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"It's finally GONE!!!"
It's getting to be a bit of a challenge: To awake late on a Sunday morning, then to decide which park I can visit that (a) I haven't been to so many times that I am sick of it, and (b) is close enough and/or small enough that I can leave after 8am and not feel like I got cheated out of a full visit. This morning, the choice came down to Camden Park. Camden is a long drive, about a three hour trip, but the park is tiny, and unfortunately, almost never crowded. I cruised down US-23 and headed for Huntington.
At the moment, the Ohio River bridge on US-23 is out of service, as a new cable-stayed span is being built. I'd never heard of a cable-stayed bridge until just a couple of years ago, now it seems they are becoming a dominant form for river crossings. US-22 in Steubenville, US-23 in Portsmouth, and even Lane Avenue over the Olentangy river in Columbus. Heck, you can cross the Olentangy with a couple of I-beams; that's how they did it for the bike paths. But I digress...
I ended up taking US-52, which is not really a scenic route, through Portsmouth, and taking that to Huntington, then catching US-60 to get to the park. Camden Park is on US-60, just West of Huntington, and just outside the floodwalls for both Huntington and the next town to the West. In fact, none of the trip to Camden is particularly scenic, as it runs through Southern Ohio. That part of the state is less flat than the North and West, and while there is coal underground, it isn't as prevalent as further East. The land isn't flat, but it isn't mountainous either, and as a result, the triangular zone between Columbus, Portsmouth and Marietta has become home to some of the state's less glamorous industries, notably electric power generation, coal mining, paper making, uranium enrichment, and incarceration. So it isn't exactly "scenic". It can be interesting, but it isn't necessarily pretty.
Camden Park has done good things, and they have done bad things, and both are immediately apparent when you arrive at the parking lot. The bad thing is that they are now collecting $3 per vehicle for parking. The good thing is that the gigantic pile of scrap steel bordering the parking lot is now GONE. For the uninitiated, that is the pile of junk formerly known as the Thunderbolt Express. Yes, it was the first Arrow shuttle loop coaster to be placed into service [Footnote 1]. Yes, the loss of a coaster is tragic. But in this case, the ride has not been operational in years, the ride was never well suited to Camden Park, and getting the rusted hulk out of the park is a good way to quickly beautify and enhance the park. I paid my admission fee (Camden Park is now strictly P-O-P) and entered the park.
I normally turn left when I enter this park and head down the main midway. This time, I turned right instead, into the area where the most obvious improvements have been made in the past few years: removal of the rotted-out ampitheater, installation of a pond with pedal-boats, removal of the Thunderbolt Express, and installation of the park's newest ride, the Zamperla Kite Flyer. The chairlift was out of service, and I was surprised to see a sign attached to it: "I'm sorry I'm down today. My gear reducer is not functional and I'm waiting for a new one to arrive next day air." There is nothing unusual about a sign on a ride that says, "Sorry, closed today." There is something very unusual about a sign that tells you exactly what is wrong and when they expect to get the parts to fix it. It wasn't a major loss; the ride gives scenic views of the parking lot and the place where the Thunderbolt Express used to be.
Across the railroad track (yes, the locomotive on their NAD train still leans), the Tilt-A-Whirl has been re-located to the East side of the park, next to the Kite Flyer. The ride has a fresh coat of paint on it and looks great. I saw an interesting innovation on it as well. Camden's Tilt is an older, wire rope-drive model. On those, you may recall, the entrance gate is at the lowest point of one of the dips of the ride, with a nice canopied platform, but the operator's position is a platform up the hill to the left, high enough that the operator stands above the drive unit and operates a control lever connected directly to the ride clutch. What Camden did was to weld a long bar to the control stick and attach it to a slide bracket on the fence next to the entrance. This allows the operator to stand on the entrance platform, outside the fence, and run the ride in much the same way as an operator on an electric Tilt [Footnote 2]. I thought it rather clever. I did see a kid try to clothesline herself on the control rod, but that was her own fault; it isn't in the way of the gate or anything. I thought about riding, but really didn't want to be the only person on the ride. That can be hazardous on a Tilt-A-Whirl, especially if the park isn't terribly busy 8-)
I did take a solo ride on the Lil' Dipper. It's a junior NAD coaster, and it has the most legroom of any coaster train I've ever seen. It's a train of single-bench trailered cars, but the cars are every bit as long as the (2-bench) PTC junior cars. The cars are also trailered improperly, with the hitch well back from the axle, so the train shuffles like crazy on the turnarounds. The track is of an odd construction as well, as the track seems to only be a couple of layers of lumber, set on top of a steel structure, but the track ties have stacks of 2x4's to hold everything together on the curves. If you're going to have a simple oval kiddie coaster, the Lil' Dipper is the way to do it; as bad as it is going around the curves, it is still better than those old Allan Herschell kiddie coasters. I wonder how many kids were badly traumatized by those things years ago and are still scared of roller coasters...!
