Admittedly, I had never heard of the Ghost Train Fire event in my life. But I'm always interested in accidents and tragic stories involving amusement park rides. Can I just say that Luna Park clown effigy was terrifying??? I don't know that I would have wanted to have gone to that Park as a child.
Anyway, I can't even imagine what those poor families and the survivors went through. Made me bawl rivers of tears, that is how real this retelling felt through The eyes of the people reliving it. Yet, they try for two entire episodes to prove that this tragic fire was not an accident and intentionally set, first by biker gangsters? Then it evolves to a gangster Mafia type member that's in the government? Um, I can't even wrap my mind it.
Martin Sharp and his associates did not spend enough time proving that the fire was not an accident, and many of their arguments are flawed. Firstly, just because a fire erupts quickly that by no means means that it was started by an accelerant, as they try to say. The fluorescent paint, the tar covering the walls, all of those surfaces when burning could have smelled like accelerant!
I also counted, the first witnesses to the fire were noted at 10:00 p.m., the second witnesses were at 10:10 p.m and by then the flames were strong. 10 minutes was more than enough time for an average fire to grow. Secondly, I have also seen fires create the roaring sound the one park employee describes, and shoot up into the air without accelerant: It's called an ignition point. Every flammable material has an ignition point, particularly when it is a ride full of paper mache objects... Look at the Kings Cross Station fire tragedy if you don't believe me. The fire at that train station shot flaming tunnels of Fire like two jet engines, no accelerant required. Strange things happen and it's not because of accelerant!
Thirdly, why didn't these investigators ever examine or test the theory that the FAN blowing underneath the imitation fireplace could have overheated?? Overheating fans are the number ONE reason fires start. Here's another factor; the ghost train ride was old, built in the 30s. How do they know that there were not a dozen safety ricks?? Martin Sharp and his journalists never addressed that. They wanted to go straight into conspiracy theories.
Fourthly, they " disprove" that the fire could have been started by an electrical malfunction "because the power in the ride was functioning", that on its face is bogus. Go YouTube it, there are electrical fires that burn up an entire room and the power is still on! An electrical malfunction does not always cause the power to shut off. It depends on where the short is in the wire; the power outlet's circuit could also be completely separate from the Power box and only blow the outlet. There are so many different factors.
Lastly, I do not doubt that troubled teenage visitor at the park that night saw those biker gangsters bragging about using kerosene to start the fire on the ghost train. He definitely saw biker gangsters, he even described them in detail. The bikers likely even said they " lit up the ghost train ride". Playing devil's advocate here, his story is not proof that these bikers did anything. Gangs brag all the time, bragging what terrible things you did is part of your street reputation.
I'm sorry to say this, but these Australian investigators and these grieving family members are not fully investigating every single avenue of thought. They seem desperate to think that there was some great big conspiracy behind the Ghost Train burning down, like they don't want to accept that it could have just been an overheated fan. It was 1979, safety at amusement parks was barely thought of. And an old, closed dark ride, with no sprinklers, full of flammable paper and tar, with fans that probably ran constantly and were never checked for electric shortages, was a fire DEATH TRAP waiting to happen!
Now, undoubtedly there was a cover-up. You see Australian government absolutely hindered all investigation, and outright lied. That could be because they don't want fear and Hysteria to spread about amusement parks not being safe, and they also don't want stories to spread that Park managers often cut safety corners. Perhaps, the local government knew of many many safety violations that Luna Park might be committing and they didn't want to reveal that they knew about it. There didn't have to be a giant, Mafia hit to destroy the ghost train to gain Luna Park. And that conspiracy plot made no sense by the way.
Come on, life is not a Hollywood movie. And this is really hard for people to believe, but oftentimes the most senseless tragic things happen and there isn't a great big villain to blame. Yes, the park inspectors and the park management should have been better at managing safety at the park and they should have been punished. But I say they do NOT make their case that the Ghost Train and the people that died in that fire died because of some Australian mafia guy.
It's truly horrific what these family members and survivors of the Ghost Train tragedy went through. I know they want someone to be punished, they want justice. And Australia has an evil government that does not allow freedom of speech or Freedom of information. So no wonder these people think that something more foul occurred with the level of corruption they see. But here is the reality, corrupt government covers up any criminality even if it is murder or just negligence. Because evil government has no sense of justice in either case.
I am not sure Justice lies in their theory that the Australian mafia boss started the fire. Hopefully the peace of God will find all these poor people. That's the best comfort they can have.
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