Update on the former Lion Country Safari Monorail

[Gordon Bombay]

First off, I would like to apoligize for how late this topic is. These photos were taken back in August and meant to be up back then. However, my school's internet up in Athens doesn't like allowing me to upload to the KIC gallery. This means, i have to come home to cincy to do it. So it's 5 in the morning, I'm glad to be home and I have some interesting news to share with you all about a former KI ride...

As many of you know, the Wild Animal Habitat once featured the "Lion Country Safari" mono rail ride built by Bombardier, which took park guests on a tour of various wild animals in simulated habitats. The monorail was removed in 1993 along with the rest of the Wild Animal Habitat in order for the area to be re-themed as "Adventure Village". In the mid 90's local businessman "Jungle" Jim Bonaminio, owner of Jungle Jim's International Food Market in Fairfield, Ohio, known for their unique shopping experience and use of theming as well as 12 animatronics withing the store, purchased the monorail cars along with some other items from Kings Island. For awhile the cars sat in a boneyard behind the stores shipping area untill 2003 when a major expansion of the store was complete along with the aquisition of aditional property. Jungle Jim has had plans for the monorail all along and those plans are no starting to take shape!

In 2005 this building was completed....

-This will be the main station for the monorail and features 2 maintenance bays and a sidetrack area to accomidate the entire fleet of monorail trains.

The new monorail station currently sits quietly with 5 trains on its sidetrack...

...while a 6th train was put on display right by Rt. 4:

In winter of 2006, supports started popping up for the new monorail all around the parking lot as seen here...

But it wasn't untill this summer that actual track began to spring up...

Construction has been going on for quite some time, seeming to pick up then stop suddenly. When asked for specific dates as to when the monorail will open or specific detail; the Jung Jims website offers only this answer to this frequently asked question:

"When will the monorail open?" is a Jungle Jim frequently-asked question. Construction is underway on the monorail landing, directly above the Starbucks...so Foodies (Jungle Jims enthusiasts) keep your eyes peeled!

Speaking of construction of the landing above starbucks...

A friend of mine is having her wedding reception this December at the Oscar Event Center, a part of the Jungle Jim's complex. According to her, guests are instructed to park their cars out by the main monorail station at the rear of the parking lot (as featured in this topic's first photo) where they will board a special leather seat clad monorail for a ride to the entrance above starbucks...

So we could potentially be seeing a piece of KI history alive again by December in Fairfield Ohio!

Many questions however still remain, such as...

-Upon it's completion, what times will the monorail operate?

-Will there be more stations?

-Is the monorail for the event center and its guests only?

-What will the monorail be named?

As far as when the monorail will operate and who wil be permitted to ride it (in terms of customers and event guests) is yet to be seen as the store will hopefully soon make details more clear.

As far as more stations, I have heard multiple things. Back in 2005 I worked for my neighbor helping to paint the parking lines and symbols in parking lots. Jungle Jim's was always the biggest job we got in the summer as they always had a massive section of parking lot that needed to be painted each year. My neighbor and I had the oppourtunity to discuss with one of their managers some potential details of the monorail. According to him they were looking into doing a station above starbucks, the station out back by the rear parking lot, and a station that connected to the wine cellar area of the store. This could mean a third landing could be in the works although it should be noted that the wine area is not located very far from the starbuck's landing. However, as of the time this photos were taken the exact outline of the monorails path is yet to be seen. Hopefully I can snag some more photos since I'm home for the weekend.

As to what the name of the ride will be, there seems to be two names! The train on display by Rt. 4 is painted orange and labeled as "Foodie Land". Seen here...

*a "foodie" is a nickname for an avid shopper/enthusiast of the store.

While two white painted trains out on the sidetrack have the names "World of Food" painted on their sides...

I'm anxious to see some full details come from the store soon and hopefully get some of these questions answered! I cant wait to ride this KI classic in my own backyard. What do you guy's think about the monorail and expansion of Jungle Jim's?

To learn more about Jungle Jim's check out their website here.

To see the rest of the construction photos as well as another old KI friend who now resides at Jungle Jim's click here.

[Avatar]

Ronny – Awesome and interesting report!! Thanks for taking the time to be so through in you facts and photos in your report, it left little to be asked but much too look forward too. Well welcome home I hope all is going well and if you do get some time to do a follow-up to this report I would certainly be interested in reading more, but most important I hope that you have some quality time with your family while home. Thanks again, sounds like a side trip coming in the future.

Jesse

[WooferBearATL]

Jungle Jim's is just amazing.

Amazing!

[The Interpreter]

Ronny! Thanks for yet another wonderful, complete report!

It's great to see the monorail finally near to being used again, after all these years.