I crossed the track again and returned to the main part of the park. The Dodgem is still a decent set of bumper cars, and the Whip is still running as always. I was a little surprised to find that the space previously occupied by the Tilt-A-Whirl had been left open, and the Scrambler is still sitting in its somewhat-odd position behind where the Tilt used to be. I would have thought it would make more sense to leave the Tilt alone and move the Scrambler, or to move the Tilt as they did and then move the Scrambler to the Tilt's old location. See, the Tilt-A-Whirl pad is a fenced circle with landscaping around it, while the Scrambler sits off the midway a bit. The Scrambler has received some attention, though, as it apparently has new pins and bearings, since it no longer has that annoying lurching and bumping action that Scramblers get when the parts start to wear out.
There are two buildings on this side of the midway. One is a cafeteria which has a large cookhouse on the back of it to serve the catering pavilions under the Big Dipper coaster. The other contains a game joint, an arcade, and the gift shop. Behind the cookhouse are several catering pavilions, and on the wall of one of the pavilions are historic photographs of Camden Park. As if to emphasize how much the park has not changed over the years, the photos all look as though they could have been shot last week, apart from the people and a few minor details.
The Big Dipper is, of course, the park's signature ride. Built by National Amusement Device, it runs a single NAD Century Flyer train which the operator tells me has a set of almost-working headlights on it (no Mars light, though). The train is a little beat up, but even so is in good condition. I understand the park actually has two trains, one that operates and one that sits in the shop getting fixed up. A bunch of us piled into the cushy seats of the train, and with a push of a lever that looks a lot like a bowling pin, we were off.
The Big Dipper is frightening for all of the wrong reasons. I noticed that the back seat of the train has returned to service (it was missing a cushion in a prior year). The lift hill isn't exactly straight, and the train ascends the odd-looking S-curve fairly quickly. The real scare comes on the first drop, as the ride structure shifts a couple of feet to the right as the train goes through the small dip. The train bounces a little, as often happens with NAD trains, and because of this shift, you find the seat moving around beneath you on what is supposed to be straight track. That's the worst of it, though. That dip is followed by a high turnaround at the back end of the ride, then the real first drop. This is where the bounce is most pronounced, and you realize that the seat cushioning is covering up a lot of sins at the track bed. The front end turnaround is a little more violent than it used to be, but it is still the smoothest-running section of the ride. Past that, it's a quick drop, then a rise into the tunnel around the third turnaround, then the final run to the brakes completes the figure-8. The ride is a split figure-8 with an oval in between. It's a decent ride, quite rideable, even re-rideable, but like the Conneaut Lake Blue Streak, it is a bit more violent than the layout would suggest, thanks to trackwork that leaves a lot to be desired.
I wonder if NAD was known for refining a minimalist approach to wood coaster construction in an effort to cut down on construction costs. Both of Camden Park's wood coasters have somewhat unconventional track construction, where comparatively few layers of lumber are used for the track. I wonder if NAD developed this minimalist tracking style in an effort to build less expensive wood coasters. They would certainly run fine for the first couple of years at least, but with less support I would expect the track to deteriorate quickly. On the other hand, for a ride like the Big Dipper, which isn't tremendously fast, where most of the ride is way up in the air, I suppose the track doesn't have to be so extraordinarily strong... That said, it's also worth noting that the curves on the Big Dipper are bent, rather than cut.
Across from the Big Dipper is the Haunted House, which is probably Camden Park's most famous ride. I don't really consider this to be a coaster, but it is a gravity-powered Pretzel ride with a lift hill and a Wild Mouse-style layout. It's less dark than it used to be, now featuring some rehabilitated stunts, though it is quite dark inside and most of the stunts go by so fast that you don't really get to appreciate them. I suppose that's a large part of the reason these gravity-powered dark rides seemed to lose favor as a ride design. The cars simply move too fast for a good show, though it makes for a pretty decent ride.
