Replaced the waterfall on the external facia of the ark.

Heres some more information about the Sculptures from the artist who created them.

The idea behind the sculpture garden was to open up the view of the rides from the entrance which used to be obstructed by the dodgems, and to increase the flow into the Pleasure Beach. The sculpture garden is also designed to create a peaceful spot for people to meet, sit and even escape from the excitement a bit. Several of the water features and sculptures by David Harber, are surrounded by brick retaining walls at just the right height for sitting.

Thanks for looking.

Originally installed in 1933 the main station was demolished by fire in 1934 and rebuilt under the architectural supervision of Joseph Emberton who went on to redesign most of the pleasure beach during the 30′s.  The new station opened in 1935 and was later rebuilt to a victorian style in 1970.

Two of the diesel powered trains Mary Louise a 462 Pacific type express and Carol Jean a 464 Baltic type engines were built at Hudswell works in Leeds, The third train Princess Royal was later renamed Geoffrey Thompson OBE, the parks then owner of the park. Another train Barbie acts as a track maintainance vehicle and can be often seen parked up outside the workshops.

The Train has two stations the main station where the trains are kept with a maintenance facility and workshops and the second station Star Holt named after the public house on the south side of Pleasure Beach Blackpool. Star Holt isn’t used very much since the south park entrance closed but you can still instruct the driver to drop you off or board at this once popular stop.

If anyone knows anymore information about the Pleasure beach express please get in touch Id love to know some more about it, as you can tell my knowledge on the subject of trains is very limited.

Heres a collection of photographs ive taken over the last few years of visiting Pleasure Beach.

The stations.

Firstly the main station opposite Beaver Creek.

Bridge over the minature railway.

Victorian designed station, this photograph was taken from the rear of the train, im not sure on actually capacity but it must be getting on for 100 guests.

Footbridge, walk down the steps to enter the station

The same footbridge shot from the rear, showing the connection to the station.

View from inside the station, Space invader 2 roller coaster and Beaver Creek in the background.

Original engine fitted to the Princess royal train.

This display shows the route of Pleasure Beach express as well as a number of photographs taken along the route.

This sign is above the display above.

2nd Station Star Halt.

Complete with adverts from the period.

Taken from inside the train showing the back wall of Star Halt.

All aboard the train ready to depart.

Lets take a trip on Pleasure Beach Express, any purists reading this the photographs may not be in complete order so please dont tell me their not 

On the way back into the station you go passed a small model village.

Another shot of the model village, Revolution (orange track) and Avalanche in the distance.

From inside one of the tunnels, this one is just before coming back onto the final straight back into the station.

Various wildlife along the route.

Jim’s quick sand named after former park manager Jim Rowlands.

Skull Island.

One of the many skulls hanging down.

Wildlife

Totem Pole

A number of whistle signs along the route.

Looking ahead to skull island and the hanging skulls.

To the right the big blue hotel, wooden coaster big dipper and the Pepsi Max Big One.

Another Tunnel.

Zebra’s scattered along the way

The skull again this time with clear water

Big Dipper again

More wildlife.

Engine number 4473 – Carol Jean

Minature signal box near the main station.

Pepsi Max big one, photo spot.

This sign is above the workshops.

Underneath the Pepsi Max Big one station.

A behind the scenes look at Pleasure Beach Express.

Thanks for Club Pleasure Beach and the management of Pleasure Beach Blackpool for arranging this tour.

Barbie

Carol Jean.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions or would like to use any photographs from this gallery please get in touch, don’t just steal the photographs im more than happy to share and i dont want to start pasting huge copyright notices across them as it spoils it for everyone then.

Thanks again for reading.

]]> http://www.ridemad.com/pleasure-beach-express-pleasure-beach-blackpool/feed 0 http://www.ridemad.com/behind-the-scenes-a-closer-look-at-blackpools-monorail http://www.ridemad.com/behind-the-scenes-a-closer-look-at-blackpools-monorail#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:00:42 +0000 Admin http://ridemad.com/?p=149 One of the most relaxing ways to ever see a park is by taking a Monorail, the raised track can give a great view of the park and the various attractions on offer, as well as some parts of the park you wouldn’t see during a park visit like maintenance areas, offices and the in Blackpools case the Casino building.

