America’s Roller Coast, formerly known as Cedar Point, has had a history of innovation, and is one of the most notable tourist attractions in Ohio as a whole. People come from all over the world to see the peninsula's sights and screams. Cedar Point is also one of the world's oldest amusement parks, fitting a similar timeline to the notorious Coney Island of New York. One of the most underrated and somewhat forgotten defunct attractions in Cedar Point’s timeline is Disaster Transport. Disaster Transport changed the Rollercoaster industry, and subsequently the American economy as a whole. While some criticize it for being too similar to other rides and not extravagant enough, it holds a place in many hearts of the park's visitors from 1995-2012, and was known to be one of the first of its kind. It was Cedar Point's first themed dark ride, and would currently be Cedar Point’s only indoor ride.
To understand Disaster Transport, we must first understand the history of its home park, Cedar Point. Cedar Point started as a popular beach in the 1870s, and as transportation systems became more advanced with the industrial revolution, the area was trimmed into a popular tourist location. Once there was a railway system available that could transport guests to the peninsula, the area would begin to be cultivated into the amusement park we know today. The area began to get its name, Cedar Point, due to the large population of Cedar trees that were present at the time. The first ride would open, releasing a domino effect on the amusement park. This was known as the Switchback Railway, strikingly similar to the ride with the same name at Coney Island’s Luna Park. As time went on, more and more rides were added to the park, and non-ride attractions open to cater to multiple audiences. Cedar Point continued to renovate and add food stands, fair games, and an on site resort. This would be in conjunction with the advancement of Walt Disney World, the park’s most notable competitor, which would be the reasoning behind many decisions made for the park going into the 1980s.
This brings us to the year 1984, when cedar point was right at the throat of Walt Disney World, and had a problematic coaster that remained a fan favorite by park guests. This ride was known as Avalanche Run, a blue bobsled coaster built by Intamin right on the edge of the park by the beach. This ride was known as a tamer ride that would be enjoyed by families due to its low G-forces but moderate speeds. The appeal of this ride was soon overshadowed by the fact that it would have long down times due to maintenance needs mostly caused by the location of the ride. Sand, water, and debris would be blown into the rides tubes, which meant an employee would have to climb out to the affected area and sweep it out so the ride could function again. This would cause low-ridership and make the ride almost completely unprofitable, leaving a rather ugly stain on Cedar Point’s reputation when given the same scrutiny given to its rival park, Walt Disney World.
The fix for the Avalanche Run’s lack of success came with the introduction of a new CEO at Cedar Point, Robert L, Munger Jr. His idea to combat Disney’s success was to retheme the problematic ride in a way that would mimic the elements that Walt Disney World was notorious for. This would manifest itself in the enclosure of Avalanche Run and renovations to make what was known as Disaster Transport. The initial building of Avalanche Run cost 3,400,000 dollars, and the renovations to create Disaster Transport would cost the company 4,000,000 dollars, and would take one off-season to complete. One important external detail for those interested in the lore of the ride is the sign and logo for the ride. The logo looked like a broken sign for a company called “Dispatch Master Transport” with letters falling off to spell “Disaster Transport”. This ride would become notorious for being too similar to Space Mountain and Star Tours at Walt Disney World. What critics wouldn’t recognize at this time was that it was the start of a revolution in popular theme park attractions. It would be one of the pioneer dark coasters of the timeline of amusement parks.
The renovated Avalanche Run would become Disaster Transport, and the most uniquely built ride of Cedar Point. The outside perspective of the ride was essentially a white box-like building, with the phrase “12-E” painted on the side. This detail was subject to a lot of
Speculation. Some thought that it stood for Lake Erie, E standing for Erie and L being the 12th letter of the alphabet. Some speculate that 12-E was painted on the ride because the ride was the 12th ride designed by Eric, an ITEC employee. Many thought the external look of the ride was mysterious and a little unfit for the park. There was multiple exits of the box building in the form of white tube like structures, mimicking the original structure of Avalanche Run.
While the external appearance of the ride is important to the timeline of Disaster Transport, the internal structures are what are really fascinating and contribute to the story of the ride. The internal structure was groundbreaking for the park as it was the first indoor, themed ride queue. The queue consisted of a dark, black-lit succession of rooms, made to look like an airport with something just not quite right. In these rooms, you would find different small and large details. These would include crates of a certain type of fuel, posters from destinations around the world featuring those places being attacked by a mythical creature of sorts. There were also models of the ship you would be taking, and a security camera that would light up a “Reject” sign when a park guest would stand in front of it. One of the most memorable of these details is the robot everyone knows and loves, Dave. Dave would sit at a reception desk as you were passing through his room and answer fake phone calls for the company, and sometimes make announcements to guests passing through. Another memorable detail about the interior of the ridewas the use of effects. This was the first ride to have audio, lights, and sculptures within the ride track. The building surrounding the ride track was filled with lights, sculptures of planets, aliens, and a model of a wrecked ship identical to yours, to stick with the theme and build the plot of the ride.
