I was in a group of about 50 members of Club Pleasure Beach and we got to ride Traumatizer (now relocated to Blackpool as Infusion) and the Cyclone wooden roller coaster (which was later demolished).

Also included in the tour was a Q&A session with one of the parks directors and a look into the workshops located behind the cyclone and finally a tour of the ghost train with the lights on.

These are the pictures taken at this event.

Scary looking head

This stunt jumps up when the cars go past.

Im not sure what this is, it looks like an old rag.

Behind one of the stunts.

From the front end.

Opening coffin, a dark ride default stunt 

An open coffin.

Walking into the ride.

Generally walking around.

Activated as the car goes past, it drops down.

Workshops located behind the Cyclone.

The south side of the park (Pepsi max big one) is currently closed but nearly all attractions from the main entrance to the bridge over Watson road are open.

The one exception been the wild mouse which is currently covered in scaffolding and having some maintenance work done for next season.

So what attractions are open.

Noahs Ark
Ice Blast
Valhalla
Gold Mine
Superbowl Dodgems
Maxims flyers
Derby Racers
Grand National
Alice in Wonderland
Ghost Train
Trauma Towers
Impossible
River caves
4D cinema
and finally Infusion the new coaster for 2007.As well as a number of indoor (pay extra) for attractions. Pasaje de terror, Ripleys, horror crypt and Ice skating in hot ice from an additional £3.50.

To add to the attractions all food outlets in the north park are open. Admission is by ticket only which is £15 for adults, £10 for children with under 3′s free.Santa’s Grotto is also open, if you have children you get a free ticket when you buy your wristband. Take this over to the magnolia cafe (next to the Ghost train) where the kids meet santa and are given a bag of goodies and an optional (not sure of the cost) photograph. My kids 11 and 6yrs were made up with this.Wrap up well if your thinking of going over to Blackpool anytime soon, it was freezing cold.Some pictures taken this afternoon.

Ghost Train. virtually no queues all afternoon.The area around Alice.Santa’s GrottoMaxims Flyers.Infusion, the days only queue.Looking down from the Watson road bridge towards River Caves.Towards the Ghost Train.River caves.Most of the game stalls were very quiet.Christmas show and dance, with a front row dominated by dads. . The show is on every hour 1,2,3,4pm and lasts for about 15 minutes.They did all the usually christmas songs and dances, Bradley Beaver was also about strutting his stuff.Some guys doing some juggling which was very good.Valhalla.Main Entrance.Overall we had a really quiet afternoon with virtually no queues on any rides except Infusion with a 5 minute queue, most rides like the ghost train, alice etc were all walk on.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

Well after been threatened with closure for a number years its finally happened Ocean Beach fun fair closed it gates for the last time yesterday (Sunday 2nd September 2007).

I wasnt suprised to see the park busy for its final day as press the mayor and a lot of local residents came to give the park a good send of.

Ive visited Rhyl since I was a little child perhaps 30 years or more and have fond memories of visiting the park with my family over the summer holidays.

After operating in the area since 1954 the fun fair become one of North Wales most visited tourist attractions. The park has suffered over the last few years though with the only recent addition been the Pepsi-Cola Looping coaster a Pinfari ZL42.

It was a sad day for me yesterday as I have visited Ocean Beach for the last 30+ years and I have some great memories as a child. None of them are very vivid mainly the smell of donuts, toffee apples and chips. But it was a place that kept my family visiting a number of times every summer. To many residents in the north west of england Rhyl, Towyn and Colwyn Bay were always somewhere we looked forward to visiting at summer. Looking back now we never had much money but we always spent the full day on the fair and come home with a belly full of fast food and sugar filled snacks.

The park has been on its last legs for a number of years though and after our visit last year and the year before I was suprised the park could open for another summer the visitor numbers were rock bottom and that was in the middle of summer.

What attractions were left in the end.

All of the attractions that were open at the start of the season were operational yesterday, heres some pictures of the fair on its last day. The weather was really bad yesterday and I don’t think it stopped raining during the duration of our visit.

Waltzers.

Giant Slide.

Ghost Train.

