Harold Lloyd’s Speedy has a lot of Coney Island footage, as well as scenes from old New York. It’s pretty good, imho.
Damn, that’s too bad. I can feel the course carpet-like texture of the walls of that right if I think about it. Had a friend deposit a VERY large amount of vomit into the trashcan outside of that ride one time. It was such a simple, fun ride.
Totally agree. Wish I was running a machine shop. I would so love to go into the business of building and selling those.
I’m surprised that you picked a common ride that is seen all over the country as your #1 example. I love to go to fairs and often see them… in the summer (with kids 100% staying on their sacks), and off-season (sometimes covered in snow). They’ve weathered winters and the changing times just fine.
I bet you could buy old carnival rides for next to nothing and then get someone to machine any broken parts (OR… 3D PRINT THEM, USING METAL!)
There may be some state laws at play here. The burlap sack slides were everywhere here in California when I was a kid but I haven’t seen one in at least 30 years. Or maybe they were all just replaced by water slides in places like Southern California with more warm days than somewhere like the Midwest.
I’m the first to agree that 3D printing is really cool, but for strong metal parts, you’re almost always better off with machining. Or if you’re going to make more than a handful, casting or stamping (though those might involve 3D printing to make the mold masters).
I was going to post a pic of a similar slide that was at Lakeside Amusement Park in Roanoke, VA. But it had been renovated and was brand new. This is how I remember it, in the mid seventies, with the same steps on the right, and those heavy pieces of itchy, scratchy carpet you had to haul up yourself. Just horrible on a hot summer day. What, some genius couldn’t have devised a pulley system to get 'em up to the top?
Molds are expensive though, never a good choice for a small run.
3D printing strong metals parts is getting cheaper but you need to find a maker space that can do it. You can’t really afford a 3D metal printer most likely, they’re still very expensive.
A machine shop though could make parts using their advance milling machines. These are the same shops you would probably go to for the molds.
Well I’m thinking I would basically go into the business of first, finding some old blueprints and buying the rights. Then manufacture and sell them. I think many amusement parks that had to take them out would gladly put one back in because they take up so little space.
Bit of a sidetrack here, but the mention of Bell’s Amusement Park caught my attention. Not because I ever went there, but because of a strip of 35mm negative film I came across somewhere on a road trip last year. I scanned it when I got home and it turned out the images were taken at Bell’s, which closed in 2006 (the clue that gave it away was one image had the Phantasmagoria attraction in the background) I still wonder how it is that I came across those images of a place that closed down almost 15 years ago.
And on the Scenic Railway front, the Great Scenic Railway in Melbourne’s Luna Park – built in 1912 – is still running. (I was greatly disappointed that it was down for maintenance when I visited)
Sidetrack: You can see some cool videos of abandoned amusement parks. Just google it.
When I was young, my parents wouldn’t let me go on that – they were old enough to remember the safety issues and disasters of early rides like that. And it is “an early ride like that” it’s all cross-braced wood, carefully painted and maintained. Note the brakeman standing in the middle.
Now that I’m old, I won’t go on that, because the seating is too small for a tall guy, and the bumps and rattles on that thing are /hard/, particularly when you aren’t settled in contact with the bench.
It’s not “scenic” in the sense of having “scenes”. It’s scenic like a railway is scenic – having a view, and traveling up and down “mountains”.
In French, roller coasters are called “montagnes russes” - i.e. “Russian mountains”.
From the linked pictures, it looks much closer to a modern roller coaster than one of LaMarcus A. Thompson’s original Scenic Railways. But even during his lifetime, people were stealing the name “Scenic Railway” and applying it to different rides.
Thompson’s were characterized by gentle, almost sinusoidal up-and-down undulations and no sudden drops or turns:
I came in here to post that.
Prior to waterparks taking over slides were all over the Wisconsin Dells. It was the a major draw and there were at least a dozen of them in that town.
I haven’t seen a rock o plane in a long time. All the traveling carnivals used to have one.
There were 2 person cages that would rock up and down. There was a bar inside that controlled the movement. You could make the cage flip if you held the bar long enough. People were strapped tightly to the seat. Flipping the cage used to scare me. I was always worried it would break off and fall. 
It was unusual because the rider controlled the rocking. I took my young daughter on the ride. I made sure it gentlty rocked.
I found it on Wikipedia.
We used to call that ride the squirrel cages. We loved getting them spinning. I almost throw up just thinking back to it. 