Where are the traditional wild mouse coasters?

I went to Blackpool Pleasure Beach last weekend while studying over in the British Isles. It was an incredible park with some great coasters, most notably The Big One, Grand National, and Wild Mouse. Yes, that's right the wild mouse was easily my favorite ride there. I got 7 rides on that little sucker. Great out of control feeling and amazing air time.

My question is, what happened to most of the traditional wooden mouse coasters like the one at BPB. It is the first wooden mouse I've encountered, and it was incredible. Why aren't there more than 2 left in the US?? RCDB shows one in Utah and one in Lousiana. You would think with the great ride they provide, more parks would have kept them around. I would love to see a coaster company start building these again.

This is just a "wild" guess, but I would assume that maintainance costs would have been the biggest cause of steel wild mice to become the standard. Since the forces created on a mouse are relitavely strong (at least on the hairpins) steel would make the ride much less costly to maintain.

If anyone knows the real reason, please correct my guess.

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Nothing... NOTHING... can prepare you for... the Fourth Dimension!

Blaster_1578 said:
"Why aren't there more than 2 left in the US?? RCDB shows one in Utah and one in Lousiana.

Actually, there are no wooden mice in the USA. Both of those you mentioned have been removed.

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*** This post was edited by The Shy One on 6/3/2002. ***

Yes, the wooden mouse that scared the daylights out of me at Pontchartrain Beach when I was a kid is long gone but not forgotten.

the only old one that comes close is bobsleds at seabreeze. its a steel coaster with a wooden structure and it was made in the 50s.

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Check out CoastNY at www.angelfire.com/ny5/coastny

There's 3, ( I think!)- one as mentioned above at Blackpool, a similar ride in Southport, King Solomons' Mines which was relocated from Morecambe when Frontierland closed. And one in Melbourne Australia on the Gold Coast at a showgrounds which only operates the ride 1 month a year, along with a selection of flat rides when the annual show is on. Not aware of any in Asia...

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UKRides
www.colinm.com

Wow, that's pretty strange there are zero in America, yet there are currently two operating (one only operates 2 weeks of the year at the Melbourne Royal Show though) in Australia, and a total of three in all (Luna Park Sydney has/had one, I haven't been down to see if it's still there in a few years, and developers have their hands on the multi-million dollar block of land).

I've been on the one at AussieWorld, last time was January this year. It was amazing! I didn't know what airtime was until I rode this thing (that is true, there is not a single normal coaster here that has good airtime).

I thought the tilting around corners was just something in RCT for fun, but do they ever! They also come completely off the track in the bunny hills. Head choppers galore! The ride, like almost all wild mouses, is all over itself in a small footprint, and you can imagine that with wooden supports, and especially tight little bunny hills, you're head just about comes off.

I believe it was a short-lived ride type around when Steel Coasters were first coming to life around the world. Before they really took off, the steel ones started to appear, which I guess were easier rides to handle or something.

However, these wooden ones are easily a million times better than steel ones (except the mega-themed one coming to Movie World in 2 weeks), they do everything the steel ones do, except they tilt on the corners, and fly off the track on bunny hills.

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So what if the best coaster in Australia is a second hand Arrow?

I think some of the steel Wild Mouse rides......(Would those be termed as Wild Mice? ;)).....are great even if they aren't "traditional". I know I've probably logged about 20 rides on the Galaxi at Canobie Lake Park.

Actually Galaxy isn't a mouse. A mouse has many tight turns in a row like this.

Galaxy is a pretty fun ride though.
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Bake 'em away toys.

*** This post was edited by PT300 on 6/4/2002. ***

Colin, I believe that it was the WildCat that moved from Morecombe to Southport, which is the steel mini coaster type ride just by the log flume at Southport. From what I can gather King Solomans Mine was built for Pleasureland Southport as new.

Blackpool is the place though for anyone who wants some history with their coasters. The older rides must have been mind blowing when they were new, and there is enough new stuff to leave you wanting more at the end of the day, not to mention that amazing feel of real seaside fun.