[CoastersNSich]

Thanks for the update Ronny! Last time I went by Jungle Jim's, more pylons and track were starting to go up back in August. How much I'm waiting for the day to ride the Monorail.

- Tom, who's about to go to the OSU-Kent State game

[KDCOASTERFAN]

Nice to see a bit of a park's history being put to good use....too bad a local establishment here in Va. won't ask KD to part with any monorail trains they still may have from their safari monorail attraction that once operated there.

KD's was located where TR;FF is today & went all the way back behind Rebel Yell before returning to it's starting point.Interestingly enough that patch of land back behind RY has since become a boneyard for the park's defunct rides rather than a location for new expansion.

[Guest kwindshawne]

This is very cool. I have been meaning to go down there for years for buffalo and deer. I just need to get off my butt and check it out.....

[CoastersNSich]

A couple points to add/fix:

The monorail rolling stock was actually manufactured by Universal Mobility, Inc. This company was later acquired by Bombardier, which has built monorail trains for the Las Vegas system, the current Mark VI trains at Walt Disney World, and smaller trains (like ones used on the safari at KI) for steel-box guideway systems.

http://monorails.org/tMspages/TPBUM.html

Also, the monorail "base" building/shops were built in 1998, just as Jungle Jim's was receiving the old vehicles from KI.

[Train Driver]

Thank you for posting this report! I drove all of these trains (except I think for 7, which had a fire before I started working there) in 1984 (it was the first year for the Cobra). Theresa was the head train driver (supervisor) that year.

Anyway I've been looking all over the internet for ANYTHING regarding KI's Wild Animal Habitat. There isn't ANYTHING out there, no pictures, no websites or anything - not even a scan of a KI pamphlet from those years - at least that I can find. if anybody has pictures of those days, please let me know.

I remember that every night we would close up at 7:00pm, and a lot of times the whole crew would run across the park, pretending to be the Brady Bunch, ("Greg! We need to get these plans to Dad!") so that we could ride The Beast a thousand times.

It was actually a very dangerous job for only $3.00 per hour!

If there is anybody else out there from those days, I'd love to talk to you.

Keith Menter

[Gordon Bombay]

Wow! That is so cool to have a former employee on here who ran the safari monorail! Here are some EXCELLENT photos contributed by Paul K. to our historical photo gallery that show the monorail in 1974. To my knowledge we don't have many from the era you worked there but perhaps you could please tell us more about working the monorail and your days at the park! I always love hearing those stories. Thanks and welcome to KICentral Keith!

[ragerunner]

I hope they gets this done soon, it really would be fun.

I was just by Jungle Jims the other day and it didn't seem like they had done any more work on the monorail since those pics were taken. So, December may be a little early, but hopefully sometime in 2008.

[Gordon Bombay]

Oops forgot to post the link...

http://www.KICentral.com/history/photos/th...ls.php?album=12

AWESOME 1974 photos of the monorail.

[AintNutinElse2Do]

All this talk really makes me miss Lion Country Safari. I don't know why a lot of parks have moved away from a bigger experience. Just think KI could be part zoo, part amusement park, part waterpark, and all fun now. I guess it would of made the park more of a Busch Gardens type park but nothing wrong with that.

[The Interpreter]

All this talk really makes me miss Lion Country Safari. I don't know why a lot of parks have moved away from a bigger experience. Just think KI could be part zoo, part amusement park, part waterpark, and all fun now. I guess it would of made the park more of a Busch Gardens type park but nothing wrong with that.

Hmmm. Part zoo, part amusement park, part waterpark and all fun...

Sure sounds like Six Flags Great Adventure!

And many have said the place IS a zoo!

[ragerunner]

Sounds a lot like the future Columbus Zoo. I really believe they are going to end up being a major force in the region.

[Train Driver]

KI considered you a performer - with costumes and everything, and you got a little lecture about how you were to conduct yourself in a manner that was friendly and professional - which is totally understandable. They had a program that was designed to encourage this - whenever you got a compliment from a patron, or you did something above and beyond the call of duty, they would give you an "Apple" card - 10 apple cards would get you a new colored apple sticker that you could put on your name tag.

Our costumes were different from the other employees - designed to look the part. There is a huge building that maintains all of the costumes for the park, and each day you got your costume from there. At the end of the day, you took your nametag off and handed it over to them to be washed and/or repaired. Can you imagine what kind of job that is each day?!

At that time we had to memorize a spiel that we would deliver over the main intercom of the train - basically we had to memorize certain facts about each of the animals, and if they were visible, you did that part of the spiel - if not, you didn't - so each go around was different. After I left working there I came back to ride as a patron. They had replaced the driver's spiel with a recording of the Channel 5 weatherman who talked about all of the animals whether you could see them or not.

