Lake Compounce 2017-Boulder Dash and Wildcat Refurbishments

[Paradox]

Double up testing!

Post by CoasterCrazy.com.

Here's some pictures of the retrack:

I'm gonna be pissed if it doesn't reopen when I go in two weeks

[Paradox]

From what I've heard it's planned to open with the park this Saturday. Wildcat, however will open Memorial Day weekend.

[Dirk_Ermen]

Looks still fairly slow. But it probably needs it's warm up before it goes flying again.

[Paradox]

The park got a new entrance sign before the tunnel!



Also Wildcat's retracking has taken longer than expected and it will not open this weekend. The lift and drop seem to be the last sections that need track installed. The trains are also on the track and they look so small.







For some reason Down Time's topper has been removed, probably for maintenance purposes, but hopefully it returns soon since it looks so weird without it.

[Coasterkidmwm]

muh paint

[Paradox]

I assume it will be painted after the track is installed since the brown and white don't work well with the park entrance aesthetic.

Hope that they'll keep up the good work!

[Paradox]

Wildcat is finally testing. Hopefully it opens before my visit on Sunday!

Post by CoasterCrazy.com.

Also they finally fixed the water cannons on the log flume!



Unfortunately, the park has closed the skyride whether it is permanent or not I do not know but it has generated a lot of backlash in the New England community. Hopefully it reopens soon as people think they are performing safety upgrades to it but if it's truly gone I hope whatever replaces it uses the terrain as well as it did.

[Paradox]

So the ops at Lake Compounce finally decided to do 2 train ops on Boulder Dash for the first time all season (the manager of the park is afraid running 2 trains will put too much damage on the track and would rather lower capacity and hurt the guest experience to save money on maintenance), and they crashed during the test run. Apparently the green train flew past the brakes and hit the blue train from the back. The park has said they will try to get everything running by next weekend but seeing as how it took them 3 extra months to get Wildcat working I don't count on it reopening before the end of the season.





In other news Wildcat is finally open but is only programmed to run 1 train at the moment and only opens in the afternoon each day at varying times.

How did that even happen, were they running 2 trains on a one train program?
Atleast it happened during testing.

[Paradox]

Apparently the op forgot to move it out of manual mode.

This is my purely speculative theory based on second hand info, where the blue train stopped in the station, and general idea of how the brakes on these work on what happened. I was at the park, although I was at catering at the time for the event. I know at least one person who was in the station when this took place.

I've been told a couple times from attendants that BD is having problems with E-stopping itself when trying to run two trains, which is why we haven't seen it much this season. Typically they give you the stock "not enough people in the park" answer but if you pry a little bit sometimes they give up more. Anyway, between this and my friends getting evacuated from the lift earlier this year, something is up with the PLC or the proxy sensors. I don't believe this caused the accident, but might've played a role in why maintenance did what they did.

Typical procedure for transferring train 2 on is to lock down and dispatch train 1, park it on the lift, and then begin moving the transfer track. From what I was told they never parked train 1, they just dispatched and started moving the transfer while train 1 was on the circuit. I believe the reason for this might have been because of the issues it's having E-stopping, but it could have just been an oversight on the part of maintenance. I also heard they were having trouble getting the transfer to line up, which would have been catastrophic. Huge station damage and possibly people hurt if the station was destabilized.

We were told by our ACE rep that BD blew a brake line and would likely be down for the rest of the season, which was confusing at first as it doesn't seem like something that should put a ride out of commission for very long. No one knew about the accident until we got back down into the park.

My theory is that if a brake line actually blew, it was the first caliper in the station which made the blue train get stuck. If they thought it was a fault, it's plausible that they charged all the brakes to try to override it (or in a hurry as green was out on the circuit and you would end up with a collision if they waited until it was in the block, unless they physically chock the train or something) and advance blue. This would have opened the block and allowed the green train to run through it wide open, which is what I was told happened by the person in the station. He said he didn't hear any of the calipers activate and the green train came through at high speed when it rear ended the blue train. The blue train would've stayed stuck on the first caliper in the station as there was no air getting to it.

This is a really shocking story! Lake Compounce tried to run 2 trains on Boulder Dash?? Crazy stuff.

[Coasterkidmwm]

manual mode = you're gonna have a bad time

[mkingy]

That's an crazy certain set of circumstances leading up to the crash - shows why you always transfer with empty trains. It's nigh on impossible to think of every way that a collision might occur and mitigate it (or even think of a circumstance and actually be able to mitigate it!).

It sounds like a series of questionable decisions led to a costly accident. Fortunately nobody was injured, but this is what happens when proper procedures aren't followed. Given the way things have gone this year, I'll be very surprised if Boulder Dash does somehow reopen before the end of the season.

ACE says it's likely to reopen for graveyard. I'm thinking it's going to be a 4 blue and 2 green car consist.