THUNDER BAY – The train is still coming around the bend.
The Muskeg Express has been up and running for four consecutive days.
Cory Halvorsen, manager of parks and open spaces, told Newswatch, “it's great to see. We've had a lot of work going into this ride over the last number of years. Last year, in particular, we weren't able to run it, and it is really great to see it back in service.”
The popular amusement ride at Centennial Park officially reopened on Saturday.
The train ride has had a rocky track record for several years because of mechanical issues and derailments, which prompted the city to take the train out of commission last year for repair.
“We did a lot of repairs and maintenance on the track system itself. It's over one-kilometre worth of track, and each of those is connected with joiner plates, and so there's a lot going on that we did some improved maintenance,” Halvorsen said.
"We also did some changes to the wheels that we have on the ride itself. We reduced the size of the wheels on the back of it, and we have a different material type of wheel on the front right now that seems to be performing a lot better.”
He said the front wheels are now cast steel instead of the pressed steel wheels they were using previously.
“It should be a stronger wheel and be less susceptible to wear and tear,” Halvorsen said.
He explained what they were seeing with the pressed steel wheels, that over a certain number of rides, the wheel would begin to change shape.
“It was all very subtle. Very slowly it would happen, so it wasn't obvious that it was happening until a lot of that had transpired,” Halvorsen said.
He said the parks department brought in an amusement ride device specialist to inspect the ride and provide feedback.
“They did verify a lot of what we were doing was good. It wasn't that we were going in the wrong direction. They gave us direction on the fundamentals of continuing to operate, having a maintenance and operations plan, and verified some of our own learnings and findings of what the direction we were going with the wheels, so that just affirmed that we were going in the right direction,” Halvorsen said.
Traditionally, the Muskeg Express would have been open on May 30, but the city decided to hold off until now so they could thoroughly test the train.
“We weren't sure if we were gonna be able to open at the beginning of June, which we did not, and we didn't want to rush to open. We wanted to make sure that we were highly confident, which we were at the end of the month, and we got the go ahead to open the day before we opened,” Halvorsen said.
The train is slated to run Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., weather permitting, with the last rides at 3:50 p.m.
