Discussion & History on the Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad

[Klabergian Empire]

I'm not exactly sure if there is one of these on here already (there is about 907 different pages out there), so here it goes

[Klabergian Empire]

Here is what I know:

The cost to build was $700,000. It is a narrow gauge rail (3ft).

The total distance round trip is a little over a mile in length.

Each train is equipped with 6 coaches.

Each engine (with tender car) weighs 50,000 lbs.

Both engines are propane- fired steam engines both built by Crown Metal Products of Lyon, Pennsylvania.

Both engines are scale replicas of The General, which was the subject of the Great Locomotive Chase of the American Civil War.

Each engine has a 400 gallon boiler.

There are two; green #19 (initially named Simon Kenton; now named Lew Brown) and blue #12 (Tecumseh; now named Kenny Van Meter)

#19 was delivered to Kings Island first and took a test run in November of 1971.

#12 arrived in February 1972.

The original track layout: the train left the station, crossed over a trestle bridge into the woods, passed through scenery of native Americans and settlers, witnessed a clash at Fort McHale, a train robbery, and passed through the town(present to this day) before returning to the station.

The southern-most part of the track ran about where the lazy river is in Soak City. With the addition of the water park, the track was re-routed closer to the parking lot and around the old house (now inside Fort Coney).

If I missed anything, fell free to add

 

[Shaggy]

A blog I wrote for KI's website a year ago shed's some light on the KIMVRR

https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2017/june/what-in-the-world-is-losantivlle

 

 

[IndyGuy4KI]

See this thread as well!

 

[SonofBaconator]

I refuse to share my knowledge of the Miami Valley Railroad in the Amusement Park Railriad Thread until way later because there's so much information and I know if I'm wrong I'll get called out

[Shaggy]

3 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

I refuse to share my knowledge of the Miami Valley Railroad in the Amusement Park Railriad Thread until way later because there's so much information and I know if I'm wrong I'll get called out

LOL!  Aint that the truth!  Its sometimes like sharks waiting for bait to be thrown... Ha ha!

When I wrote the blogs for KI, I had to develop a thick skin very quickly... people can be brutal when they are hiding behind a computer.

 

[SonofBaconator]

2 hours ago, Shaggy said:

LOL!  Aint that the truth!  Its sometimes like sharks waiting for bait to be thrown... Ha ha!

When I wrote the blogs for KI, I had to develop a thick skin very quickly... people can be brutal when they are hiding behind a computer.

 

Hurts don't it? Everyone knows the basic knowledge of the Miami valley railroad- I always try to dig deeper when I do my chapters.

Maybe I'll do it but it'll take a while

[CoastersRZ]

Well, rest assured, if it is like your chapters on other park trains, it will be spectacular.

[SonofBaconator]

10 minutes ago, CoastersRZ said:

Well, rest assured, if it is like your chapters on other park trains, it will be spectacular.

let me finish my semester and it'll be my best chapter yet

[super7]

 We should feel lucky this ride survived the wrath of Paramount!    They removed the railroads at Kings Dominion and Great America.    Location of the waterpark was probably the saving grace of this ride.  

 

[BoddaH1994]

10 hours ago, super7 said:

 We should feel lucky this ride survived the wrath of Paramount!    They removed the railroads at Kings Dominion and Great America.    Location of the waterpark was probably the saving grace of this ride.  

 

The water park has EVERYTHING to do with why we still have a train. Everything. 

[SonofBaconator]

Everything.

Unfortunately, trains are transport rides nowadays. The only few parks that operate non-transport steam locomotives that I can think of are Worlds of Fun, Dollywood, and Knott's. 

[Klabergian Empire]

@SonofBaconator, @BoddaH1994, @super7, 

At least we can all agree that Paramount was a monster.

[BoddaH1994]

1 hour ago, Klabergian Empire said:

@SonofBaconator, @BoddaH1994, @super7, 

At least we can all agree that Paramount was a monster.

To an extend. They had great ideas with zero execution. 

[SonofBaconator]

Paramount- dreamers not the doers.

If I'm being honest, when you hire the worst coaster company ever to build the first ever looping hyper wooden coaster you got a problem. 

[silver2005]

The thing that confuses me about Paramount was why they chose to go with traditional parks as their model to start their vision of what their theme parks would look like.  I think that was red flag #1 as they were trying to cheap out and not go the Disney/Universal Studios route.  

I also wouldn't say they had 0 execution.  Some of their ideas worked out, its just they quadrupled down and went only with prototype rides and never had more reliable rides like B&M's to fall back on, at least not to the extent that FUN and SIX did.  They had decent theming on their rides, and I would say SOB and Hypersonic XLC were their only real disasters.  I'm  convinced we'd still have Crypt if CF would have just kept the original ride program and only re-themed it.  Flight of Fear, Invertigo, Drop Tower, Backlot, Delirium, and their contributions to the water park and HBL/Nick Universe (sans Scooby Doo) weren't bad at all.  

[Spectrum91]

23 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:

I refuse to share my knowledge of the Miami Valley Railroad in the Amusement Park Railriad Thread until way later because there's so much information and I know if I'm wrong I'll get called out

 

23 hours ago, Shaggy said:

LOL!  Aint that the truth!  Its sometimes like sharks waiting for bait to be thrown... Ha ha!

