Here's one last thing that I have dug up to post during this off-season. This is a May 1980 magazine article about the behind the scenes of The Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad. I am going to string this out over a few days because there is so much to read...and because I can!

I hope you enjoy it.

THANKS!!! its a great article:

How I wish the train ride could be that way today! Looking forward to the rest of the article!

Probably one of the most loved (by many) and least appreciated (by most) rides in the park. The train, simply magnificent, is seen by most as waterpark transportation, if even that.

Say what you want about Dick Kinzel, and Lord knows I have, the man loved trains. Thank goodness CBS did not retain the parks. Had it, at best the steam locomotives would have been converted to diesel (as at Six Flags Over Georgia). At worst, there might be no train at all (nor even Kings Island, for that matter).

This is really neat cant wait to see more. I so miss the days of when the train was actually like this and not just an easy way to get from the dry park to the wet park.

Yeah, the train at Kings Dominion is long gone, as is the monorail at Carowinds.

I never got to experience it the way it's described here. I wish I had; it sounds great!

Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing this!

I guess we are lucky we have a train still over all, better than nothing:

Excellent post. I can`t wait to see the rest of the article! Thanks for sharing!

standbyme - Great post! I have apparently I have "...reached (my) quota of positive votes for the day." Otherwise, I'd have "liked" it, and Terp's post, too! The train deserves much more respect than it gets. I remember riding it as a kid and I do remember the Indians, the canon fire and splashes, and the village in much better repair than now. Even an animatronic beaver felling a fake tree! I think since the Paddlewheel Excursions are gone from the park up north, maybe they could bring some of the theming here. I wouldn't mind if our train ride turned into the tongue-in-cheek, bad-joke-fest the Paddlewheels were. At least it would be something! :-)

Thanks for all the comments.

Nice! A lot of the technical details are flying right over my head, but this is still an interesting read, and the pictures are great.

I am fascinated by all of this stuff. Are there more images? Please share them if there are more of them!

This is an awesome thread. I remember all of this as the park opened when I was in High School (beast opened the year I graduated!). Too bad society became so PC that we can't have beavers felling trees or cavalry and indians fighting (history). Agree with previous post, we could at least have some animated skeletons firing at each other!

Nice! I've never been on the train on a water stop. Where do they do that now, and do they even do it with passengers on board anymore?

^It should be the "water tower" that you can see while standing in the station...I have seen them lower the tower's arm and connect it to the train.

It is the water tower there by the station. My sister and I had the pleasure of experiencing this once last season.

Interesting; I'll try to remember to look for that on opening day. Thanks!

Interesting; I'll try to remember to look for that on opening day. Thanks!

Here's the water tower back in the 70's:

I cant help but think there would be lots of people that would travel great distances just to take a ride on a full sized (not to mention VERY nice) train through the woods...it's a shame it kind of gets lost amongst all the other attractions.

So somebody screwed up in the original design. I wonder if it's been fixed in the past thirty or so years.

As always, thanks for posting!

I'm sure KI / Cedar Fair spends a boat load to keep the ride , a treasure of the park going. Sometimes, we have to step back and be thankful for keeping these treasures, and sometimes we might be sad that a certain ride and or attraction goes.

But the overall good is great when you read about the train.

Thanks for all the interesting information on the train!

As I rode around Six Flags Over Georgia yesterday in one of the two cars pulled by the diesel fired locomotive, I contemplated Losantiville as we left Marthasville.

Thank you so much standbyme for all the threads you have posted this offseason! It has made the offseason fly by. Let's hope this season has just as many memories to capture!

Wow. Over four hundred years of experience. I wonder it that's still the case today?

I am kind of stunned that whoever was in charge when KI was built OKed such a huge infrastructure as this...but stunned in a good way!