The Blackpool Pleasure Beach Monorail is no different to this and the 10 minute journey around the park gives the visitor a great view of the world.

Pleasure Beach Blackpool bought the monorail in 1964 from the Lausanne expo in Switzerland and it was opened

in Pleasure Beach in 1966. Some great photographs showing the opening can be seen on the park in the north booking office. The monorail was extended after opening with a loop around the first floor of the Casino building.

These behind the scenes photographs were taken during an organised visit by Club Pleasure beach during May 2008.

Monorail storage areas.

Monorail maintenance vehicle, I would love to see this moving around the track.

The Transfer track.

The transfer track for the monorail is located just outside the maintenance/storage area.

The teeth turn below and another piece of track moves into position to allow the train the enter the storage/maintenance area.

Some general track photographs.

Track heading towards Valhalla.

The opposite way towards north car park.

Into the first of the covered areas.

Monorail in action.

Id like to thank Club Pleasure Beach for arranging this trip and the Pleasure Beach management for the tour.

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

Thanks for Reading.

Kennywood is located in Pittsburgh.

Before this trip I got in touch with a few people on the KP connection website and the PR people at the park to try and arrange a tour of the Ark, needless to say they were as helpful as can be and a tour was arranged with Gary Baker a ACE’r and Kennywood employee.First Day at Kennywood.

We arrived at the park just after opening, the weather was a bit overcast and was welcome after spending 5 days at Cedar Point in scorching heat previously.

The first couple of hours we spent riding the Jack Rabbit, Log jammer and just really taking in the parks atmosphere, the park has a lovely fun and friendly atmosphere.

Jack Rabbbit coaster.

Ive included a few videos in this post as they can give you a far better understanding of the rides than I can with words. I would advise any coaster fans to try the back seat – its amazing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Log Jammer.

After riding these we spent some time sitting around the Lake waiting for Gary who was due to meet up with us at 2:45pm.

We met up with [Gary had a good chat and made our way over to the Ark.Gary has the most amazing knowledge about Kennywood and is a true ambassador for the park, the ideal person for giving some out of towners some much needed park information.

Noahs Ark

Before doing a tour of the Ark we went through the attraction with a group of other visitors, its completely different to the blackpool one.

You start off in a lift and Gary told us Pittsburgh has had 2 floods and each time its coincided with the ark been built and then later rebuilt, this gets a few nervous laughs from visitors.

While this is going on and you feel the lift is rising the lift actually turns around and you face the opposite direction.A Tannoy annoucement comes over to say they are having some electrical problems and suddenly the lift stops and you enter the attraction.

I wont spoil this for anyone who hasnt been in the ark but I would like to say its completely different and was a welcome change from what I have been used to at Blackpool.

After the walkthrough of the ark we were given a tour of the machine room and components that go into all the strunts the attraction employs, its a very large machine room compared to the small relatively cramped one at blackpool.

The rocking mechanism is almost identical to the blackpool one.

After the Ark we are given front seat access to all the coasters so we spend the new few hours walking around to all the coasters with Gary, bypassing the queues and choosing the seats we wanted, I was introduced to a number of staff during this half of which I cant remember sorry, but they were all very friendly.

We finished the day with a nice evening meal on the park and split up with Gary about 9pm and made our way back to the hotel.

Kennywood Day 2

Just outside the entrance is this little fountain with a carousel horse in it, in the background Phantoms revenge.

Back at the park for our second day, we arrived at park opening and went straight into the park. Garfields nightmare was first, this is a very old attraction and similar to the river caves (or old mill) that we have at blackpool, the ride is painted in very eloborate colours to create the 3d effect as you travel round.

Its not a bad ride for children and some of the humour is quite funny.Next up Turtles, I was dissapointed when the Blackpool one stopped operating a few years ago, At Kennywood it shows how much care they put into these vintage rides as this is a great example.

Its a great ride and for its age its ride very well.Next up we rode the thunderbolt, Ive seen this on some programs been voted the worlds top coaster, I wouldnt go that far personally but its a fantastic coaster, full of thrills and airtime.

