"You simply can't re-create this!"
Well, summer has unofficially ended, really before it ever got a good start. I considered doing as I have done in recent years, taking advantage of the Labor Day holiday, making it "Labour Day" instead, and taking a trip up to Canada's Wonderland with a stop at MarineLand on the way up and at Waldameer on the way home. But I work for a University, and for us, last Monday was Opening Day, and when Saturday rolled around I was simply too exhausted to start on a long trip. Such a pity, that. So I had to decide where to go Sunday and Monday. For guidance, I turned to the InaccuWeather Channel and saw a sea of green forecast to cover Southern Ohio, with "south" extending North to about Mansfield. Ick. Suddenly Camden Park didn't look so inviting, but another endangered park did: Conneaut Lake Park, which I last visited in 1997.
Exhaustion led to a late start, and since Conneaut Lake is about 240 miles from home, I got there right around 2pm. I was encouraged by the fact that the further Northeast I got, the brighter the sky got, and by the time I reached Conneaut Lake Park, it was a beautiful day. I dodged the gigantic puddle in the parking lot that I am sure was there last time I visited, parked the car, then walked across the street to the park. I bought my ride pass ($16) at the ticket booth and went inside. If there is such a thing as "inside" this park, anyway.
To my right were an Eli wheel and a Tilt-A-Whirl. Directly ahead were a hydraulic Paratrooper and a portable model Flying Scooter. You can probably guess which one I rode first.
I clocked the Flying Scooter at about 8 RPM, which is fairly typical, in fact is the same as Kings Island's machine...with the caveat that Kings Island has a bigger machine, so this unit doesn't move quite as fast. More critically, this machine has the same tub hanger bracket design as Holiday World's. Which is understandable since both are portable models. As expected, there is more rotation than translation, but I was able to get enough translation to get the tub swinging. In all, the ride was better than the one at Holiday World, but not nearly as good as the one at Kings Island.
On down the midway, past the waterpark, things took a depressing turn. On the left was a series of rides. Tumble bug: Dismantled. Himalaya: Closed. One whole side of the midway, shut down. But across then way, things were definitely looking up. There, the Blue Streak coaster beckoned. This is a Vettel-family generally-out-and-back coaster that starts off with a run through a long, dark tunnel, then heads up the lift for a Miller-like trip out to the front of the park, then turns around and comes back. It has a classic NAD "Century Flyer" train that was fully restored with the headlights and grillework, though I wasn't too happy to see that the seat backs on the back seats of all the cars had been extended upward a bit. In fact I remember inquiring as to whether this quiet modification would disqualify the ride as a "Coaster Classic." I also remember that the ride was quite rough, suffering greatly from that rhythmic "NAD bounce."
Well, that's what I remembered, anyway. What i saw when the train pulled into the station, however, was quite different. There wasn't an inch of chrome plating or stainless steel to be seen anywhere. The four-car train is painted in orange and yellow, and the cars have two seats each, not three. Instead of headlights and grillework, the front of each car is a plain sheet of expanded metal. When the train stopped, the lap bars didn't open because rigid-mounted lap bars cannot open. I slid into the next available heavily-padded seat and sat in the middle. To my right I found an inch wide leather belt with a snap-hook on the end. To my left I found a wider leather belt equipped with a half-dozen dangling metal rings set at about 2" intervals. I connected the snap hook to a randomly-selected metal ring. The operator performed a quick inspection of the train to insure that all riders had done likewise, then gave a lever a shove. Oddly enough, both of the brake levers at the downtrack end of the station are decorated with mannequin heads. The train started rolling, and dove down a shallow dip and into a long and winding tunnel that leads to the lift. Blue Streak's station is positioned as though the ride travels counter-clockwise, but in fact the main loop is clockwise, with the base of the lift positioned roughly opposite the load station. To get there, the tunnel doubles back and travels under the final brake run, then curves around to the lift, nicely concealing the fact that the train isn't moving very fast. The trip up the lift is quick, just slow enough for you to ponder the fact that it isn't entirely straight, and that some of the lumber on the ride looks like it has seen better days. At the top, the rollover is quick enough to give a hint of airtime, then at the bottom there is a bit of jackhammering which is for the most part nicely atennuated by the seat cushion. Soft seats can conceal a multitude of sins at the trackbed; pity the big parks don't seem to understand this. A couple of good John Miller-style (Vettel learned from the master!) drops reminiscent of the Screechin' Eagle, then the train enters a really big turnaround out by the highway. Oddly enough, this turnaround begins with a trim brake, which is positioned on the highest point between the brake and the end of the ride. The brake hit hard, but smoothly because it is a skid brake. After the turnaround there is a bit of bounce on the drop, and after the next hill there is a neat low, high speed curve that could have inspired part of Millennium Force. The ride ends with the customary covered brake run, in this case no less than three separate trims leading up to the unload brake. The Blue Streak is an old-fashioned, very satisfying out-and-back ride with moderate airtime. It could use a bit of mechanical attention, but it runs well. The bad news, of course, is that it doesn't run the NAD Century Flyer trains anymore. But the good news is that the older Vettel train has shorter, lighter, more agile cars, so it runs better than the NAD trains, and for the coaster connoisseur, it even has fixed lap bars for good measure. What's not to like? I think it's the only time in recent memory that a park has removed a set of classic trains from a coaster only to replace them wth trains that are even more classic!
