Playing around on the job…

It was near the end of the work week, on a Friday perhaps, when my boss came to me and told me I’d be working on site for the following week. Normally I wasn’t one to get sent out to work on site but this was a local job, almost right across the street. At the time (around 2000) I was working for a company that did scenic work for amusement parks, museums and other public attractions. Most everything was done in-house and then shipped and installed on site. But not this one job. I asked my boss where I’d be working and he told me I’d be at Magic Mountain stripping paint off of the fiberglass parts on a roller coaster train. Surely not an exciting job, but I was thrilled because Goliath was my favorite coaster at that time. My boss and I didn’t always get along, but he knew that I was a coaster fan so sent me and one of my co-workers to do that job.

Finally Monday rolled around and I clocked in and grabbed whatever tools and equipment I’d need and my co-worker and I headed over to Magic Mountain. Luckily this was the off season, and so the weather was pleasant and not too hot. We began our work clad in head to toe protective gear, and the day went by uneventfully. It was nice to get out of the shop, and also I thought it was quite cool that I was actually working on my favorite coaster. We had to do both trains, and the one we were working on at the time was parked in the maintenance bay right next to the station. The other train was on the track and still operable, as the park still had weekend operational hours in winter. It was on the following Wednesday that I noticed some unusual activity around Goliath. Thus far it had just been me, my co-worker and maybe a park employee or two hanging around doing other things. But this day the station became a hive of activity, and as soon as my lunch break began, I went over to see what was going on. There were some people wandering around who didn’t appear to be park employees, and it looked like the coaster was going to be started up and ran. I soon found out that the Discovery Channel was there filming for an upcoming episode about coasters, and they wanted to turn a radar gun on Goliath to see just how fast it could go. But the problem was getting enough people to have a full train. I couldn’t believe my luck! Not only was it my lunch break, but I was happy to volunteer to help weigh down the train. So they gathered up everyone they could find to fill all the seats. My co-worker, if you were wondering, declined, as he got sick on rides and wasn’t crazy about coasters.

Then the park employee who was operating the ride gave a warning to everyone who took a seat in the train. He said they would send it around about seven times without stopping, and no one would be able to get off. And I was thinking to myself “Awesome!” It is every coaster enthusiast’s dream to get multiple, uninterrupted re-rides on their favorite coaster. And so they sent the train out, and round and round we went, speeding thru the course at 85 miles and hour and plummeting down a 255 foot tall drop before entering a twisted helix at the end. That helix was long know for bringing some riders almost to the point of passing out from the intense centrifugal force, and even I would get tunnel vision on occasion. But I was loving every minute of it! The Discovery Channel, I suppose, got the information and footage they sought, and I got the best lunch break I’ve ever had on a job.

These pictures were taken by me with a 35mm SLR camera while riding Goliath. That day at work was the perfect opportunity to take lots of pictures.