Amusement Park News

According to Michael J. Alvarez, owner of Texas Bearing Services in Pearland, Texas, many carnival operators have no idea that worn ride bearings can be repaired rather than replaced. But Alvarez is on a mission to help carnival companies save money and downtime while keeping rides operating safely and smoothly.
According to Alvarez, “Carnival rides run on expensive bearings, many of which cost over $100,000 to replace. But when they wear out, rather than replacing them, they can be removed and rebuilt at 50 to 60% less cost and with a significant time savings.”

In fact, Texas Bearing Services can remove, fix, and replace a worn bearing in 4-6 weeks, while replacing a bearing with a new one can take up to a year, putting important rides out of commission and adding even more to the cost of replacement.


“Carnival bearing replacement has long been somewhat of a secondary business for us,” Alvarez says. “We repair bearings on cranes in the Gulf of Mexico for the oil industry, industrial gas and steam turbines, generators, compressors, and gear boxes. Houston is, after all, the turbomachinery capital of the world with its refineries and power plants.”

However, the company has worked with carnivals for many years. “Our work with carnivals has expanded with word of mouth about us. Distributors have come to know us, and they refer us to individual carnival companies,” Alvarez reports. He describes the carnival bearings his company repairs as slewing ring bearings which have “many variations.”

Among the carnival rides Texas Bearing Services has worked on are major attractions for the State Fair of Texas, Hershey Park, World Rides, and Morey's Pier on the Jersey Shore. The company's first carnival client was the former Six Flags Houston park Astroworld.

Having performed repairs successfully for Astroworld in the early 2000's, the carnival industry stayed on Alvarez' mind even as the company's bearing repairs for other industries expanded. The company is also the OEM supplier for General Electric, Mitsubishi, Sulzer Turbo Services, and Voith Turbo, among others.

Currently, Texas Bearing Services handles about one carnival bearing repair monthly but has the capacity to handle many more.

“Today we have carnival operators from all over the world sending us their bearings for repair, from Hawaii to Puerto Rico to Thailand. We don't work on site, but here at our facility we have the capability to handle bearings that are up to 12-feet in diameter, although most ride bearings are between six feet down to 12-18 inches,” Alvarez explains.

Among the ride bearings Texas Bearing Services has repaired are the Gravitron, Spin Out, the Zipper, and the Giant Wheel, as well as The Pirate at the State Fair of Texas. Alvarez cites the Las Vegas High Roller among the largest bearings the company has repaired.


But, almost any spinning ride experiences wear and tear on bearings. The faster a ride spins, Alvarez says, the more likely it is that a bearing will need repair. But a repair doesn't have to equate to high costs and extended downtime.

“The repairs we provide are efficient and relatively low cost. And they save ride operators money not only on repair versus replacement but by reducing downtime drastically. Honestly, a lot of people don't realize you can repair bearings,” he relates. “People commonly think you always have to replace them.”


Alvarez is making it his mission to inform carnival operators that they can in fact fix bearings, and that Texas Bearing Services has been repairing bearings for nearly thirty years.

He also wants to help carnival operators stay proactive on safety, which he notes is always a “big concern” in the industry. “A lot of operators face a huge liability, so it is extremely important to them to maintain their rides' safety. We can easily pull a bearing out and inspect it, letting them know that a bearing is perfectly safe and still good to go for $1000 dollars or less, or if needed, replace it economically and quickly for a fraction of the cost of a new one.”