One of the things I was very keen on doing for Halloween was visiting the Tweetsie Railroad, which as the name suggests is a steam railway, but one which also has a pretty good amusement park. Most of the year it's open just during the day and the shows and rides have a wild west theme, but over October they open on Friday and Saturday evenings to run a special Ghost Train.
As you wait for the train there are lots of members of staff dressed as ghosts or horror movie characters wandering about, and a dance troupe who looked frozen but still did "The Timewarp" every half hour or so, whilst the MC reminds you about all the different rides.
We only had to wait about 5 minutes before catching the train, which has a special glowing skeleton-faced engine for Halloween, and the carriages are open and unlit, so you are basically riding slowly through dark wooded mountains. Pretty spooky at the best of times!
In each carriage are two Ghost Riders in guards uniforms, who walk around the carriage and occasionally sneak up behind someone and shriek with laughter.
Tweetsie is celebrating it's fiftieth anniversary this year, so the basic idea of the ride is that the Train is going back in time, meaning you see ghosts from the 60's (soldiers with machine guns fighting a very plastic alien), a mock up of the Bates Motel with out door shower and two Mrs Bates standing on a platforms either side of the train making stabbing motions at the train.
There are also some very effective fire-works, which I presume must be on wires, which zoom towards the train or along the side of it.
The best bit is when the train reaches the fifties and pulls up by a drive-in showing "Teenage Zombies". All the guards get off to watch the film, whilst, from the other side of the train, people in various horror masks come out of hiding and jump on to the train. They walk up and down the carriages with chainsaws running (These were very small chainsaws, so I think they were actually toys but they did make a very realistic noise and there was a distinct smell of exhaust fumes, so who knows???), and then get off to attack the guards. Fortunately Elvis bursts out of the cinema screen and his guitar has a handy rifle attachment, so he fights off the chainsaw guys and the train moves off again.
The train is great, but it's not the only attraction by a long shot. We went on a ferris wheel, in a 3D black-light maze, on a second, smaller, ghost train that this time went through the Tunnel of Terror, watched a show in the Haunted Palace Saloon and took the chairlift up to the top of the mountain. It was a cold night, but it was very clear so the stars looked beautiful, especially from the chairlift.
The only thing I wouldn't do was go into the Haunted House. I might have been persuaded, because I knew all of the rides and attractions were suitable for kids, and even the Haunted House was rated as ok for children over 8, but then I saw a group of teenagers running out of the exit screaming and decided that it wasn't for me. Then Doc C admitted he didn't think I'd be able to sleep for a week if we went in, so we got something to eat instead.
We were at Tweetsie for three hours, rode the main ghost train twice and only left because the park started to close, and also because we were so cold we couldn't feel our toes anymore. That's exactly what I'd always imagined a proper American Halloween to be like. A little bit spooky, very cheesy and childish but SO much fun!
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