The theming behind this ride gives us insight into the plot of it. The plot is an integral part of its story, as it was part of Cedar Point’s CEO at the time’s plan to combat its competitors on the market. The plot has to be pieced together from different fragments of media and is up to speculation to many fans of the ride. The most coherent one is brought together using the ride queue and the trailer for the ride that came out before its opening season in 1990. The ride supposedly starts with you getting in line to take a spaceship to a vacation on mars with the company Dispatch Master Transport. Dispatch Master Transport is notorious for transporting a certain type of fuel to the International Space Station, but has recently expanded its ventures. As you start moving through the queue you start to get the feeling that something isn’t right, consolidated by the fact that in some seasons of the ride, the main gate would “fail” and not let guests through, forcing them to go through the back rooms of the company's launch building. When you do this you see more details of a sketchy situation, and overhear the companies robot secretary, Dave, answering phone calls and trying to give customer service support to callers talking about things like malfunctions and crashes, while also trying to keep the park guests from hearing him, inevitably failing and building the suspense for park guests in line.
This brings us to the plot of the ride itself, the main event if you will. We can assume from the trailer for the ride, that the ship you are supposed to take to space crashes, along with your partner ship, as implied by the audio in the trailer stating “Mayday! Mayday! This is Dispatch Master Transport-”. This advertises the ride as a ride through space gone wrong, and we all understand that the ship crashes in space. What we don’t all know is what happened exactly to the other ship that you pass by on the track. You can see an identical ship torn apart, shipping containers, and an alien, in the ride track itself. This would point one to believe that the other ship was attacked by aliens and the fuel that was also being shipped was about to explode. You would be the only ship to survive. At the end of the ride, you would end somewhere different from the start of the ride, which was relatively a new concept for these rides. A team member would then scream “Welcome To Alaska!”, implying that instead of Mars, you have crash landed in Alaska.
While the ride was very popular when it was brand new, over time it developed issues that would lead to it being defunct in 2012. One of these issues was the degradation of the ride's effects over time. As things would become broken, Cedar Point would not pay to fix them. This would lead to decreased ridership and would turn what was once a revolutionary dark ride into a dark tunnel. There would also be long closures because important parts of the moving mechanisms that made the ride operational would break down and it would take extremely long to get new parts. As the effects started to go, the story went along with it, leading more and more people to be confused as to what the ride actually was, which made it hard to attract more riders who were unfamiliar with the ride. Another issue that carried over despite the renovations in 1990, would be the fact that every time that it would rain the ride would have to shut down because the roof enclosing the ride was notoriously leaky, which would anger park guest looking for something to do while waiting out the storm. Many also thought that the ride wasn’t attractive enough to be on the beachside of Cedar Point, which the company was working on renovating to become another place for entertainment, and expand the resort as a whole. The significant history and uniqueness of this ride wouldn’t be enough to keep it from closure in 2012.
When Cedar Point announced they would be closing Disaster Transport, many die-hard fans who loved the nostalgia for it were very upset. In response to this the park announced that they would be making the closing season for the ride an event to raise money for charity. They called this “Disaster Transport: Final Launch, For the Kids”. This would cause nostalgic riders to flock to the ride before it was demolished after the 2012 season. Parts of the ride still remain throughout the park. Dave, everyone's favorite robot secretary, can still be seen at the site where the ride once stood and is still operational. Cedar Point also featured a bobsled from the ride full of seasonal characters along with a sign saying “Welcome To Alaska” on the side of the track of the Cedar Point Railroad during Halloweekends. This would stand out to park guests previously familiar with the ride. There is also a pedestal commemorating the ride nearby the current site. The current place where Disaster Transport and Space Spiral once stood is now occupied by the Bolliger and Mabillard winged coaster, Gatekeeper, with its keyholes being the most notorious part of the ride. Gatekeeper is meant to be a welcoming guardian of the park, according to the theme markers around the new ride. Another notable ride that has occupied the space until 2021 was Wicked Twister, which was recently decommissioned and permanently closed for the 2022 season.
Disaster Transport, while now defunct, played an integral role in the amusement park industry. This was because it was a key part in stimulating the competition between parks like Walt Disney World and Cedar Point. It was one of the very first dark rides and one of the only bobsled coasters. It also comments on issues that were current to the time like the possibility of space travel and the increase in regulations around travel and how it plays into the United States capitalist economy. It also changed the standards for ride theming and technology, and helped Intamin gain their place in the amusement park industry. The growth of the companies that built rides, like intamin would expand the theme park industry, affecting the overall American economy in an unpredicted way.
The amusement park industry was one of the most impactful industries in the American economy. Amusement parks would be first propagated by the industrial revolution and the expansion of the middle class. As the commercial economy began to spread, more Americans had time and money for leisure activities, prompting the opening of the first amusement parks, Cedar Point and the plethora of attractions on Coney Island. This would then bring us to today, where Amusement parks would be one of the most prominent uses of time in the world, being notorious vacation spots. Cedar Point would attract tourists to the United States to visit the park and stimulate the economy with the money being spent in the park and the industries it supported. Disaster Transport first into this by building the notoriety of the park and helping it build its brand as whole.
Bibliography:
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