The Fate of the Gulf Coaster (Gurnee)

jonrev · Post by **jonrev** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:32 pm

We all know that the Gurnee Gulf Coaster didn't last more than a year. But I've been wondering, whatever happened to it after its removal. It doesn't make sense for them to have it scrapped because it was still pretty new. Did it ever go to another park? Is it still around somewhere? Or did GAm waste a coaster?

m11stephen2 · Post by **m11stephen2** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:26 pm

When I posted a topic smilar to this on sfgamworld.com they said that it was scrapped after the first year. They also said that the gurnee one had had 4 fires.

jonrev · Post by **jonrev** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:31 pm

4 FIRES? Ouch.

Shockwavegirl · Post by **Shockwavegirl** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 2:57 pm

Yeah, well fires don't generally close a ride down for good. Do you know how many fires they get on the cars on Raceway a year? My friend's Christy and Brad worked on those rides the year we worked there, and at least every other day they told me about how one of the cars caught on fire, or jumped the track and hit the fence. I do see though how they would consider a kiddie coaster with 4 fires in one year a little disturbing though.

redfishpaw · Post by **redfishpaw** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:17 am

I've heard about a fire or two being the cause of the rides demise, but I don't know if it's true. I do remember riding on the Gulf Coaster. I didn't notice the ride being on fire that day

segerken · Post by **segerken** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:49 pm

The Santa Clara one had a habit of derailing. I was trained to operate it in '78 or '79 and was told that it had a habit of derailing and what to do when it did. I only operated it a couple of days and on one of those days it did derail. What I mean was that only one set of wheels came off. not the whole train flying off and sown into the ground.

As far as a fire. What is there to cause the fire. The only thing is the small motor that pulls the chain that pulls the cars up the hill. The breaks were totaly mechanical friction type and cann't cause a fire because the friction wouldn't las long enough to create enough heat. This ride was as technically as simple as you could get.

m11stephen2 · Post by **m11stephen2** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 4:12 pm

What ever happened to the Santa Clara one?

Post by **steven** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:14 am

It stayed for several years. After that? My guess would be the scrap heap.

Steven

redfishpaw · Post by **redfishpaw** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:19 am

Here is a nice ACE article (PDF link) about the SC Gulf coaster with a couple photos - pages 2 and 3

http://www.mocedades.com/temp/ncd6.pdf# ... %20COASTER'

BrianPlencner · Post by **BrianPlencner** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:49 am

Redfishpaw,

Thanks for posting that article. Not sure if you have read the whole thing or not, but on page 5, there is a wonderful article about Tidal Wave written by our awsome site host!

redfishpaw · Post by **redfishpaw** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:37 pm

Brian,

Yes, I had noticed Stevens name mentioned several times in the article. Also, since it is an ACE article, I thought that perhaps a few people in this forum (assuming that there are a few ACE members here) may have already seen it before.