As for fatigue testing and longevity of theme park engineering . . .
In the 80's I remember being in the post show for World of Motion. There was a display
there where a pneumatic mechanism opened and closed a car door repeatedly, to show
testing. A CM staffing told me the story that GM originally was going to contribute a
rig that they engineered to do just such a thing.
To which WDI replied "silly car manufacturer, don't you realize that you have to manufacture
things to much higher standards for a theme park? Your mechanism needs to run to test
car doors. Ours needs to run from 8AM to Midnight, 365 days a year, for years and years
and years. We'll take it from here."
HA!HA!
I guess I just always felt there was so much pride in the parks, where they would not, could
not, let things slide, or not work. That's what made them so remarkable to me. Each thing
of this nature removes a bit of the magic.