Nope Coaster Gaffoon-trust me! King Solomons' mines was the wooden wild mouse at Frontierland, its name got changed when frontierland rethemed. The Wildcat at Pleasureland is a galaxy stlye ride- a Schwarkopf Wildcat 1964 model, this is another ride removed from Morecambe, but they're both at Pleasureland now. Have a look at me site for their logos...

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UKRides
www.colinm.com

My dad has postcards of a mouse at CP. It sure looked wooden to me, though it is hard to tell. (If I remember right, I think it's from the 50s or so)

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- Peabody

Even though I think it is more along the lines of a full size woodie, The biggest drop on Locosumo is only about 10-15 ft.

This might put it in a wooden mine train but I never seen a mine train have so many speed bumps.

Wooden wild mouse???/

Chuck, who says Locosumo will be a completley emersive darkride experience. :)

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Charles Nungester
Lesourdsville Lake, The great American amusement park opens the season June 6th Thurs-Sun every week. Park phone is (513)539-2193

There are actually quite a few of next generation wooden wild mouses in Japan(meaning not old but are still wooden wild mouses with steel track.)

Wooden wild mouses first debuted un 1957, but two years later Herschell came out with the steel design for wild mouses. Herschell showed that steel was cheaper, easier to maintain, and could in terms make a larger variety of elements for the wooden wild mouse. So, most of the portable wooden wild mouses were replaced, moved, or left to rot.

Here's a list of all the permanent ones that were in the the USA:

location, [name] installation date comments

Pontchartrain Beach [Wild Maus] 1957 extant by 1960

Palisades Park [Palisade Mouse] 1957 operated until 1971

Whitney's Playland, [Alpine Racer] 1957 SBNO by c1963; demolished 1972

San Francisco, CA

Springlake Park, OK[Wild Mouse] 1957? demolished c1960

Cedar Point [Scamper] 1962 operated until c1975

Lagoon, UT [New Wilder Mouse] 1973 survived to late 1980s

J's Amusements [Devil's Coach] 1977 operated until 1990;

ex Belmont Park (San Diego)

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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean

*** This post was edited by Vertigo on 6/6/2002. ***

The wild mouse at CP was built in 1959 and removed in 1962. The History section on CP's website has a picture, but it's hard to tell if the supports are wood or not. All it says is "the steel tracked Wild Mouse was located near the current site of Midway Market". I never saw it as my first trip to CP was in 1966, and by then the Mill Race was there, with Blue Streak behind it.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

CP also had the Scamper, which was removed in the early 70's. It sat roughly on the site of Matterhorn. From what I can remember, it was more or less a wooden mouse.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Pleasureland/Frontierland

King Solomons Mines was located at Frontierland they moved to Pleasureland. The Wild Cat had always been at Pleasureland. It is a Pinfari ride, which was re-located to its present position to make way for TraumaTizer. There was however, an identical ride at Frontierland know as Stampede, but this was scraped, not moved to Pleasureland.

Ash

It seems like coaster types just die off.

Other coaster designs disapeared like the Verginia Reel, the crazy backwards style wooden coaster featured in RCT, and for some reason I can't understand, we are experiencing the death of Arrow suspendeds!!! ARGH

Ahhh the evolution of coasters..

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CANADA ROCKS!
Why do people line up for bad movies, simply for the fact that the words 'STAR WARS' are in the title?????

It's because people get too over pasionate with B&M.

Go onto Rideas (the Alton Towers fan boy site) and all you see is Replace Corkscrew with a B&M, replace Log Flume with a B&M.

They them abuse the likes of TraumaTizer at Pleasureland because its an 'Off the shelf' VEKOMA ride. If it were a B&M at Alton running on that very same track layout, its would be great.

Personally, I hope the Biggest park in Europe (Blackpool Pleasure Beach) which we all know COULD afford a B&M keep installing other types. I am filled with boardem after a day at Alton.

Ash