Ghost Train (Blackpool Pleasure Beach)
| Ghost Train (Blackpool Pleasure Beach) | |
|---|---|
.JPG) | |
| Blackpool Pleasure Beach | |
| Status | Operating |
| Opening date | 1930 |
| General statistics | |
| Attraction type | Dark ride |
| Designer | Joseph Emberton |
| Rows | 1 |
| Riders per row | 2 |
| Duration | Approximately 4 minutes |
Ghost Train is a dark ride attraction at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. It opened in 1930 and was designed by Joseph Emberton. It is notable as being the first real "Ghost Train" in the world and the first to use the name of Ghost Train. It is one of the few Ghost Trains left in the United Kingdom that is not portable. It has also undergone several refurbishments over its years of operation.
Design and history
In the 1920s, "Pretzel rides" were becoming a big hit in the United States of America. During the late 1920s, Blackpool Pleasure Beach decided to buy one of these types of dark rides. The designer, Joseph Emberton, called the ride "Ghost Train", based on the name of the popular play at the time, The Ghost Train.[1]
Today, the ride consists mainly of special effects using luminescent paint, lit by black-lights. Many scenes in the ride are based on horror stories, characters or films, such as Dracula and more recently The Exorcist.
The ride has an open station, which is decorated with different creatures such as trolls, ghosts and witches (which have noticeably deteriorated over the years). The ride travels through the first section of scenes including a victim engulfed in cog wheels before going down a small drop in the station area and pulling up again to go into the second section featuring spiders, an exorcist girl in her bedroom and 3 skeleton cyclists.[2] After the Trauma Towers ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach closed at the end of the 2008 season, some of the scenes in Trauma Towers were reused in the Ghost Train ride, including the phantom who plays the organ.
A few of the changes to the ride include a flying skeleton head becoming a boiler and the druid scene becoming the exorcist girl. A whole section of the ride was changed from an Egyptian scene with a mummy and a spike coffin to a forest with corpses strapped to a gate and some snake-like creatures.
Music
The ride uses the song "Impressions of Sorcerer" by Tangerine Dream at some parts of the ride. The song was written for the film Sorcerer and notably the drum beat and electric guitar sections of the song have been removed for the ride.
"Real" Ghosts?
The Ghost Train at Blackpool Pleasure Beach is supposedly haunted by a real ghost by the name of Cloggy.[3] It was originally a single level ride with no 'dip' and does not appear to have deterred reports of it being haunted. The date of the last complete rebuild was 1957.