Carowinds and Carolinas Railroad

[kimv1972]

If you haven't yet discovered it, there is now a nice Facebook site on Amusement Park trains hosted by one of the volunteers at Kirby Family Farm in Florida.  A while back I posted what I know about the three 36" engines of Carowinds, so I will re-post it here to get the ball rolling on Kings Entertainment's third park:

****#1 "Melodia" was an 1897 Porter 0-6-2T from the Levert-St. John (?? must check that...might be wrong) sugar plantation in Louisiana purchased by Hubert Mitchell, the builder of Cherokee Wonderland and converted to 2-6-2 with tender by Crown for the opening of Space City USA in Huntsville, AL in 1965. It was the only equipment that Crown did not build brand new. The boiler was reputed to be one on the shop floor intended for a 4-4-0. The train ran for a couple months that summer to interest future guests and investors by viewing the park construction, but the park went bankrupt and never opened. The park is now a housing development west of Redstone Arsenal. The engine was bought at auction in 1967 and went to Daniel Boone Village in Hillsborough, NC, but I don't know if it ever ran there since it was replaced by an 0-4-0. I seem to recall that it was advertised in Hemmings Motor News and E. Pat Hall at Carowinds got it along with the coaches from Space City. Like Space City, it ran as a preview ride the year before Carowinds opened. When Carowinds tore up the railroad, it went to George Roose, CEO of Cedar Point and loco collector, who sent it to Wild World (now Six Flags America in Largo, MD) but it was not used there. After George's death in the mid 1980s, it made its way to Stan Matthews' Shop Services in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa for rehab to serve on Bill Norred's line at a Victorian Village that he planned to build in California. After Bill died, Melodia and most of his equipment went to Rob Rossi's Pacific Coast RR in Santa Margarita, CA.

****Carowinds and Carolinas RR #2 was a brand new Crown 4-4-0 that they called "Old Blue" due to its blue and silver colors. Pictures show it pulling the Space City coaches in most cases. The other white trolley roofed coaches at Carowinds were said to be rather heavy (three of them are at East Broad Top today and one is at LaPorte, Indiana). After Carowinds, #2 was painted a hideous orange and yellow and displayed at South of the Border amusement park on I-95 at the NC/SC border with the closed coaches from #3. Then Charlie Kelton, a car dealer in White River Junction, Vermont, bought it and the Space City coaches with the intent of running it around a truck dealership. It was repainted to look like a children's circus toy with light yellow boiler, blue wheels, and red cab which made the South of the Border colors look good by comparison. That is where Michael Jackson's people found it. Stan Matthews' Shop Services in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa restored it under contract required secrecy in a special room of the shop. It received a new headlight, stack, domes, solid teak wood cab, cylinder jackets, and $16,000 worth of paint on the tender. It was converted from oil to propane (I found the old oil tank on the scrap pile at Mt. Pleasant) for one man operation. I'm told that MJ had an engineer on 24/7 retainer to run it at his whim. The Space City coaches, however, did not go to California since they were smaller than standard Crown coaches. One got a haircut and became a flatcar at Mt. Pleasant. The others are unknown, but might have been cannibalized for closed coaches at Camp Dry Gulch in Oklahoma. MJ received his coaches from the set that #5 used to pull at Six Flags St. Louis (before SFSL #5 was sold to Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL). He was supposed to get more coaches, but his life intervened. At last report, MJ's train is stored in a warehouse around Glendale, CA (sorry, not Glendale, OH).

****C&C RR #3 never ran at Carowinds though people say it was displayed there, possibly at the Black Bear station near the enginehouse at the back of the park. It was built in 1966 for Pioneer City in Davie, FL which was open from summer 1966 through February 1968, then the park did the dead fish swim due to lack of experience in handling people and money (minor things in the park business). Pioneer City is now the Long Key Nature Preserve west of Ft. Lauderdale. #3 had the only two closed coaches built by Crown plus a caboose. After Carowinds, the coaches were displayed at South of the Border with #2. #3 is believed to have gone to Vermont with #2, but the closed coaches have disappeared. From there, it sat for many years on the turntable at the Depot Museum in Huntsville, AL until it was moved in 2015 to Doe River Gorge, Tennessee for restoration. I was down there painting wheels on it a few weeks ago.  Keep your fingers crossed that first steamup could be in 2019!

The railroad at Carowinds had three stations.  The front one was under the entrance plaza, basically inverted Disney.  It is now a maintenance road.  The Black Bear station at the back still exists for some other purpose.  The long steel trainshed is still there as well.  The third station in the Country area may or may not be gone.  At one time, the third station was within spitting distance of the station for the other railroad which was a 24" gage Crown.  I believe that it (now converted to gasoline) may still be running at the park.  The 36" gage track was pulled about the time that the clone of Kings Island's Racer (Thunder Road) was built when Kings Entertainment took over.

[beastfan11]

Do you have a link for the Facebook page?