15th Anniversary of the Batman And Robin: The Chiller wheel bogie incident

[Bradley]

It will be fifteen years since an accident occurred on Batman And Robin: The Chiller at Six Flags Great Adventure!

 

On June 2, 2006, two cars on the original Robin train were damaged as a wheel bogie on the third car suffered a mechanical malfunction. No one was hurt in the accident and passengers had to be evacuated. The cause of the incident was actually due to the zero-g rolls putting too much stress on the track. Following the accident, both Mr. Freeze coasters and Joker's Jinx were closed for wheel bogie replacements.

 

The Chiller sat closed for the remainder of the 2006 season. Decorated cobwebs and a giant inflatable spider took over the queue line during Fright Fest. When the 2006 season was finally over, the staff at Six Flags Great Adventure were relieved, because now they could fix the problems with the actual prototype design of the coaster and get it fixed before the 2007 season. Between December 2006 and January 2007, during the off-season, both zero-g rolls were removed from the ride. The rolls were a problem due to concerns of occasional stalling caused by a failure of the tower's LIMs. The rolls were replaced by a slightly banked inclined S-curve. Batman's train had its shells painted red so Robin could be ready to open first before Batman. This was done because Robin was more reliable than Batman and the track replacement for Robin was completed first on March 13. The Robin side eventually reopened on April 7, 2007. Batman's track was replaced between April 16 and April 20, while the park was closed. However, Batman never re-opened. The Chiller closed on June 28, 2007 and was demolished that year.

[Sluggo77]

Chiller wasn’t demolished. It was sold but never lived again. 

[The Master]

Dismantled would be the more correct term. By this point the ride parts are more likely to be scraped. 

[GAcoaster]

We just got some interesting info from one of our Facebook fans. He spoke to people at Premier who told him that the modifications of Chiller were all done at Premier's expense. They saw the ride as a failure on their part and tried everything they could to get it running properly again. Unfortunately they never quite got it right before Six Flags decided to pull the plug. 

[I Have No Name]

I do recall that the Blue Batman side of the ride had the higher downtime because it used more LIM's (in fact, the Batman side didn't even operate for the 2005 season).

And of course, The Chiller had those OTSR's until '01 for the Robin side and '02 for the Batman side. Perhaps if The Chiller had it's own power source at the ride (as Maverick and Wicked Twister at Cedar Point do); the operational issues wouldn't have happened. Or if a modern version of The Chiller was constructed using LSM's?

But the ride looked very cool and the soft opening in '97 with all those sets of twins was very nice.

p.s. While I know the ride was eventually scrapped by Beto Carrero World; I did recall one of the trains was refurbished for use on Mr Freeze: Reverse Blast at SFOT.