Originally posted by UncleJeet
Hrmmm, I don't think so. Keep in mind that BTM is a top-wheeled coaster, there's no undercarriage or under-wheels keeping it secured to the railing (as far as I know.) Say you load the back 5 cars very heavy people and seat them all on the right side. you have a recipe for a derailment.
Physics are extremely important in roller coasters. With more modern designs, most of these things have been addressed. If you load a train too light, it might experience too much loss and not be able to complete the circuit. We have accellerators today that compensate for this. Load a train too heavy, and your speeds may become too great - but today we have brake systems in place. We also have steel coasters with wheels on the top AND wheels on the bottom, which keeps things like nasty lateral forces from tipping the cars off the rails, and allows for high vertical forces without fear of the car hopping off the rails.
I'd say that, if poor loading or CM negligence was involved that it was most likely complicated by something else, like one of the things you mentioned, in order to cause this to happen.
Perhaps a train was a bit overloaded and heavy, which put too much of a strain on the joining bits of the cars and the locomotive, which were getting a little long in the tooth and barely met safety regulations - that sort of thing.
Or maybe it was just a fluke. Act of God, sort of thing.
UncleJeet
