Great Adventure Train

There was a train ride at Great Adventure during the first few seaons. I believe it was located in the general area of what is now Congo Rapids.

Anybody have any info/pictures?

I think your talking about Lighting Loops. Surf over to RCDB and look at past coasters at SFGADV for more info. Thats the only coaster I know of that was by or near congo rapids other than Nitro.

No, not a coaster - a train as in railroad. I think it may have been a real steam engine too.

Yes, there was...it was called the "Great Train"...painted yellow and blue. It wasn't a full-scale-size train, but not quite miniature...think half-scale (for lack of better wording). I found one of my mom's old souvenir books ("A Pictorial Guide to Great Adventure"...unfortunately I can't find a date listing when it was made...but since Lightning Loops is in the book, I have to assume it was 1978...since Lightning Loops debuted then, and Rolling Thunder, which debuted the year after, is not mentioned at all) and in this book, it says that the train "pulls guests for a long and beautiful scenic cruise through woods, past a lake, and retuns to the station again." So my guess is either Congo Rapids area, or perhaps over by Medusa/the log flume. Anyone find more info?

Ive only seen a few pics of the train here is a couple of links they are very small pics from brochures.

http://www.themeparkbrochures.com/1978/sfgadv1978_4.html

http://www.themeparkbrochures.com/1979/sfgadv1979_4.html

Looks like SLFAKE and I must have typed at the same time, looks like they gave you more info than I could have. *** Edited 3/11/2005 4:24:31 PM UTC by supermandl***

It was there at least in 1978 and was located in and around of the area of the "Moon Flume" (I believe that area is now called Looney Tunes Seaport).

A check of the 1977 Great Adventure map on the site "Theme Park Maps" ( http://www.themeparkbrochures.com/maps/1977/sfgadv1977_1.html)

verrified this and the location. Item #28 is it, and at that time it was called "Woodland Express" (Item #27 is the Moon Flume).

I can't remember much of it from back then, except that it ran through the trees. The one thing that I do remember... There were trees growing through the roof of the station (i.e. the station roof was built "around" some existing trees.)

*** Edited 3/11/2005 4:06:32 PM UTC by SLFAKE***

Thanks for the info, that's interesting about the station. :)

Anyone know when the train was removed?

The train was a Crown Metal Products two foot gauge steam train, similar to the ones at Hersheypark. I'm not sure exactly when it was removed, I'm guessing sometime in then early 1980's.

Must have been the early 80s because I don't ever remember a train at Great Adventure (and my memories of the park go back pretty far). I wonder what happened to it? It couldn't have been very old when it was removed unless the park bought the trains used.

There are quite a number of Crowns that are now in private hands, so it's likely still in existence, just not accesable to the general public.

There is a gap in the maps at "Theme Park Maps" site... The 1980 map has the train... the next map is 1987 and the train is gone.

Also, looking at that 1980 map, it appears that its station was right across the walk way from the "Enchanted Forrest" sky ride station.

The Train was taken out in 82.

The actual route of the train is the same path that is used for the haunted hayride when its run by nitro, supposly it was a pretty good ride, and long. I do know that when you are on top of the ferris wheel and look towards seaport and the flume rides there is an opening still there from which the train entered the woods, cant find where it exited though.

I wonder what made the park remove the train? It's the kind of ride the park needs! The woods surrounding the park are quite scenic.

Typically, a train ride set up like this could only handle a couple of hundred people an hour. Unfortunately this was the death knell for a lot of these later on. It takes running multiple trains to bring the numbers up. With the Crown it also takes a person far more skilled than your average ride op. In some locals they have to be a certified power boiler operator, or under the direct supervision of one. Some operations didn't want the hassle, while others (like Knobles and Hershey) embraced it.

Knoebels has a small Crown, right? I assume that the one at Great Adventure was a larger one?

I believe the Knobles Crown is a 15 inch gauge train. the Great Adventure is 24 inch gauge. Crown ceased production of the 15-16 inch gauge equipment in the mid 1960's. There was a reduced demand for that size, and the difference in the construction costs were just about the same.

As of last year, the train was still in storage at the park. It's not in very good shape though (big surprise).

You are referring to the Great Adventure train? I find it surprising that it's still there. There is a demand for these with the large scale railroad people. A large portion of the surviving 2 foot Crowns are now running on private railroads.

I assume that they only had one train?