Like the Jack Rabbit we rode the day before these coasters are maintained so well the ride quality is superb. Its a brilliant ride, full of suprises. Because of its location on the side of a hill its quite difficult to describe, I have included a youtube video showing the full ride from start to finish as video can speak a thousand words.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Phantoms revenge

Phantoms revenge is an arrow coaster that was redesigned by Morgan during the off season in 2000-2001 when the 4 loops we removed, the track made longer, height increased to 228ft and the cars were modified to remove the over shoulder restraints. Its a very smooth coaster and again because of the park location as a first time rider you can never guess whats going to happen next, the 2nd drop through the thunderbolt supports is fantastic

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kennywood Racer.

Kennywood racer is a racing coaster similar to the grand national in Blackpool, 2 trains come out of the station at the same time and race around the track, i didnt find this as thrilling as the grand national but its still a great coaster.

I dont have any pictures of this ride as its quite difficult to shoot so i have included another video showing the full ride.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The exterminator

The last of the coaster we rode at Kennywood the exterminator is an indoor spinning coaster in a completely dark building, I enjoyed this the thrill of not knowing whats coming next adds to this.

Once we got all the coasters out of the way we decided to ride the whip. I forgot how much fun these really are and the one at Kennywood is maintained to a very high level, it looks and rides great.

After riding the whip we took a walk over to the high dive show, this was performed by 4 stunt performers and very fun, lots of crowd shouting and everyone seemed to enjoy this.

At this time of the day we started to feel hungry and headed over to the potato patch for chips or fries (for the americans). I have never thought that having chips with cheese sauce and bacon would be nice, but let me tell you this is amazing – i have never tasted chips like this and probably never will again.

I had to take a picture.

We spent the rest of the day walking around soaking up the atmosphere taking in a few rides here and there. Heres some more photographs taken during this trip.

The Boating Lake.

Beautiful Carousel.

Lost Kennywood

Conclusion.If you have never visited Kennywood and would like to get a feel for a traditional amusement park then this is the place to go, its a fantastic park, not the easiest park to get to in the world but none the less a fantastic park with some great traditional rides, very friendly ride operators and staff. One thing about Kennywood that for me made it so much better than Cedar Point was the relaxing aura that seems to involve the park, everyone is in a good mood and happy, I could quite literally visit Kennywood just to take in the atmosphere its so relaxing.

If you are travelling from the UK and like Pleasure Beach, Blackpool you have to visit this park.

Id like to thank Gary Baker, Rob Henninger and Mary Lou Rosemeyer for helping to organize this tour, it was very much appreciated by the two of us. You have a fantastic park. Thanks

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.

Space Invader 2 was originally called space invader when it arrived at the park in 1984, after been refurbished by Kumbak coasters in 2004 it reopened as Space Invader 2.

Anyone that remembers the original Space invader will remember the very uncomfortable and often bumpy ride.

I have memories of the old space invader been a very bumpy ride with some extreme brakes in the dark. As part of this tour we were left to look around the attraction with senior management for about 30 minutes.

It was ideal for most of the group and we just walked around taking photographs and looking at some of the very odd looking space theming most of which you miss whizzing past at 30-40mph.

Some of the 80′s style space 1999 theming.

Some of these spacemen inside the ride are hardly seen when you go past in the cars, they look tacky and believe me they are but that just adds to the attraction in my opinion. I don’t think any of us ride space invader 2 for the fantastic effects.

Some more of the props.

Hanging in the middle of the attraction is a satellite.

This is one odd looking alien.

and a close up of its face.

Some track shots, the ride is 1490ft in length and has a height of 59ft.

This is a pretty good effect when your on the ride in the dark.

Passing through some more space themed artwork.

Mid ride operators console, this isnt manned during normal operational hours.

One of the trains, Pleasure beach staff compared the cost to a Porsche boxster..gulp!!!

Finally the run back into the station. Brakes in the center of the track.

Id like to thank Club Pleasure Beach for arranging this tour and to Keith and his staff at Pleasure Beach Blackpool.

Collection of other behind the scenes tours Behind the scenes.

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.