The crew cross-trained in everything and rotated responsibilities, including taking tickets and assigning cars (the patrons had to spend an extra $1 to ride), manning the station's emergency safety switch, which was used to stop a train if someone broke through the cue lines and got on the tracks while the train was entering the station - this job also doubled for giving clearance to a train about to leave the station, help patrons leave the exit platform, and add or subtract trains from the main line depending on how big the crowd was that day.

The trains themselves are electrically powered of course, and if you were to look closely under the cowlings, you would see that each car has a set of rubber tires running on twin rails. Occasionally one of those tires would go bad, and would cause the train to rock back and forth from side to side. When that happened, the supervisor called the maintenance department, who could come over, take the train off the main line, jack up the car and change out the tires. I was told that the trains were designed to move upwards of 60 miles per hour, but the controls were set so that the maximum speed would only be around 5-7.

More later...

[Train Driver]

I hope I'm posting these correctly...

Anyway, the controls to the train are very basic, as far as I remember - there was a green start button that needed to be pressed at the same time as the station control person. This person stood next to the train watching down the length of the train to make sure nobody broke through the cue gate while the train was debarking. If someone did (usually it was a small child) he would hit a red panic button to stop the train. We had the same big round red panic button on board. It was a little deceiving, because when you hit it, the train simply cut power and coasted to a stop. The train never "lurched," either starting or stopping. I never told anybody this, but one day I hit the one male ostrich they had (affectionately named "Junior" because he was 7 feet tall) He was walking toward the train right next to the tracks. I figured he was smart enough to get out of the way, but he wasn't. I hit the panic button and the train continued coasting to a stop. It hit him at about 2mph, just enough to send about 10 feathers flying, but did him no injury at all. He gave me a look as if to say "Why'd you do that?" then continued walking down the side of the train.

The throttle was just a small round knob, a little larger than the size of a milk jug cap. The controls look very similar to many of the other rides in the park. There was a silver box with about 8 or ten red lights mounted on it - these were connected to the fire extinguishers mounted over each electric motor (each train car had a motor). If one of the extinguishers would go off, the corresponding indicator would light up. One time as I was leaving the station, they all lit up at once. It turned out to be an electrical short, and none of the extinguishers had discharged.

There was a square mount with nothing on it, when I asked what that was for, I was told that the trains used to have mounted radios until one of them caught on fire. The driver had to evacuate the train in a hurry - he had no time to notify anyone using the radio, which was mounted inside the train. After that, each driver was given a walkie-talkie.

[Snake Attack!]

Train Driver this is all very interesting to read.

Approximately how many animals did you have memorize for your spiel?

On a busy Saturday how long was the wait for the ride?

How many people did it take to run the ride?

[Train Driver]

Train Driver this is all very interesting to read.

Approximately how many animals did you have memorize for your spiel?

On a busy Saturday how long was the wait for the ride?

How many people did it take to run the ride?

Wow! You REALLY want to test my memory? Ok, there were a "bunch" of animals (I would say upwards of 40 to 50 different varieties – so there were hundreds of animals), and the habitat was divided into 5 or 6 sections - Africa, India, Asia, South America, North America... those are the ones I remember. I think Africa probably had the most variety of animals. They had elephants, giraffes, buffalo, rhinoceros, hippos, East African Crowned Cranes, 3 ostrich - one male, two female, a lion that we rarely saw, a form of antelope called Scimitar-Horned Oryx, as well as the other regular run-of-the-mill antelope, etc.

The smallest section was South America, but it contained one of my favorite animals - the Capybara. They are the largest rodents in the world, and they look like giant brown rats - I found a picture of one here: http://www.castlebar.ie/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=919

These little fellows liked to escape from their section into the North American section. In fact, there was a guard post with a gate that a ranger had to open in order for you to move through there. The Capybaras liked to hang out there around the gate, and despite the ranger being there, they frequently escaped. At times the track ran along the ground, and at other times it was over 20 feet high. There was always a danger of hitting animals with the train – and you were no safer in the air (I almost hit a giraffe once at 20 feet), so we tried to be very cautious.

Somewhere in between in size were the Asian and North American sections. The Asian section had a tiger that they had to keep fenced off because it would eat the other animals in the preserve. There was a herd of Black Buck - which were small antelope like creatures. None of them were black, except for the dominant alpha male. Once in a while we would see another male compete for the position, and about half way through the summer, the leaders changed positions. The original leader was no longer allowed in the herd, and began to lose his black color, while the new leader rapidly became black. That was very interesting to watch, because it makes you wonder "how do they change color like that?"

There was also a Dromedary Camel - these are the two-humped kind. It too was fenced off for some reason.

In the North American section you had Bison - which we were told to be very clear about - they are often called "Buffalo," but they are in fact, Bison. There were also White Tailed Deer. So there were a bunch of animals. The preserve itself was serving as a research facility – so it was more than just a living display of animals. Most of the research had to do with preservation.