Looking at the Blue Streak, I wonder what exactly Vettel had in mind. No, not the ride layout and profile, I mean the hardware in the station. There are no less than five brakes on the running track in the station, and there are additional switch tracks and storage tracks all over the place. There is enough room in the station to store the two NAD trains, for instance, and yet both apparently fit into the tunnel downtrack of the load station, as only the very back end of one of those trains is visible. How many trains is this ride designed to run? Is that mid-course brake before the turnaround intended to be a block brake? Running quick-loading trains like the one they're using now, they could probably run three trains on this thing...with a really sharp crew!
On exiting the Blue Streak I continued on down the midway. On the corner is a carousel which now sports a fully restored ring machine, although at this point in the day nobody was operating the ring arm. Later in the day, though, it was going. Behind the carousel is the park's kiddieland, which includes an Allan Herschell roller coaster which I think I was not permitted to ride (I didn't even bother to ask). A left-turn past the kiddie carousel leads to a gate with a clown head on top. I noticed some mechanical parts visible through an opening in the back of the head, but I didn't see any obvious could-be-moving parts on the head, so I'm not sure what it would do if it were operating. I walked across the street to the Devil's Den.
It's worth noting at this point that when I say I walked across the street, I literally mean I walked across the street. On my map, Conneaut Lake Park is indicated not with a little red square as is common for amusement parks, but rather with a little black dot. That's because Conneaut Lake Park isn't really a park, it's a town that looks like a park. I guess it's kind of the opposite of Walt Disney's Main Street or Great America's Hometown Square. It appears that the streets that run through the park are closed to traffic, although that may be little more than local custom. Thanks to some gates put up a little more than a decade ago, the streets don't go through, but each appears to be open to the grid at one end or the other. And there is traffic flow at the lake end of the park, but I haven't got down there yet.
Last time I was at Conneaut Lake Park, this was Dr. Moriarity's Wild Ride, featuring the Doctor's Infamous Gum Wall™. Now it's the Devil's Den, and while it still has a lot in common with Camden Park's Haunted House, it seems that it has received a fresh coat of flourescent paint and a couple of working stunts. Someone sugested that DAFE had some involvement with this one. I haven't checked on that, but it wouldn't surprise me, especially since I think it's the second-closest dark ride to Rick Davis' residence. 8-) Anyway, it's a neat ride. The bats flying around over the coaster dip at the beginning of the ride are a nice touch, and a unique use for an old ceiling fan.
I returned to the main midway and continued toward the lake. In this block, the street is narrower, or at least it feels narrower because there are joints down the middle...a ticket booth, and a High-Striker game. Along the right-hand side is a series of midway games, and at the end a facade that resembles a castle. Actually it reminds me of the photos of Cedar Point's long-defunct Eden Musee. It's identified as "The Ultimate Trip", and the interior proved to be a black box with flourescent paint on the walls. In the middle of the black box is an Eli Bridge Scrambler. Due to a miscalculation by the operator, there wasn't room for me on that cycle, and when I exited the building to wait for the next ride I got distracted and walked away. So I don't know how the thing runs, only what it looks like when it is loading.
At the end of the block, the park opens up significantly. On the right hand side, there is an open field with a stage facing the lake. Further to the right is the Hotel Conneaut, and on this day the field was crammed full of street rods and classic cars being proudly displayed by their owners for the "Doo-Wop Weekend". Further down, between the classic cars and the midway, I got an unexpected surprise. It was Coaster #241, Steel Coaster #155, a Chance Toboggan in good condition. I climbed into the cramped car for the ride up the tower. The first thing I noticed was that the lap bar is more snug on this thing than on the one at Lakemont. In this case it actually made it easier to avoid banging my head on the ceiling in the dips at the end of the ride. The second thing I noticed was that instead of a badly scratched Lexan® window in the front of the car, this one just has a piece of expanded metal which is actually easier to see through. The ride runs very nicely (well, for a Toboggan, anyway...) and I managed to get off without a headache.