Twister ride.

My two children enjoying the twister.

Juvenille Big Wheel.

Fun House.

Ski Jump.

Dodgems.

Star wars ride.

Nessie Kiddie coaster.

Terminator 3.

Jetstar Coaster.

Pepsi-Cola Looping coaster.

Water Chute.

Selection of Juvenille rides.

And finally some general views of the park.

Heres some comments about the fair from a reader Juliet and her family.

I spent lots of time there as a kid with my older sisters. They were usually getting chatted up by the ride operators..I got quite a few free rides just to keep me out of the way! I remember very fondly the Speedway, Caterpiller, The Roter (I never went on it…but it was my cousins favourite). I also remember from when I was little a Big Wheel, a large wooden Rollercoaster, A beautiful set of Gallopers (which seemed to vanish about 5 years ago!!). The Waltzer i spent many happy hours on burned down (can’t recall when) but thankfully the replacement was just as good..its the one we rode on yesterday. The Helterskelter appears to be the same one its always been. The Twister I remember was an older, wooden model which was near the entrance to the park.
When I was in my early teens, me and my friends would get the train from Abergele into Rhyl to go shopping…usually spending our money on records. In the summer months (even after school!) we would take our new tunes to the fairground and ask the ops to play them for us while we were on the rides!
Happy times.
Happy memories.

I had a quick look on youtube and found a couple of Ocean beach videos.

The Water chute taken by David Ellis.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jetstream Coaster taken by David Ellis.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pepsi Cola looping coaster taken by David Ellis.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A video shot in 1982 and published by furiekins.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A nicely put together video by serialdownloader.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So whats happening to Ocean Beach.

As part of a 50 million pound regeneration plan the developers Modus based in Manchester have called the new development Ocean Plaza. It includes an 85,000 sq ft Asda supermarket, 40,000 sq ft of leisure space likely to be used as a fitness suite and bingo hall, offices, 60-bedroom hotel, bars, restaurants and cafes, 1,000 car park spaces and 180 apartments.

Heres a proposed view of how the site will look taken from Modus website.

I don’t want to get really nostalgic about this but im really going to miss this park. I wish Rhyl Council good luck with the regeneration.

If you have any comments or memories about this fair id love to hear from you.

Related articles and websites.

A Closer look at Rhyl’s waterchute.

Modus Properties

Closed Park archive on Ridemad.

Thanks to Juliet and David Ellis for the use of the materials.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

For the past few years all we have been hearing is bad news about Noahs Ark, will it get pulled down to create way for the parks new entrance or not ??. Will it be moved, well you only have to ask the Kennywood management what happens when you try to lift an ark, the result left them having to rebuild most of theirs.

It seems the question is still on the board room table as for the past couple of years the management at the park have invested some time and money on the ark, if only cosmetically. The result is a clean, attractive and very enjoyable attraction, Im sure you will agree for 85yrs old its not looking to bad.

Some background on the Ark.

The Ark was built during the winter of 1921 and was open in time for the easter holidays in 1922, the Ark was built by american William Homer Strickler and was one of approximately 50 or more arks installed around the world (well US and UK)

The Blackpool Ark has been through a number of changes over the years, I wont detail everything for a complete history read the Article I wrote but a brief overview of the changes.

1930′s
Local artist Walter Bernasconi retouched some of the original animals and the top half of the ark was rebuilt with some retouching of Mt Ararat. A few additional animals were added to the ark.

1936/37 The change to a cubist design.
Joseph Emberton the famous artchitect responsible for designs like the Grand National station, Funhouse, Ghost Train and the Casino building to name but a few enlisted the help of Percy Metcalfe to change the ark over to a cubist modern design.

1960/61 The ark changes back to the more conventional shape.
In the 1960′s the ark changed from the cubist design to look more like it does today, Sheila Hotchkiss was taken on to make/mould allot of the animals we see today, mainly out of fibreglass.

1995 The building of a new entrance.
In 1995 the park made way for a much improved entrance way and Douglas Sills was charged with designing the changes most of which we see today.

