Tidal Wave Question

[tillenterprises]

thanks for the pic tech services1.....ha ha ha...brings back memories.

as for the cable snapping, i remember back in 87 when that happened and the train "rang the bell". thank god no one was onboard the train at the time. the ride had one of it's "ride initiated e-stops" and maintenance was sending empty trains to see if it would happen again. a usual practice during a downtime to try and re-create/re-initiate the situation. well, i remember standing outside show wardrobe and hearing the train being launched. it sounded very strange and louder than normal, then came the snap of the cable, the loud bang and shaking of the ground from the counterweight in the tower and then i remember standing there watching the train go FLYING through the loop and up the front wave, striking the bumper (hence "ring the bell") at the top of the front wave. the impact was so great that the entire front car was complete demolished, the fiberglass front end came crashing down and landed ontop of a park garbage can that was situated in the employee backstage area. that was smooshed to bits. the second car in the train was also damaged. as i mention, fortunately no one was in the train otherwise there would have been certain death and injury. the disbaled train BARELY made it back thru the loop and stoppped on the runway. i remember there was a group of us that just stood out in the service corridor and watched in horror. i was to have worked up at the t-wave the next day, but the train was already taken apart and placed on the ground. i can't remember how long it was down, but it was for a LONG time.

This is a story that nightmares are made of! In fact I did have a dream once that the Tidal Wave went off the dead end track. I was planning another trip soon to Kentucky Kingdom to ride our old Tidal Wave (aka Greezed Lightnin) again. In light of the recent accident on their Superman Tower, should I be worried that the Tidal Wave will "ring the bell" again? How often are the cables inspected and replaced?

[Cheesehead Dave]

Basically the Wave is a giant slingshot -- big weight in the tower, cable comes back to the pusher that is at the back of the train (it even had a name, I forget what it was though).

IIRC, it was named "Oscar". I'd like to know where that came from.

[hoop-loop]

Oscar? When the Tidal Wave opened in Santa Clara in'77 "its" name was Bob (or sled) and no it wasn't named that after the ride's first lead ;-) I believe it related to bobsled. The Bob was on the back of the train and the pusher, sled or bobsled, connected to the cable, ran down the rail between the tracks. Yeah, unloading the train when it went "mode 3", stuck on the other side of the loop, was a lot of fun before the cat walk was installed. O.K., I really did enjoy it! We just let it rock back and forth until it stopped, besides it took awhile to get the "cherry picker" up the service road from facilities! Then just climb up the side of the ride and on to the train. If the brake "blades" were hot they'd cooled by then. The first time was caused by a bad "load wheel", it melted. All the guests got for their lost time was a few free drink coupons! Well, except for a few leftovers that was in my pocket ;-)

[WestBurbs14]

It's pretty frightening to hear of the cable snap, bell-ringing, and the weight slamming down. I remember reading long ago that the tower weight was 45 tons; is that correct?

Re: Kentucky Kingdom's Greezed Lightnin', is that the old Gurnee Tidal Wave? I thought KK's GL came from Astroworld.

[that_guy]

^ AstroWorld's Greezed Lightning went to Joyland Amusement Park in Lubbock? Texas (I'm sure it stayed in Texas).

[RandyV]

Wow! Great stories from the past.

I'm curious, though. If the counterweight cable snapped, why would that cause the train to have more acceleration?

If anything, I would expect the broken cable to cause the train to have less acceleration versus having too much -- meaning it might not make the loop or might not make the return trip.

What am I missing here?