Past the Toboggan is another street, and past that street is the beach and a beachside building housing a restaurant and bar, also a museum, and who knows what all else. A set of docks provide moorings for boaters, and at the end of one pier was parked Liberty II [Footnote 1], a boat consisting of an enormous gasoline engine sitting in a tiny wooden hull. I know the boat sank and was recovered and restored, and that it normally lives in the on-site museum, but apart from that, its significance is mostly lost on me.
I went back up the hill and investigated the other side of the midway. Across from the Toboggan is a Round-Up, next to it a space where the Ranger was mercifully disposed of. That is to say, the Ranger that was there in '97 has been removed. The space was filled with a closed-for-today food joint, and a couple of classic cars, then a climbing wall on the corner. Across the street, most of the block is taken up by a very large structure. Along the street, this is food service grab-joints. On the lake side, it's rest rooms. On the back side, I peeked through a garage door and learned that the bulk of the ground floor appears to be the park's maintenance shop. Upstairs is apparently a ballroom or concert hall, but I didn't get the opportunity to go up and have a look; it was closed off, though a concert was scheduled for the evening.
The next cross-street, that is, the road between Devil's Den and Kiddieland, held two more rides. Okay, a ride and a half. A frame for a Chance Yo-Yo stands on the outside corner awaiting reassembly, while next to it an Eyerly Roll-O-Plane tempts riders. The Roll-O-Plane lacks some critical parts for the head tilting mechanism, but otherwise appears to be in decent shape and operating much as it would have in the 1950's. If you are familiar with the Roll-O-Plane, you may understand what that means [Footnote 2]. At least they are using the proper door keys. 8-)
In the next block is the Dodgem building. Until a few years ago, this was the (in)famous "NO BUMPING!!!" bumper car ride with classic sheet-metal cars. The new cars came from Duce, which I guess is a successor company to Dodgem. After the fatal accident at a fair on a portable bumper car ride about a month ago, I decided to look closely at the pavilion. The queue comes up a ramp across the front of the building and around a switchback in the corner. The floor, walls and railing are all wood. Overhead, there is a metal mesh grid that supplies power to the cars. Standing in the queue, this grid is only about 7' overhead, if that. I was (dare I say it?) shocked to see bare metal strands which hold the wire mesh tight extending out from the grid, directly overhead, and tying off to ceramic insulators attached to the outside wall. Unless I am terribly mistaken, that means these wires are 'hot' when the ride is operating! Yikes! I suppose they could be connected to the system neutral (I understand that Dodgem cars, unlike most modern bumper cars, operate on 120 VAC, and suspect that might be a reason for using the Duce cars now), but it seems illogical to make the floor 'hot'! Oh, it's not really dangerous, because there aren't any grounds available to people in line, but still... On the other hand, maybe the floor is 'hot'. During the ride, some of the floor joints would spontaneously arc, so that the floor was effectively welding itself together. In any case, I wished I had my AC detector pen handy just to get a better idea of how the ride worked! [Footnote 3]
Electrical issues aside, the Dodgem building offers a large floor, a moderate number of fast, reasonably heavy cars, resulting in a decent bumper car ride. I have come to appreciate good bumper cars...even just moderately good bumper cars...because it seems so many of them just flat out stink these days. This ride doesn't stink; in fact, it's pretty good.
Past the bumper cars are a gift shop where I failed to find anything I particularly wanted, and the waterpark, which I skipped. Instead I took a ride on the Iron Horse train, which circles counter-clockwise around the miniature golf course, then clockwise around the Blue Streak. Almost all of the train ride is back in the woods, but in the daytime it offers some nice views of the Blue Streak, even though the car canopies are sometimes in the way.
I took a ride on the Paratrooper when I reached the front of the park, then went back and did it all again. I encountered several people I know, most of them just barely...but it is always good to share a park visit with fellow park nuts. I investigated the Hotel Conneaut, and even inquired about spending the night there, but learned the place was booked solid. I rode more rides, talked coasters, learned a little about how the park is doing this season, and in general had a good time.
