I posted this elsewhere on the internet last year, totally forgot I did not post it here, more content will be coming this year.
Today, we will be looking at:
Golden Nuggets Wild West Shootout.
Opening in 2000, this ride featured as part of a quadruple investment that Drayton Manor Park made for that season. The quadruple investment consisted of an Intamin Giant Drop tower in the form of Apocalypse, Golden Nuggets, Robinsons Children's Corner and The Popeye Show.
Space Leisure (previously Goldings attraction design) created the master design and all scenery and theming for the attraction, alongside doing all the theming and scenery for Apocalypse. This company are no strangers to Drayton Manor Park, they had been commissioned for a huge bulk of Drayton Manor's themed entertainment in years gone by. Past projects included what Golden Nuggets was replacing, The Jungle Palladium. But it also included larger projects such as Pirate Adventure, Splash Canyon, Shockwave and even a revamp of their now gone Jungle Cruise attraction. Plus more!
Jungle Palladium was an animatronic show, think of it like a rip off of Disney attractions America sings and Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. In any case, the time for this attraction was up, so in the 1999 season, a sign appeared outside the Jungle Palladium announcing what was to come. To see images of what Jungle Palladium was, see this Facebook page from
Euro Theme Park Archive. The page is open to all, so you do not need to register to view the photos. I am not affiliated with those guys and their amazing work by the way. I just have a lot to show for the theme park that is quite literally up the road from me, Drayton Manor. The audio for Jungle Palladium can be listened to
here if you are interested. The internal shots and the ride vehicle shots within this write up are supplied by I.E park and used with permission.
At this time a sponsor / IP for the ride had not been secured. The attraction design does suggest this was a last minute thing, as the only reference to Nestle' Golden Nuggets was the sign on the frontage of the ride. The rest of the attraction was a generic wild west theme. What I have confirmed through speaking with people within the Bryan family (after being told by an enthusiast myself), was that Space Leisure pitched two themes for this ride to Drayton Manor Park. The first one was going to be a spooky wild west theme to tie it into another Space Leisure attraction next door, The Haunting. The second being the theme we ended up with today and clearly the theme Drayton Manor Park decided to go with in the form of a generic but cartoony wild west theme. The working title of 'Toonstone' is a relic from this spooky themed wild west attraction that was never to be, with the word itself being a play on words from the word Tombstone. With toon referring to the almost cartoony aesthetic of the scenery within.
The gun system was provided by Space Leisure, but licensed from technology in the United States. This allowed Space Leisure to integrate the shooting of targets into triggering effects throughout the attraction. Something that made the attraction truly interactive.
A few weeks after the sign above appeared, in late summer 1999, the following sign appeared signalling the closure of the attraction.
Space Leisure recommissioned the animatronics from Jungle Palladium into two shows for the park. The first being a show in the Cedar Cantina, the chip shop that closed a while ago and was recently demolished as part of this years project. The second being inside the Lakeside Teashop, which was redressed once again to a medieval theme in 2003 once Excalibur: A Dragons Tale opened. But has since been closed for many years. Here is a few picture of the animatronics eithers, some of the photos were taken part way through the refurbishment and can be seen in workshops in the photos.
After the closure, the rip out was quick to start as can be seen by the assortment of junk inside what will become part of Golden Nuggets station.
After a few months of construction the frontage was gone and the new one well underway. Here we can see all three things mentioned in the previous photo. The queue line is to the left inside the new part of the frontage building (with the outdoor being the whole front of the building. The two doors are for the ride vehicles, the smaller one being into the maintenance shed and the large one is where the vehicles transition from the station into the first scene of the ride. Which as mentioned before, is housed in the the new section of the frontage, that can be seen built out of concrete bricks.
The large doorway seen above, many months later, nearing the end of construction, this is the first door the vehicles go through when exiting the station into the ride, the smaller doorway (seen above) is the maintenance door which is tall enough just to fit the ride vehicles through only.
While all this was going on, I.E park were testing the ride vehicles over in Italy. This track here, is actual track from the ride, the layout is identical and is still in the actual ride today. This part of the layout is just past the midway point of the ride, just after you pass the large saloon on your right and just before you do the turnaround back towards the station side of the building.
A few months later, the exterior had come on quite a bit, and resembled something recognisable today.
While all that was going on, I.E park were busy preparing to ship the vehicle's and track to Drayton Manor Park. Here is one of the vehicle's at I.E parks factory in Italy, almost ready for shipping.
This next section we will take a part tour of the attraction, when it was nearing completion, all photos are in the order as the scenes appear in the attraction.
This is the first scene of Golden Nuggets, everything in this photo is completely housed within the concrete brick section in the external shot as mentioned in the post above. This is the view you are still met with to this day when entering the ride from the station through the doors shown above.
This next photo is the final part of the first scene. All contained within the 'new' part of the frontage. This is right before the ride opens up into one large scene, through doorways seen in the next photo after this one. The door way marks the transition from the new concrete block section of the ride as seen in the external photo above, to the green warehouse left over from and what used to house the main Jungle Palladium attraction. Also seen in the photos above.
Moving on inside the ride, the above photo is taken immediately behind where the Space Leisure scenic workers are standing in this photo below. This is looking back towards the start of the ride. A view not usually seen by riders of the attraction.
Turn to your right 90 degrees from the photo above, you will be met with this image below. Notice all the work tools as final touches are put into place on the attraction. The track layout shown in the post above, is from the far right of this photo, in the very corner of the ride.
Turning right once again by 90 degrees, you are facing the direction the cars travel and you will be met with this image below, still looking very similar today.
