The Smiler Incident

As I arrived home from my holiday after a week of fun at the beach and riding rollercoasters at Portaventura I immediately came face to face with news articles that made me feel physically sick. At first 'Alton Towers Rollercoaster Crash' sounded like a clickbait title, Nemesis would be stuck at the top of it's lift hill or something. But it became apparent that something serious had happened and it made me question the absolute faith I have, in terms of health and safety, in Merlin (who own Alton Towers as well as Thorpe Park, London Dungeons etc) and the theme park industry in general.

The Technicalities

For those still a little unclear on what happened on Tuesday, one of the The Smiler's trains slammed full force into the back of another train that had failed to make it all the way round the track. It's the equivalent of a car rear-ending another in a queue of traffic possibly made worse if the car in front actually had some backwards momentum as well.

Obviously rides of this scale and complexity have fail-safe system to prevent this type of thing happening but in the case of The Smiler these fail-safe devices...failed.

Rollercoasters nowadays are built in sections where a train can only enter the next section of track after sensors on the rides give the all-clear to say there is nothing blocking the track ahead. They act like the red and green traffic lights at the top of water slides.

For one of these to fail is the equivalent of a lift door failing to stop closing even though there is a body in the way and crushing that person. It just doesn't happen yet through some bizarre error the sensors have malfunctioned here and let one train through into a section of track even though the track wasn't clear.

The other puzzling question is why didn't the empty train in front make it round to make it roll back and block the track? If i was to speculate I'd imagine something must have been jammed in the wheels or on the track to slow it to such a speed that it couldn't make it all the way round the inversion.

Due to the complexity of the Smiler's track it became very dangerous to remove the passengers from the train as the safety mechanism holding them in was doing the job it was supposed to do. Coupled with the height and angle the trains were in it made an evacuation very difficult- if the incident had happened on a lift hill or somewhere more likely to have a ride error I'd imagine the evacuation would have gone much smoother.

The Industry

A crash of this scale has a knock on effect on not just Alton Towers but the theme park industry in general. People go on rollercoasters to feel fear without actually being in any real danger. Widely reported-on incidents like this make that faux-danger feel more real therefore ruining the experience of the rollercoaster.

As much as it pains me to say it I think this might be the end for The Smiler. It's a great shame for a number of reasons; firstly as it was as rollercoaster-god John Wardley's last project he worked on and was something he was especially proud of. After milestones such as Nemesis, Oblivion and Stampida in Spain his last masterpiece now carries with it a nasty reputation. The Smiler is a rollercoaster achievement- it's a genuine shame that it will probably not re-open, in it's current state anyhow.

Any chance of another coaster project at Alton Towers happening in the near future is wiped clean off the table. How do you advertise a scary looking ride so soon after an incident that brought with it real danger. Less people would ride the Saw ride at Thorpe Park if the blood up the walls was actually real.

This is a real blow for Alton Towers who will have to re-do all their theming and landscaping that went along with The Smiler. It's not a simple case of packing it all up and starting again like a travelling fun fair- The Smiler was supposed to be there for decades.

I don't know much about the stock market but I know what kind of effect this has had on Merlin. To clarify this just isn't Alton Towers's problem- it's also Thorpe park, Lego Land, Chessington as well as many attractions around the world. Their reputation has taken a beating. When you hear about an incident happening at a rickety old fun fair you can half understand why. This is the equivelent of finding half a mouse in your risotto at The Ritz. Merlin are world-class in the theme park world- you don't expect it to happen.

The Stigma

Perhaps worst of all is what this crash does to the public's opinion on theme parks in general. I've already seen a headline 'do you let your children ride rollercoasters?' as well as 'Are rollercoasters safe?'. In regards the second article I have the answer- yes. Rollercoasters are safe but nothing in this world is ever 100%. They could write a headline 'Do you let your children go on aeroplanes?' since in the past there have been plane crashes. It's just unfortunate that this 0.00000000001% incident of rollercoaster malfunction has happened at such a reputable theme park.

I urge people to continue to support Alton Towers and continue to ride rollercoasters. There's no way I can defend what happened on the 2nd of June 2015 but so much health and safety go into these rides that the chances of an incident happening is still ridiculously slim (although as has been shown still technically possible).

A dark time for rollercoasters but a time in which the industry and Merlin in particular can hopefully recover from.

The art and joy that come from incredible theme park rides is too grand to be killed by just one incident, no matter how gut-wrenching it was.