http://www.dogpatch.8m.com/whats_new.html
Another place that I saw was a abandoned amusment park in Hudson Falls New York
anyone know any others?
Until recently I operated a Train very simular to the one pictured. A C.P. Huntington,2’ gauge. Ford gas powered tractor motor.We also had a Crown Metals live steam engine. Hillcrest Park,Bolingbrook IL. Over a mile long ride with a thirty foot high wooden trestle. Everything was auctioned with the acreage now warehousing.
One of the longest and best in the Chicago area was the train ride at Kiddie Land in Maywood, IL. According to a fairly recent PBS show on local amusement parks, they’ve restored one of the steam locos and operate it on special occasions.
Someone in Richmond, IL. had a loop of track around his yard, but I don’t know if it’s still there. I believe Santa’s Village near here had a larger scale train, but it failed to open this year for the first time and it’s ultimate fate is still uncertain.
Last time I was by there it was still there, though I have never seen anything on it, they did have a shed near the back where the equipment probably was.
It’s been a while since I have been there but does the Sandwich Fair still have their train ride or has that gone away.
FYI… Santa’s Village (IL) is gone, now & forever. Everything was auctioned off a couple of months ago.
CC
For years Riverview Park was the big amusement park in Chicagoland. Just a guess, but I’d say it probably closed in the early to mid 1950’s. Once a year my grade school class would make a field trip there riding for almost an hour on one of the old red Chicago Surface Lines streetcars on the Western Avenue line.When we got to the park most kids would head to the “Bobs” or another of the roller coasters for which Riverview was famous. I’d head to the miniature railroad to watch and ride the live steam powered trains that looped around a goodly part of the park. There were usually two trains operating, one headed by a green and the other by a red painted engine. That was in the 1940’s and I am a bit hazy on the details but IIRC both engines were 4-6-2’s and rode on rails spaced about 16" apart.
Mark
…The famous Idlewild Park near Ligonier, Pa. had a park railroad for years…I seem to remember it {the RR}, is not operational anymore…{Anyone know for sure}…? The park is over a 100 years old and at one time had a real railroad…{Ligonier Valley RR}, running right through the center of the park. Some coal trains and a daily doodlebug passed through. LVRR was abandoned in 1952. At one time special passenger trains came to Idlewild from Pittsburgh. There were sidings for these trains to be placed. The park actually had a {very small}, RR “depot” inside it.
Welcome to Northern New Jersey…home of all that is abandoned! Aside from many rail lines we have our share of once famous theme parks that are now only a memory. (Can you say Palisades Amusement Park?) And several others which closed when giving way to larger amusement parks not in this area. However most of these places are pretty well obliterated with nothing left to see, train related or otherwise. We do have a miniature train ride at a local park centering around a zoo, and it is operated as though it is a county railroad. Ride it often enough and you can probably collect some good rail mileage–after all lets remember that things like roller coasters and the like count towards that.
I live about 10 miles from Richmond. Where in Richmond is this?
South of town. At the southeast corner of Hill Rd and US12/IL31.
You can see the loop through the sheds on Google Maps. HERE.
Riverview closed in 1967. My family went there a couple of times in its last years, and those trains were “diesel” powered by that time.
Not an amusement park, but Brookfield Zoo had a miniature railroad that operated roughly around its perimeter until about 1980 or so.
St. Louis Zoo had a little train running around the grounds, at least in the early eighties. Can’t tell from Google Earth now, for sure, but then again, it’s been 23 years since we were there.
Isn’t it behind the building with the Lionel Trains sign out front?
He’s still running. I recently bought a DVD of amusement park trains and his got significant play on it. He has either an F or E diesel unit and passenger cars painted in SP Daylight colors, plus other rolling stock. It’s right near where the old CNW line to Lake Geneva crossed under the Milwaukee Road.
They restored the boiler and moving parts on the 1950 steam engine a year or so ago and put it back in service. But for some reason they didn’t rebuild the firebox, which soon became a problem. So now I heard that’s what they’re doing over the winter.
It’s pretty awesome as far as these trains go. The streamlined boiler reminds me of my
Mom’s old early 1950s art-deco ElectroLux canister vacuum cleaner.
This really isn’t an amusement park but close enough:
I guess this little lot belonged to a gentleman that passed away a couple of years ago. supposely he would give rides on his train here but would also load up a trailer and take it to the mall. I was very interesteted in purchasing his equiptment but couldn’t ever get ahold of his family. I would have love to have kept his tradition going. Bytheway, this is the town of Bozeman, Montana.
Lions Park, Cheyenne, Wyo. had an oval piece of track set at about 12"-gauge which supported a miniature train operation. It was part of a small amusement park operation. The train was abandoned sometime in the early-to-mid 1980s.
South of Elgin, Illinois along the north or east side of U.S. Hwy. 20 (Lake St.) some old boy had a nice piece of land and a 12-to-15 inch gauge railroad spiked down on it. I remember riding it once during the 1960s, but I don’t recall if it was steam or gasoline powered.
Sometime between 2000 and 2002 I rode the St. Louis Zoo railroad. It was operating quite nicely then and I suspect it’s still going today.
For many years Mr. Ed Gerlitz operated a narrow gauge railroad (2-ft. gauge?) at Heritage Square in Golden, Colo. The majority, if not all of the locomotives, were steam powered with many having been built in Germany and/or Austria. There was quite a bit of track too. Anyway, Mr. Gerlitz retired and quit running trains. I don’t remember if he sold the fixed plant and equipment, but I’ve heard that maybe someone else is operating the railway. Not sure.
Does anyone know the fate of the Centerville & Southwestern miniature railway that operated in southern New Jersey? The railway is profiled in the first book I ever bought with my own money, “Little Railways of the World” by Frederick Shaw.
St.Louis zoo train still going round and round.
I’m pretty sure the one at the Detroit Zoo is, as well.
Carl, et al interested:
The Brookfield Zoo (aka Chicago Zoological Park) in suburban Chicago had two 20-ton working steam engines.
First, there was an earlier train from 1962-1968, but amusement-park scale, where the engineer sat on top of the tender. Then the two real narrow-gauge, coal-fired locomotives arrived, the first in 1968. New, heavier trackwork (23.62 inch or 60mm gauge) was installed and roadbed upgraded as the engines weighed about 20 tons each. Two long trestles were built on the west end of the park (each about 125 feet long).
The engines, cars and infrastructure was graciously donated to the county-owned zoo by railfan and live-steamer Elliott Donnelly, of Bell telephone-book printing fame and fortune.
Locomotive No. 1 was an 0-8-0 built in 1918 and used in industry in Germany’s Black Forest; for the zoo it was converted by Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works (Wisconsin) to a 2-8-0 Consolidation and repainted as a Milwaukee Road Hiawatha.
No. 242 (a 2-4-2) was built new in 1972 by Sandley, and was painted in C&O colors. They pulled passenger coaches around the perimeter of the huge, 220-acre park, about a 1.5-mile run. The Zoo also had a replica diesel-style switcher running off a Jeep engine, dressed as CB&Q 999.
In the late50s/early 60s,there was a small amusement park in Pico Rivera Ca.about 15 mi.east of L.A. near my home.They had a 18 in.gauge railroad with a live steam 2-6-2.On Saturdays I could hear the whistle.In the mid 70s this engine ran at Legg Lake in Whittier,CA. I got to know the crew and got to run the engine a couple of times. The engine was built in 1901 for the Venice Miniature Railway,in that CA.city.