Australian Amusement Fanatics

Camden Show is on again this weekend 15-16th.
Haven't been down to the showgrounds for a look yet but would assume it would be the usual turn up of rides from Youngs, Lauries, Chants and i think Joylands will have something there as well.
I'll probably be at the show on Friday sometime and will give the full line up then.

Don't think I'll make it down over the weekend as I won't be working there, I presume it's the same gear there as usual

Went down to the show last night.
I thought the ride line up was pretty poor compared to previous years.
Rockstar
9D cinema
Dodgems x2
Midnight Express
Music Trip
Zipper
Cha Cha x2
Haunted House
Techno Jump
Breakdance
Freestyle
Gravitron
Sea Circus

Average crowd in for the night but most rides running full loads with good line ups. Especially Zipper, it was flat out loading both sides don't see that too often.
As i was leaving noticed that Midnight Express wasn't running and no one lining up don't know if they had a problem or not.

Thanks for that redhot. Midnight Express? That's not a Matterhorn type ride is it?

Top Gunner14 wrote:Thanks for that redhot. Midnight Express? That's not a Matterhorn type ride is it?

Same style as Alpine Express

Hmmm... is it new? Might have been imported under the radar from the UK. Did it happen to be this model by any chance?

Yeah thats the one Hurricane.

Hmmm... seems from videos i've seen of this particular matterhorn it doesn't go backwards... I wonder if the previous owner in the UK didn't run it that way or it's not geared to run in reverse.

The previous owner of this particular matterhorn was George Brewer Jr. as far as I am aware, there were several matterhorns themed to "Midnight Express" though.

Apparently owned by Glen Blades

The ride is owned by Glen Blades and was purchased from Mark Benson from the London area and not George Brewer Jnr. I I used to do a lot of decorating work to the rides owned by the Benson family before moving to Australia. I believe that this was the last Matterhorn built by Sobema, Mark bought it from his Mums cousin Anthony Harris Snr a former President of the UK Showmens Guild.

MARK GILL wrote:The ride is owned by Glen Blades and was purchased from Mark Benson from the London area and not George Brewer Jnr. I I used to do a lot of decorating work to the rides owned by the Benson family before moving to Australia. I believe that this was the last Matterhorn built by Sobema, Mark bought it from his Mums cousin Anthony Harris Snr a former President of the UK Showmens Guild.

Thanks for clearing that up Mark, there were a few "Midnight Express" Matterhorn's made so figuring out exactly which one it was can prove to be a struggle

Any word on weather this particular unit can run backwards or not?

i found this clip of midnight express
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... vazWzrG_kk

I think that video answers the "does the ride go backwards?" question.

Looks quite fast too! Strange how it started backwards though.

Yeah, looks to go almost as fast as Thunderbolt... I do remember reading something about Matterhorns in the UK not being allowed to run backwards anymore for some reason... apparently they were not designed to run backwards at fast speeds. Was on a forum I was reading although I'm fairly sure that it's not true... But it does answer the question

My daughter rode it on Saturday night, she said it did run backwards..