Theme Park Discussion / Dreamland Margate Scenic Railway burnt to the ground.

The classical wooden Scenic Railway at Dreamland Margate was on fire earlier today. The Fire Rescue service have got the fire under control now, but the damage to the coaster is still rather substantial.

For those of you who don't know, Dreamland Margate has been battling to keep open for the past few years, with the Scenic Railway being the main reason to keep it open. It was recognised as a listed building by the English Heritage, so it seemed safe.

Accusations say that the owner of the land on which it sits has set it alight. This is because the land is very expensive, and the Scenic Railway was the only thing stopping a multi-million pounds apartment project, which would have made them stinking rich. Sounds a bit fishy to me.

Pictures:









And a video of part of the ride collapsing...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LMY_c_aqM54

That's a bunch of fucking horse shit. I can not believe this happened.

It pisses me off that of all coasters, a classic is the one to catch fire. If someone did it, I hope they catch the bastards.
-JDP

What kind of cruel, heartless person would burn down a roller coaster, of all things? Although it does look like it would be even more fun on fire... It would become the newest craze: Pyro-coasters! Scream your brains out and burn alive at the same time!

But in all seriousness, it is sad to see a classic coaster destroyed.

yea that does seem pretty fishy and a pity that it had to be a classic coaster as well (I'm not really familiar with this coaster or its heritage so I'm just assuming that the situation would be similar if the Cyclone was set ablaze... or something)

kinda makes you think of the hundreds of coasters and parks in the 1940s-50s that burned down and/or were razed...

Why the fuck would you want to burn a roller coaster? I'm not getting it.

Dreamland's old owner has sold the park to redevelopers. They obviously would like to redevelop the land into a shopping precinct and housing as it would make them a lot more money then running a not hugely successful amusement park.

The scenic railway however was built in 1916 and is grade two listed, meaning that they can't just demolish it, as it is of historic interest, and they would suffer huge fines and possible prison terms. This rather throws a spanner in the works for redeveloping the area.

In addition the local residents and Save Dreamland campaign have voted during a consultation that they want to keep an amusement park on site, which was the less financially rewarding of the two options for the developers.

As a result Dreamland was to become a historic amusement park with lots of old rides saved from other parks which have shut down such as Pleasureland Southport and Rhyl Ocean Beach. Several rides have been aquired and work was due to start to allow the park to reopen in 2009.

Convinently for the developers however the main attraction of this new park, the Scenic Railway, has burnt down during the night, and police are investigating the blaze as 'Suspicious'. Without the Scenic Railway, not only are the legal limits on construction less, but the ability to operate a successful theme park on the site are greatly reduced, thanks to the loss of the main attraction. Despite the fact that parts of the coaster still stand, I'm not sure how financially viable and practical a repair is. This would make it a lot easier to 'reconsider' and decide to push the shopping precinct option instead.

Well, all of the Southport rides were on the site already, so I'm not sure if they've been damaged at all, but if they had, then there's no chance of survival, because it would cost too much to repair all of them.

As for the Scenic Railway, I'm pretty sure it will be repaired, but it will take a while. The Save Dreamland campaign won't just give up.

I do hope they save it.

More importantly, WHY COULDN'T IT'VE BEEN MEAN STREAK??? WHY!!?

Ride6

ride mean streak without trims then come back to me with that.

Mean Streak was good. Psyclone at Magic Mountain is the one that needed to be burned. (At least that one's gone though)

^^I think the only thing saving Mean Streak was the trims.
I can't imagine the ride without them.

I recall Mean Streak being just about as bad (though not quite) as it was nega-hyped to be, but I have absolutely zero memory of how my ride on Psyclone was. I know I rode it, though. Perhaps I'm blocking that particular two minutes or so of hell out of my mind?

on topic:

At first glance at the topic I was rather nonplussed. Who makes a topic about a scenic railway burning down? Then I read the post (unlike lucas, apparently) and was rather more affected. It is a shame when the old standbys of the amusement world come upon tough times. Only rarely would they have been better off closing than remaining open.

^But still a disaster happening to a ride like this definitely deserves it's own topic.
-JDP

Intamin, even if this was just "a Scenic Railway that's burnt down" with everything attached to it, it still deserves it's own topic, seeing as though it's one of the oldest rides in the world.

There is good news. The ride will hopefully be saved. The council has said it will fund for the ride to be rebuilt.

Edited by trav, 10 April 2008 - 03:30 PM.