The ark in 2007.
Ok firstly allot of the current colour scheme was done last season, the park had some local painters come in an retouch allot of the animals including Noah, the policeman and Mt Ararat.

A few of the animals were missed out and allot of us enthusiasts thought that was it. However the park continued with the changes in 2007 as they were really needed. The ark has looked a mess for a few seasons, the chipped and flaking paintwork a tribute to the blackpool weather.

The start of the season. March 2007.

May 2007 the scaffolding is in place around the Ark, Dinosaur and Rhino.

The Painted Ark and the removal of the mist tunnels

The first thing to notice for 2007 apart from the obvious cosmetic changes are the removal of the mist tunnels just before you enter the lillies. I was talking to a couple of people at the park about this and the removal was as a result of some younger children been scared by the mist, on a cold day it was especially disorientating.

Something you dont see very often is the water emptied out of the Arks tray.

The leopard meeting you at the start of the lillys

A couple of characters are missing from the deck of the Ark Noahs wife and an animal, presumably gone for painting in one of the paint shops.

Some more of the animals.

The Stork before and after.

Dinosaur, recently painted.

Rhino

Lion

Ape

More animals

Some general views of the freshly painted Ark.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch via the contact form im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.

The offical news came through yesterday that the land which was the former Pleasureland site has been handed over to Sefton council for redevelopment. As it was my closest park and probably one I visited most as a child ive decided to dig out some pictures from the last season so anyone that hadnt visited for some time can see the park in full swing.

Before we get to the pictures, lets just have a quick look back at the events since closure.

Ive took quite alot of pictures of pleasureland since the closure, most have been published on other sites and a couple made it to First drop issue 76 the publication of the European Coaster club, some have made their way as far as the states and will be used in a ACE (american coaster enthusiasts) newsletter thats coming up shortly.

If you look back 7 months or so to the 5th September 2006 when the park offically closed the only headlines we have seen since have been bad ones. They started with the protests as soon as the park closed a couple of protestors climbed up the cyclone to protest about the closure, I even took the trip to Southport to take a look, by the time I had arrived the rain had started and they had climbed down, it did make local radio and TV news though.

The same protestors then came back even stronger when it was revealed the cyclone was getting cut up by chainsaws, they tried to play on the fact that the cyclone had a group of protected newts under its structure, sadly nothing came of this and the subsequent attempt at making the structure listed.

Following on from this a couple of urban explorers from 28dayslater.co.uk evaded security on a number of occasions to get pictures from such places as the traumatizer lift hill and the ghost train, I dont agree with breaking into theme parks but the pictures were stunning. If you havent seen them i suggest you take a look.

Traumatizer was moved to Blackpool and will shortly open as infusion, the track has been painted blue and it does look nice in its new position been dwarfed by the giant pepsi max big one, right next to the big dipper.

The Cyclone demolition saddened quite a few enthusiasts me included, the pictures of the track bent, twisted and cut up quickly spread over the internet and finally the ride was flattened by bull dozers and giant nibblers.

Some of the rides have moved on since, chaos up to Lightwater Valley, the galleon to M&D’s in Scotland and the space shot to Loudon Castle.

The fun house closed its doors for the final time last weekend, I was lucky enough to be invited to a party organised by Club Pleasure Beach, the event was fantastic fun with 50 enthusiasts and some staff in attendance. More of this to follow at a later point, i have a load of interior pictures ill publish shortly.

Ok then onto 2006 and the final year of Pleasureland.

The Cyclone.

who could forget the bent lift hill

The Galleon.

The Space shot.

ready for loading.

A piece of theming around the kids car ride.

Kids car ride.

The Carousel.

The interior of the caterpillar ride.

The Chewits Log Flume.

Log flume showing the skyride station.

My daughter the only one mad enough on a cold day.

Kiddie coaster.

Traumatizer.

Skyride and views of the park in general.

Anyone reading from the NSPCC, she wanted to go on it

And finally.

to read more about the history of pleasureland, i strongly recommend reading pleasureland memories by Stephen Copnall.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch via email paul@ridemad.com or through the contact form im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete ride mad gallery with over 4,000 additional park photographs visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.