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I wondered if anyone has modeled an amusement park. We have an old and now defunct amusement park about 5 miles from my house. Good old
Chippewa Lake Park. It still stands, coaster and all, but with 29 years of neglect and overgrowth.
Anyway, it looks like progress is finally catching up and developers are going to level it for condos, retirement center, park, ect...
I want to model the park and "save" it if only in scale. Pointers on making a roller coaster, carasole, ect...? One thing the park had was an old caboose for children to play in, that will be the easy attraction to add.
Looks like a pretty neat place to model. I checked the photos on
www.flickr.com . Did a quick search and found close to 600 photos.Probably some good shots for you there or at some of the other photo sharing sites.
I built a model amusement park. Pictures of the first incarnation are available here:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/81927695RCObhy
Right now I am in the midst of expanding it to include some additional rides and other elements. Several of the rides operate. I had to resort to scratchbuilding to get the rides I want. I'm interested in older rare rides. Faller's rides don't have the right "look" for me. IHC's rides are really not that accurate (a few are pretty good).
There is a ride modelers Yahoo! group that has some great information on building rides. Most of the participants focus more on the carnival scene rather than on complete amusement parks, but it is still a useful resource.
Be sure to check out Coasterdynamix:
www.coasterdynamix.com. They make a customizable o-scale kit for an inverted steel roller coaster as well as a small operating HO scale wooden coaster.
Since the original poster mentioned Chippewa Lake, this might be a good time to point out that Cedar Fair (operators of Cedar Point) decided to close the 120 year old Geauga Lake park jsut south of Cleveland. Three wooden coasters are seriously in danger, including a historic 1925 Big Dipper John Miller coaster. concerned enthusiasts are exploring ways to save a portion of the park, or at least the roller coaster, but demolition is a serious threat.
Limited information about the Big Dipper is available at
www.savethedipper.com
A petition to save Geauga Lake is here:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/geaugalake/
Your park looks great JWP. A lot of what you have done looks a lot like what I need for my Chippewa Lake Park model. Especially the carousel.
It's horrible about Geauga Lake. I grew up going there. So sad to see it closed now. I will be sure to sign the pedition. Can't let such a great coster fade away like that.
Thanks brubakes! The carousel is a modified IHC model in a scratchbuilt pavilion.
Chippewa is a fascinating place. I wish I could have seen the place when it was open.
Thanks brubakes! The carousel is a modified IHC model in a scratchbuilt pavilion.
Chippewa is a fascinating place. I wish I could have seen the place when it was open.
Me too. It closed two years before I was born, but my love for local history and amusement parks in gernal draw me in. I live about 5 miles from the park which is even more aluring.
Very nice work on that carnival, JWP. As Josh pointed out, Walthers sells a large number of carnival and amusement park rides, although most of them are European. That's no problem if you're modeling a modern park since most of the rides are from Europe anyway.
Ah, Chippewa Lake, Geauga Lake, Puritas Springs, and Euclid Beach. Cleveland was an amusement park paradise in the 50's. I used to spend many happy hours there as a kid and now they are, or soon will be, all gone. The family type of amusement park is disappearing all over America, just like drive-in's. Theme parks have taken over and no one seems to want to got to a park to spend the day riding carnival-type rides. I own stock in Cedar Fair and, although they were surprised at the public relations hit they took over closing Geauga Lake, there's no chance it will be saved. The land is already just about sold to a large developer and one day it will be covered with houses and stores, the Geauga Lake amusement park being just a memory preserved by some historic marker.
Have you heard anything about the Geauga land being sold to a developer? I thought they were still accepting bids. At least that's what the latest news articles are saying.
I'm not too hopeful about the park being saved, but there are some proposing a "mixed use" type development that would include the Big Dipper and some other rides as part of a larger retail/entertainment project. Not ideal by any means but better than letting something as historic as Big Dipper fade away.
There is one deal that is just about closed but they are, in theory, still taking bids. I don't think there's any chance the Big Dipper will stay at Geauga Lake. It will be moved up to Cedar Point as another wooden coaster. Cedar Fair apparently thinks this will pacify Ohioan's since the Big Dipper will still be preserved, just not in Geauga Lake.
I decided to check the web site to save that rollar coaster. I got this feeling that I had been there before. The park has a striking resemblence to Valley Fair in Shakopee MN. I then realized that they are owned by the same company!
Correct. Cedar Fair is the outgrowth of the company that started as Cedar Park in Sandusky, Ohio, where they are still headquartered. They expanded by buying small regional parks like Geauga Lake and then went big time, buying the Knott's parks and the Paramount/Great America parks. They incurred a tremendous amount of debt doing this just as gas prices were rising and the economy was starting to move down. Their financial performance has been dismal, one of the reasons they need to dump Geauga Lake and make some cash from a real estate deal. I've been close to dumping Cedar Fair (FUN) for a while since they have been hovering near down 20%, which is when I sell. It's only the 8.6% dividend that keeps the stock attractive.
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