Sorry about that long answer to your first question – ask me what time it is and I’ll tell you how to make a watch!

About your other questions – I was told that in the past the line had gotten over three hours long. I don’t think it was ever that long when I was working there, but it did get very long at times. The supervisor had a way of telling when to put another train on based on how long the line was. Fridays and Saturdays were often bad, but Mondays and Wednesdays got pretty busy in the summer as well.

Generally, all but a few of the crew were on duty at all times. That was around 10 or 11 of us. Did I mention that we had to clean and do other jobs like that? Humans can be very dirty animals!

[Gordon Bombay]

Wow! Train Driver I am glad you joined this site and have contributed these stories. I knew the WAH was big, but not that big. I had no idea it had such an extensive collection of animals nor did I know that ride operators controlled the monorail trains, i thought it was all automatic! Since you have some extensive knowledge maybe you'd be able to help us out with some of these recent pictures from Jungle Jims...

I stopped by on my way home from work this afternoon to see if any progress had been made, there wasn't much to report. My friend was supposed to be gettng married here in Nov. but I haven't talked to her in a long time. Obviously the monorail was not done like she claimed it was going to be by Nov....maybe she meant NEXT year. Anyways heres the pictures from 12/7/07

Here's a general overview of the approach from the starbucks station to the main station/transfer track area, the highlighted areas show were track and supports have been laid. No new track or supports have been added, nor has that crane been moved since I was last here in September.

Look how close some of the transfer track footings come to the road parking lot...

I thought they were having new track manufactured, this random piece was just sitting in the parking lot right next to my parking space. TrainDriver, is this the same kind of track that was at Kings Island if so, could this maybe be a piece of original track from KI?

I just snapped these while I was driving and wouldn't go any further from the parking lot into any sort of construction area but near where the above piece of track was laying...monorail parts perhaps?

This curved piece of track was added to the exit track from the starbucks station

Thats all I got for now.

[CoastersNSich]

Another nice update! I'd love to go up to Jungle Jim's soon, now that I'm home over winter break. Hopefully within a year I'll get to ride the monorail, which I last rode in 1988 (20 years!)

[WooferBearATL]

Brrrrr it looks cold up there.

Ya'll have snow already?

[The Interpreter]

Train Driver, I too am SOOO glad you joined us. Not only have you helped me remember some of what I once knew, you have also taught me things I didn't.

Please don't think your posts are wordy or too long! They are fantastic!

[stewwill]

What happened to all those animals when Safari was closed?

[BoddaH1994]

What happened to all those animals when Safari was closed?

They were relocated... mainly to the Cincy Zoo if I'm not mistaken.

[TOPGUN1993]

I heard they were relocated to "The Wilds" in Zanesville Ohio.

http://www.thewilds.org/

[WooferBearATL]

What happened to all those animals when Safari was closed?

They were relocated... mainly to the Cincy Zoo if I'm not mistaken.

A giant feast in the International Restaurant.

But seriously, you are correct.

WAH and Cincinnati Zoo worked very closely in conservation and breeding.

[jzarley]

Considering the sheer number of animals at WAH, I'd imagine lots of zoos around the country ended up as beneficaries... I know there were a few exhibits at the National Zoo in DC, that listed "Kings Island Zoo" (that's how the signs referred to it) as the birthplace some of the animals on display.

I remember hearing years ago that the KI lion breeding program was so successful (possibly too successful <g>) that nearly every zoo in the country had lions whose pedigree could be ultimately traced back to WAH... Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I always thought it sounded cool <G>

[WooferBearATL]

Considering the sheer number of animals at WAH, I'd imagine lots of zoos around the country ended up as beneficaries... I know there were a few exhibits at the National Zoo in DC, that listed "Kings Island Zoo" (that's how the signs referred to it) as the birthplace some of the animals on display.

I remember hearing years ago that the KI lion breeding program was so successful (possibly too successful <g>) that nearly every zoo in the country had lions whose pedigree could be ultimately traced back to WAH... Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I always thought it sounded cool <G>

For a time, WAH was on the forefront of the invitro fertinlization area.

The park received quite a bit of notoriety.

[Gordon Bombay]

Anybody know how KD's was compared to KI? Until I saw those recent pictures in the historical gallery and read train drivers story I never realized how extensive KI's Wild Animal Habitat was. It looks even better than Animal Kingdom down at Disney. What was the main reason it was removed? Cost and upkeep? I really wish I had gotten to experience it, but at the time I did I was too young to remember, atleast the mono rail will hopefully see some new life at Jungle Jims. I would love to see what positions as far as working with the ride they'll be hiring for once it gets close to opening.