asked, do you inspect the lap bars daily? The records show they never fail.
"Klostriech called him an idiot," said Goodwin, who witnessed the exchange. Klostriech, he said, told the consultant: "The reason they don't fail is because we check them every night."
Goodwin and others say maintenance workers once padded the margin of safety at Disneyland by replacing parts before they showed signs of wear.
In 2000, a bolt broke on a Space Mountain wheel assembly, causing the accident that injured nine. In a deposition given in a lawsuit against Disneyland, Klostriech's supervisor, Scott Smith, described the role cost plays today in the preventive maintenance of parts.
"If the consequences of failure involve risk to health or safety, you are compelled to develop a mitigation strategy," he said. How far Disneyland goes to prevent any other "functional failure," he added, is "completely a financial question."
Smith's description echoed a comment that three workers say Pressler made in January 1998 during an impromptu visit to the Disneyland Railroad's workshop.
"He said, 'We have to ride these rides to failure to save money,' " said David O'Neill, a train operator who has worked at the park since 1957 and was among those present. "I was surprised anyone would say that."

[SRT_GB]

also wanted to point out....the paper version also had a timetable of all ride-related accidental deaths at Disneyland as well as a timetable of what generally goes on with overnight maintenance on "larger and more complex attractions."