The May issue is upon us and so we all are getting the 2024 season underway, although some of our readers have been operating for several months already. This month I wanted to let my safety ramblings take a look at setting up rides first and then we can get into some other areas of safety related topics.

I recently went out west to help a client train their employees on how to set up a Mulligan Gondola Wheel. Having owned and moved one years ago, it was just as I remembered it. It has been several years since I had physically assembled a Giant Wheel but IFYKYK. While setting up, several things came to mind that we should all be aware of. Here are a few things to get you thinking about safety. Hard hats when setting up equipment — do all your employees wear a hard hat or head protection? Are you aware that OSHA released a Safety and Health Information Bulletin in November of 2023 regarding Safety Helmets in the Workplace? You may want to investigate it to make sure your company is doing everything you can to protect the employees and our industry from injuries.

How about climbing harnesses and lanyard? Do you have the right type of harnesses for your employees? Is someone making sure that they are being used by the employees? I have a harness with a large, padded belt for climbing towers, I've found that when you need to take a break it's nice to be able to lean back with the positioning rope holding me in place and I can let my arms down to get the blood back in them. Several rides that we have people working on require them to be tied off but also working with their hands so having the proper type of harness with side attachments for positioning lanyards or for tool pouches to be secured to is a must. Evaluate the risk and get the appropriate equipment for the duty they are performing.

Protective eyewear is another thing to be thinking about as well as the rest of the “PPE”; Personal Protective Equipment. If guys are hitting pins with hammers and there is the possibility of a piece of metal chipping off and potentially getting into their eyes, we probably should be wearing eye protection. If they are working in the generators when they are operating, or around other loud equipment, are you providing ear protection? How about gloves? I know a lot of people don't like to wear gloves, but I can tell you there are some jobs where you absolutely should have gloves on. I recommend to all of my associates that walk wooden roller coasters to always wear leather palm gloves and anytime you are doing wire rope inspections make sure you are wearing gloves and using a rag to do the broken wire tests.

Documentation of any PPE training that has been provided to employees must be recorded and maintained. We talk about documentation all the time, but if you don't document something you never did it. Does your company have employee handbooks that explain the company's policies and procedures on PPE use? These are all things that some of us take for granted but we need to be mindful of the potential for injuries during set up and tear down and do our part to help reduce any risk of an employee being injured.

So we've talked a little about the equipment we should be supplying to do a job, now let's talk about doing the job. How about setting up a ride? Every season we get a new group of employees and those people need to be shown how to do a particular job and hopefully they are being taught by someone who has experience doing the job safely. Remember to document the training. I have been instructing a blocking class for years and have some interesting pictures over the years of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I would like to just take a moment and talk about blocking, as in the foundation for most traveling amusement rides. We have all been taught that when blocking a ride the blocks should be wider than it is tall, and it should be shaped like a pyramid. The industry standard is that it must be wider than the pad that is sitting on the blocking and that any blocks stacked more than two high must be cross blocked. Cross blocked means that if the base blocks are going East to West the next layer of blocking goes across them should be going North and South and then East to West and so on. I have included a couple of pictures for reference, and these are typically found in some of the ride set up manuals.

It always amazes me when I see stacks of blocks and I ask the guys what were you thinking? The answer is sometimes well that's all the blocking we have, or someone stole our blocking, so we made do with what we had. I have mentioned color coding the blocking in class before and have seen several shows that paint their blocks a certain color for each ride or for different size blocks. This is a great idea but keep in mind it can also seal in moisture and cause the block to deteriorate. When people build pads for rides, I've seen them add straps or ropes for handles and some fancy operators may even attach metal grab handles on larger pads. All of these are great ideas to make handling the blocks easier and hopefully safer for the employees. When building pads also be mindful of the gaps between blocks, I know there is a manual out there with pictures that say no more than ¼ gap between boards, but sometimes that just doesn't work, and the gaps are a little bigger. Remember the gap is meant to allow water to run out and to use less blocks in the pad. Every situation is different and there is not one set of rules for blocking that will cover each situation, so use common sense.

I also have seen State inspector wanting all the blocks Screwed together if they are stacked up. This is ok if you are building actual pads but on a stack of cross blocked 4x4s or 6x6s is not a good idea as it will destroy the blocking that has to get used in a different location in a week or two. Something that we recommend, and many inspectors do as well, is to use the shrink wrap rollers and basically cellophane wrap the stack of blocks. This allows the blocks to stay in place and when the time comes to take them apart, they are not damaged. Just a thought for you to consider when you're blocking up a ride or training people how to block up a ride.

Another basic training thing we should talk about is how to properly install “R” keys, I recently saw some new employees pushing an R key all the way onto the pins. This is not going to provide the intended function of the keeper and has the potential to fall off during operation. Basic fastener classes for the employees is a must so that they understand how to properly assemble the equipment and how to use the right fastener in the right location. We have all heard if there is a hole it should have a pin in it. We also have heard use the right size keeper for the size of the hole in the pin. Who is teaching people the difference in fasteners and proper use at your company?

Some fasteners get torqued on rides, and they are typically the main structure fasteners and can be in different units of measure. Some rides get torqued in inch pounds or Foot pounds and others are in Newton Meters. Make sure that your torque wrench is set to the correct torque value because you can over torque a fastener very easily if you don't have the right setting or do the correct conversion. The days of using the old standard German torque value of “Goo-den Tight” are over and we must apply the proper torque when assembling rides.

One last detail I would like to talk about is the power connections for the rides, I recommend that if you don't know what you're doing with electricity that you don't mess with it. Electricity will kill you and it will hurt the whole time you're dying. Always let a trained person connect and disconnect the power lines. If you are training people how to connect Cam Locks make sure that they know the different colors and what they are as well as the order that they get connected and disconnected. “Remember, the first in is the last out” Always connect the Green (Ground), then the White (Neutral), and then the three “Hot” wires Red, Black and Blue. When disconnecting the wires remove the three Hots first then the White and last the Ground. Typically, all plugs have longer prongs on the Ground terminal so that it makes contact first when inserting a plug. I hope it goes without saying but never connect power with a breaker turned on and always turn off the breaker before disconnecting the wires also.

So, we covered a lot of basic information this month and hopefully you can share it with others and help keep our industry safe. I need some ideas for other safety articles and always look forward to hearing from our readers either by email or phone calls so please send me some ideas.

I hope that you gained one piece of information from this short article on safety and can help make our industry safer and better every day. I can be reached via email avery@worldwidesafetygroup.com or at 813-505-3938 for any questions or comments, please feel free to provide feedback to help me better communicate these safety related messages. Remember “Our World Revolves Around Safety!”