Except for one little thing, and it, unfortunately, is a pretty serious issue which the park seriously needs to address one way or another. The problem is closing time. First of all, the park rides closed, as advertised, at 9:00 pm. With the size crowd they had, the evening's special events, and the perfect weather, that place could have been busy until 10 or 11 at least. Anyway, at about 8:45 I got in line for the Blue Streak, and about two dozen customers behind me, the line was cut. Okay. So far, everything is going in a reasonable manner. But while I have been to a lot of parks, including parks that do a hard-close, I have never been to a park where closing time was taken so seriously and yet managed so poorly. And I've had to feel my way out of Kennywood in the dark a couple of times! Anyway, yes, the Blue Streak line was cut. But it didn't matter. At 8:55, the last train was sent out, and the ride crew told the rest of the people waiting in line to go home. I'm not talking about two or three people who slipped into line at the last minute, I am talking about roughly 50 people who, had they known they would be denied a ride on the coaster, would have ridden something else instead of waiting in line. By 8:59, the Blue Streak lights were out, and a whole bunch of angry people had knocked over a bench and were wandering down the midway muttering obscenities and wondering what in the hell had just happened. It's an unwritten law, but maybe it out to be codified: Once you cut the line for a ride, barring bad weather or mechanical failure, the park has effectively promised a ride to the people still waiting. If they want to close promptly at 9:00, they need to cut the line earlier. It makes no sense at all to leave customers stranded on the entrance ramp. It is a Bad Idea™ for more reasons than I care to think about right now, but there is one reason in particular that stands out above all others. By definition, park closing is the last experience a customer will have in the park. By virtue of being the last experience, it is also the most memorable experience of the day, particularly if it is something significant. Ever consider why so many parks cap off their operating day with fireworks? Anyway, the danger of screwing up a closing time procedure is that no matter how many wonderful experiences your customer had during the day, the one thing he is going to remember is how badly he was treated because some ride crew screwed up a closing procedure. They know how long the ride is, they know when they want to close, and they know how many people are waiting in line. There really is no excuse for stranding three loads of people on the ramp because someone forgot to close the queue. And there is almost no good reason for not operating for an extra fifteen minutes when someone does screw up the count just to flush those last few people out of the queue...and let them go home happy. Every other park I have visited does one or the other, sometimes both. The way Conneaut closed the Blue Streak on this evening is absolutely inexcusable.
Oh, and incidentally, I was about 20 people back...right in the middle of the angry mob when the ride closed. If they'd run the three additional loads they needed, I'd have been on the second train. Now, I'm somewhat willing to forgive Conneaut Lake for this transgression. But only somewhat. After all, if Six Flags or Paramount or Cedar Fair were to do the same thing, we would be all over them for their indifferent attitude toward their customers. So why should we not hold Conneaut Lake to the same standard? To properly manage the ride queue at closing time doesn't cost the park even a nickel, and running the train two or three extra cycles at the end of the day because they didn't get it right also costs very little. Particularly if those customers are paying $2.50 a piece for that ride. But to shut the ride down with people still waiting in the queue is to invite 50 people to go home with their most vivid memory one of being denied a ride on a coaster. Are those 50 people going to tell their friends what a wonderful day they had in the park? No, those 50 people are more likely to tell their friends how badly the park botched their closing procedure, or worse yet, to get on an Internet discussion group and tell the whole world how badly the park botched their closing procedure. I can't imagine that whatever their agenda was could possibly be worth the bad press!
Speaking of press, I didn't see any at Conneaut Lake, but everybody I talked to seemed to indicate that things are really looking up for the park. Their legal troubles and the whole ownership mess are largely resolved, and the park has drawn large crowds this season. After some doubt as to whether the place would open this season, it sounds like next year's opening is all set, and that the Musik Express ride that was down this year has been fixed and is ready to go for next year. Conneaut Lake is looking good, and while it may still be a little uncertain, things look very promising. Now if they could just get that closing time thing under control...
I spent the night in an unremarkable chain motel in the next town. I needn't have bothered; I should have saved the $50 and driven home that night, as the next day was a total washout, causing me to cancel my visit to Geauga Lake.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: I wonder if "Liberty" also sank... [Return to text]
Footnote 2: Look closely at the tub doors, in particular...[Return to text]
Footnote 3: A tool which can detect the hot side of an AC circuit through induction. Neat gizmo, and it has saved me from getting "poked" more than once.[Return to text]
--DCAjr
Next:
Six Flags over Geauga Lake (#2) Cedar Point (#10)
