For those of you that enjoy a great ride, I am doing a project in that i am tring to find most, if not all of the C.P. Huntingtons that are in use, for sale, or gone.
Carouseler, Chance builds the C P Huntington. I believe that they are still using a set of Crown coaches from the former trainset along with a complete Chance built set. The Crown locomotive is currently in the Northwest, and I believe it's for sale.
Here is what I know about this train in New England.
Story Land in Glen, NH has four C.P.Huntington engines and three sets of six cars including a handicapped accessible car on each set. They operate up to three trains at one time with three stops throughout the park. They are spotlessly maintained and each train has a different color scheme (red, blue, green).
Lake Compounce in Bristol, CT has one C.P.Huntington train with six cars.
The Ecotarium in Worcester, MA has a C.P.Huntington train.
Janfrederick, Neverland has both a C P Huntington and a heavily reworked 36" gauge Crown steam locomotive and train. By the way, how many of you know the history of the C P Huntington, and the man it was named for? Collis P. Huntington was one of the founders of the Central Pacific RR. The CP was the line that built the western half of the first transcontinental railroad. One of the first locomotive built for the road was a 4-2-4 T named for Collis. It later became one of the first locomotives acquired for the Southern Pacific RR, which C. P. Huntington was instrumental in forming. Later in the nineteenth century he was instrumental in the building of the Chesapeake & Ohio RR. The city of Huntington, West Virginia is named after him. As far as the park train is concerned, It was designed by Harold Chance after he had obatained the assets from the Ottaway Co. It was built using plans furnished by the SP, as I recall. The locomotive actually used many of the same feature as the Allan Herschel Iron Horse, with the lead and trailing trucks being powered and the large driving wheel just "floating". It was priced just under what Herschel was chargeing for the Iron Horse, and a great many operations that were using 16" gauge MTC/AH G-16's and S-16's converted over to the two foot gauge Chance ride. When Chance obtained AH in 1969, they no longer offered the G-16 or S-16 for sale, but continued to supply parts. Only the C P Huntington was offered new. By that time Chances only major competition was Ken William's Crwon Metal Products steam trains. *** Edited 12/28/2004 2:23:59 AM UTC by Dutchman***
Camden Park in Huntington, WV once had a "CP Huntington" but just to be confusing about it, that was their river-excursion boat. The park has a miniature train, but it isn't a Chance, it's a NAD...a bit larger than the CP Huntington, and with the diesel engine and drive train located in the tender rather than in the locomotive.
Del Grosso's has an operating train which I believe to be a CP Huntington, but they also have a Crown locomotive on display. Lakemont Park operates a CP Huntington, but has, or at least had, one or two NAD trains parked on a siding. Hersheypark has a Crown miniature train. Indiana Beach runs a Herschell Iron Horse train.
Does anybody know what happened to the CP Huntington and the Crown locomotives that ran at Hillcrest Park?
While I was in Houston for the bowl game, I grabbed a brochure from the downtown aquarium. They advertise a CP Huntington train that rides through a large acrylic aquarium tunnel.
Is that the one run by Landry's? They have been buying ride packages from Chance the last few years. (C P Huntington, carousel,& Century Wheel out at Kemah Boardwalk).
Brackenridge Park in San Antonio TX had three that, according to an operator there that I had asked two days ago, had been operating there for at least 30 years. I'm not sure how long Chance has been making them though. I'm wondering if maybe they had some other engines and then upgraded as time progressed.
In the mid 90's, there were two accidents. Both accidents involved trains hitting eachother. The latest of the two accidents involved two trains wrecking over a bridge and the weight of one car derailing over the bridge caused the whole train to fall into the San Antonio River below. I'm not sure how many fatalities there were.
The trains shut down for a while and new trains were purchased (both two blue and red C.P. Huntingtons). The original owner of the trains closed them down and planned to remove them in 2001 but the San Antonio Zoo purchased them and keeps them open. I took a ride on them the other day. It only cost me $2.50 for a round trip. I think it's nice because I can use it for transportation to the golf course whose parking lot is usually full when I'm in town.
