I think Kelly Anderson hit the nail on the head. If you had every conceivable part as a spare you would have an entire second railroad. Normal wear and tear items you keep on hand, but for more unusual components you purchase as needed. There is a cost associated with storage, time degradation, thievery risk, etc. so the cost associated with down time may not always be greater than proactive purchases. This is an amusement park ride. Rides go down all the time. Sometimes there are spares on hand and other times I've seen rides closed for months. I would imagine that successful amusement parks like Dollywood are very well mastered in the art of determining what parts to keep inventoried.

The first one probably lasted since the building of the ET&WNC, so I think the life of the new one might be acceptable without a spare.

I find it a little sad that what is essentially an everyday occurrence on another normal day on the railroad caused such a huge response. How much have we forgotten?

Well it's not ET&WNC trackage. The park trackage was built in 1961 as the Rebel Railroad. We don't know what track/switch component failed so it's impossible to say how long the original piece lasted. As far as response, as I've said earlier, the powers that be view this as an amusement park ride, not a railroad. If an amusement park ride fails to the the point of causing injury or potential injury, that ride is shut down and put under a microscope no different than had it been a roller coaster track that broke. I'm honestly a little surprised they got the train re-opened as quickly as they did even if they had the part on a shelf. Yes, putting a wheel set on the ground at slow speed is everyday railroading normally, but within an amusement park it's a totally different animal.