When I wrote the blogs for KI, I had to develop a thick skin very quickly... people can be brutal when they are hiding behind a computer.

 

22 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:

Hurts don't it? Everyone knows the basic knowledge of the Miami valley railroad- I always try to dig deeper when I do my chapters.

 

Personally, if I share information and it turned out I said something wrong, I'd like to be corrected so that I can instead convey the right information. I don't think people are actively looking for things to correct or have malicious intents, but instead value accuracy and appreciate Kings Island history. Just my take on it, anyway.

[SonofBaconator]

34 minutes ago, silver2005 said:

Flight of Fear, Invertigo, Drop Tower, Backlot, Delirium, and their contributions to the water park and HBL/Nick Universe (sans Scooby Doo) weren't bad at all.  

To be fair, these are all cloned rides, just on a larger scale. 

Paramount gave us great flats- Cedar Fair gave us great coasters

[flightoffear1996]

I never knew that the train had its track layout modified.  

[SonofBaconator]

3 minutes ago, flightoffear1996 said:

I never knew that the train had its track layout modified.  

I'll discuss that in my next chapter!

[TombraiderTy]

20 minutes ago, flightoffear1996 said:

I never knew that the train had its track layout modified.  

I threw this image together years ago to show the layout changes. They occurred between the time the park closed for the 1988 season on October 2 and reopened in time for 1989's Winterfest. 1,300 feet of track was rerouted.

[SonofBaconator]

The curve was way to tight for those trains to navigate- even with them being narrow gauge. There was a derailment that resulted in one of the engines going through the curve. I believe Crown Metal Products- the company who built the trains and the railroad- advised against such a tight curve but the park added it anyway. They also had to worry about the houses seen in the bottom of the left picture. 

[CoastersRZ]

Thanks for sharing the graphic!  It is great seeing them side by side like that.

[BoddaH1994]

3 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:

Paramount- dreamers not the doers.

If I'm being honest, when you hire the worst coaster company ever to build the first ever looping hyper wooden coaster you got a problem. 

Paramount was pretty good... Top Gun, walk around characters, etc.  Viacom purchased them early on and wanted nothing to do with the park from the get go.  Sure, they knew nothing about operating the parks, but it's not like they had evil intents.

I don't know if you can "fault" Paramount for the decision to use RCCA for SOB.  They were the only ones willing to touch the project.  It's more like RCCA chose them then them choosing RCCA.

3 hours ago, silver2005 said:

The thing that confuses me about Paramount was why they chose to go with traditional parks as their model to start their vision of what their theme parks would look like.  I think that was red flag #1 as they were trying to cheap out and not go the Disney/Universal Studios route.  

I also wouldn't say they had 0 execution.  Some of their ideas worked out, its just they quadrupled down and went only with prototype rides and never had more reliable rides like B&M's to fall back on, at least not to the extent that FUN and SIX did.  They had decent theming on their rides, and I would say SOB and Hypersonic XLC were their only real disasters.  I'm  convinced we'd still have Crypt if CF would have just kept the original ride program and only re-themed it.  Flight of Fear, Invertigo, Drop Tower, Backlot, Delirium, and their contributions to the water park and HBL/Nick Universe (sans Scooby Doo) weren't bad at all.  

I don't even know if we could say that they quadruped down on prototypes.  I think that the people who conceptualized the rides were from Hollywood and were so illiterate to the industry that when they came up with the concepts that the manufacturers had to build around them.

Also, since this will come up - you know how they would build stuff and all of the special effects would slowly but surely stop working?  I got an answer to that.  They would have a finite amount of entertainment tech guys.  All were allocated a certain number of hours per week.  When they added Tomb Raider in 2002 that in itself would have constituted adding more to maintain that ride alone but Paramount was unwilling to.  As a result of this the product as a whole suffered.  

[Klabergian Empire]

2 hours ago, TombraiderTy said:

I threw this image together years ago to show the layout changes. They occurred between the time the park closed for the 1988 season on October 2 and reopened in time for 1989's Winterfest. 1,300 feet of track was rerouted.

This really helps visualize where the original track was. Thanks!

If you look near Fort McHale, you can see one of the trains. 

[SonofBaconator]

1 minute ago, Klabergian Empire said:

If you look near Fort McHale, you can see one of the trains. 

You can also see the same train on the trestle due to a camera delay, you can tell its the same train because the other one is parked in the engine house since the railroad used to have open coach tracks.

[flightoffear1996]

LOL; I love the "Back Fence Great Place to sneak into the park" graphic.  I always thought it was strange the train came so close to the parking lot.  The loop the track does is really actually pretty massive with a short area of shared track.  Wonder why they had that little area of share track.

[AZ Kinda Guy]

7 hours ago, TombraiderTy said:

 

 

Where did you find this 1972 aerial?

[TombraiderTy]

^Not sure where it originally came from (I saved the file six years ago), but here you go. Can't vouch for the accuracy of all the text though.

[AZ Kinda Guy]

Ah I see. I’ve been searching for 1972 and earlier aerial views of the park but haven’t had any luck yet.