Past the Haunted House is the park's unremarkable merry-go-round, their Paratrooper, a Round-Up, an Eli Ferris wheel...and what is this? The Hot Cat is an Allan Herschell Caterpillar, without the cover mechanism, and placed in a rectangular building with a center scenery panel so that it kind of looks like a Himalaya. There is nothing unusual about that. What is unusual is that for the first time in several years, the Cat has all 18 cars on it, the controls are put together, and the ride is operating! Naturally, I took a ride. You know, the Cat runs smoother than a Himalaya or a Musik Express. I wonder if the cable drive mechanism has anything to do with that, since the wheels are all idlers. Anyway, the cars all have wood floors in them, so it really is a bit like riding a small Himalaya.
Further down, along side the Big Dipper is the gift shop building the park built a year or two ago, in conjunction with some kind of upcharge display attraction housed in another new pole barn in the corner of the park. The shop is essentially a small toy store, featuring very cold air conditioning and plenty of evidence that it is a new building...mostly because it simply doesn't look like the rest of the park. That isn't to say that the rest of the park is run down, because it really isn't (more about that in a moment), but rather that the rest of the park is obviously quite old. If anything, the new building seems rather insubstantial compared with the rest of the park.
Aside from a small collection of classic kiddie rides, the park has one more adult ride, and I saved it for (apart from a couple more rides on the Big Dipper) last. Camden Park is home to the absolute best-running Eyerly Spider I have ever ridden. They keep it in prime mechanical shape [Footnote 3], and from the time I pulled the tub closed until the moment the operator grabbed it and popped it open at the end of the ride, I don't think the tub ever stopped spinning. But that isn't all. The action of the sweeps is fluid, as there isn't any wobble or chatter, the skilled operator was able to ease the clutches in and out without making anything bounce, and it just made for a great ride. I wonder if the Spider is the park's lead mechanic's favorite.
I don't know the story of what is happening with Camden Park. I don't know what kinds of drama are unfolding behind the scenes. But over the past several years I have witnessed an amazing, and quite frankly, completely unexpected turnaround at that park. It was probably ten years ago or more when the skating rink burned down. The park was deteriorating badly at the time, and the fire took away not just a major attraction, a major draw for the park, but also some critical infrastructure. The building contained the park's administrative offices and had been used for storage of some critical parts, such as the spare motor controllers for the Thunderbolt Express. The skating rink fire was devastating, and could very well have turned out to be the death knell for the park. I'm sure many people were prepared to write off Camden Park when the rink burned. But that didn't happen. I don't know if there was a change in management, or just a change in attitude, but after that disaster, something changed at Camden Park. This is a park in an economically depressed neighborhood, a park that I am guessing is having a good year if it covers its own operating expenses, and if it has a few tremendous years it can buy a new ride from Zamperla or Wisdom. This isn't Cedar Point where a half-billion-dollar NET income is normal. But I saw things happen. I saw eyesores like the batting cages and the broken neon on the Big Dipper sign disappear. I have seen new paint all over the park. Now I'm seeing systematic updates and repairs to the rides, and even new attractions brought into the park. Camden Park looks better today than it has looked in a decade. May I be forgiven for thinking perhaps the fire was the best thing to happen to Camden Park in a number of years? Because it made it clear that the park can't be taken for granted. The turnaround that happened after the fire isn't the kind of turnaround that Conneaut Lake is after, where a park that made some mistakes gets the community to rally around it and save it from oblivion. Instead, at Camden, it simply looks like the management decided that the park is a good and worthwhile thing, and that it deserves some care. Clearly the park has decided that it is a good thing to survive for 101 seasons. I hope the attitude carries over into ever improving numbers at the entrance turnstile as well.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: As the Screamin' Demon at Kings Island. [Return to text]
Footnote 2: [Tilt 101] The Tilt-N-Hurl comes in two basic varieties, and they are almost all electric drive anymore. But the earlier models are wire rope-drive, employing a wire rope wrapped around the outer edge of the sweeps, while the newer models have seven electric motors (one on each sweep) with direct- or almost-direct drive wheels to push the sweeps around. Sellner calls this the "Electric-7" drive, so if someone is talking about an electric Tilt, it generally refers to the Electric-7 drive instead of a wire rope, not to electric vs. gasoline engine.[Return to text]
Footnote 3: Probably to the annoyance of Oregon Rides, which would love to sell them replacement parts... 8-)[Return to text]
--DCAjr
Next: Paramount's Kings Island
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