roomraider
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Tama Tech is a park that’s intrigued me for decades, I remember first coming across some of the rides in the early 2000s and being fascinated by the weird and wonderful rides.
Having done so much research on it I felt it would be nice to collect the info and my musings somewhere. So here we are
I originally wanted to just write one long post but time constraints (Damn adulting) and the sheer amount of interesting stuff means I'm going to spread it over a few days. So heres part 1.
As always all mistakes are mine and mine alone. And I apologise for the quality of some of the image. Old Japanese park stuff is often neigh on impossible to find and many rides later in these posts will have just 1 image.
The Park
Owned by a subsidiary of Japanese car company Honda the park was an insane maze of tracked rides criss-crossing over a huge valley. Obviously with the parks owners the park was themed to all sorts of motor sports and feature a constantly changing ride lineup of weird and wonderful go karts, monorails, log flumes and coasters.
An overview of the park in the early 2000's showing just some of the tracked rides crossing the valley
Opening in 1961 and located only about 10km west of Yomiuri Land in west Tokyo, Japan the park was hugely popular in it's early years, with several smaller rides and the park hosting events such as motorcross races.
An early motorcross race at the park
An early kids ride which looks like its made of sticks
But as with many Japanese parks attendence began to decline and the financial crisis only made things worse, finally after years of making a loss the park shut its doors in 2009.
I won't delve too deeply into the history of the park with this post as I mainly want to focus on the parks unique rides over the years so lets dive in with the main reason we are all on this forum in the first place. The Roller Coaster.
Honda Sleigh / Jet Sleigh / Canadian Jet Rider
1 - Honda Sleigh
As the names suggest this is a ride that lived many lives.
Opening in 1978 and going under the name Honda Sleigh the ride originally had single automobile shaped cars holding 2 people at a time.
A single car ascends the landscaped lift hill
The coaster track would be considered tame by todays standards but it was essentially an early terrain coaster with swooping corners that kept close to the ground and an extremely low riding position.
The ride was essentially a terrain coaster, barely leaving the ground along the hillside
A car enters one of the tunnels along the ride
I actually am not sure how this version of the ride was powered to the top of the lift, It doesnt appear to have a chain on the lift hill and god knows where the anti roll backs are.
2 - Honda Sleigh
Later on its life the ride became the Jet Sleigh, I don't believe the ride changed layout but the train certainly changed. The single automobile cars were gone, replaced with a much higher capacity futuristic rocket like train with 3 cars . Capable of holding 12 guests in 2 cars of 6 and 1 driver in the front car.
One of the rides drivers sits in the front car of the train
Why does a roller coaster need a driver do you ask?
For an explanation i will give you this quote from Junichi Yamanaga former engineer on the ride from Honda Around The World on FB
Thats right, the train was powered by a petrol engine to get to the top of the lift hill.
The petrol powered train rises up the lift hill
A view of the ride from across the park, teasing views of track along the ridgeline
Once the car reached the top of the lift it would coast like a normal coaster back through the layout to the station
Another post on FB by Michio Itoh remembers that some drivers would gun the engine around the course to build up speed
However, this was not to be the final iteration of the ride.
3 – Canadian Jet Rider
The 3rd and final iteration of the coaster would bring the ride more into line with what we expect from a coaster to this day, Replacing the petrol engine powered train with a standard chain lift and completely retracking the layout with more modern tubular steel track.
The same lift hill as before but now with added chain
The trains on the 3rd iteration powered by nothing but a chainlift and gravity
The ride was retracked but retained the swooping curves of the original layout
The ride offered tantalising peaks of the layout from ground level
An overview of the ride perched on the hill top.
I can only imagine this was somewhat less of a maintenance headache
The ride in this configuration carried on running right up until 2005, just 4 years before the park closed.
Here's a short video clip of the ride running
Wild River Adventure
Next up is the parks unique log flume which spread across the whole valley.
The ride featured twin side by side drops
As log flumes go it wasn’t particularly tall at 11m but at 510m long it was one of the longer ones in Japan. Featuring an impressive 4 drops its undoubted party piece was the rotating water wheel lift system to take riders up to the top of the final drop. A trick I don't think we've seen repeated since?
A tiny image of the unique rotating lift system
Logs could engage the rotating lift from either side
The video below shows a view from the nearby snail monorail (Another tracked ride) which weaved around Wild RIver Adventure, It shows the water wheel and the drops very nicely
A very short clip from a TV advert also shows the water wheel and splashdown
This overview shows the layout nicely. Featuring a rotating station and 4 drops of various sizes.
The ride was only open for a short 8 years from 1996 to 2004 (another one that I assume cost an arm and a leg to operate) but seems to be fondly remembered by the locals.
By the time the park closed in 2009 the log flume was long gone.
I wanted to write more today but its the end of my shift so Part 2 – Coming Tomorrow (Probably) featuring UFO’s, Off Road Go Karts and weirdly banked car rides.
Tama Tech is a park that’s intrigued me for decades, I remember first coming across some of the rides in the early 2000s and being fascinated by the weird and wonderful rides.
Having done so much research on it I felt it would be nice to collect the info and my musings somewhere. So here we are
I originally wanted to just write one long post but time constraints (Damn adulting) and the sheer amount of interesting stuff means I'm going to spread it over a few days. So heres part 1.
As always all mistakes are mine and mine alone. And I apologise for the quality of some of the image. Old Japanese park stuff is often neigh on impossible to find and many rides later in these posts will have just 1 image.
The Park
Owned by a subsidiary of Japanese car company Honda the park was an insane maze of tracked rides criss-crossing over a huge valley. Obviously with the parks owners the park was themed to all sorts of motor sports and feature a constantly changing ride lineup of weird and wonderful go karts, monorails, log flumes and coasters.
An overview of the park in the early 2000's showing just some of the tracked rides crossing the valley
Opening in 1961 and located only about 10km west of Yomiuri Land in west Tokyo, Japan the park was hugely popular in it's early years, with several smaller rides and the park hosting events such as motorcross races.
An early motorcross race at the park
An early kids ride which looks like its made of sticks
But as with many Japanese parks attendence began to decline and the financial crisis only made things worse, finally after years of making a loss the park shut its doors in 2009.
I won't delve too deeply into the history of the park with this post as I mainly want to focus on the parks unique rides over the years so lets dive in with the main reason we are all on this forum in the first place. The Roller Coaster.
Honda Sleigh / Jet Sleigh / Canadian Jet Rider
1 - Honda Sleigh
As the names suggest this is a ride that lived many lives.
Opening in 1978 and going under the name Honda Sleigh the ride originally had single automobile shaped cars holding 2 people at a time.
A single car ascends the landscaped lift hill
The coaster track would be considered tame by todays standards but it was essentially an early terrain coaster with swooping corners that kept close to the ground and an extremely low riding position.
The ride was essentially a terrain coaster, barely leaving the ground along the hillside
A car enters one of the tunnels along the ride
I actually am not sure how this version of the ride was powered to the top of the lift, It doesnt appear to have a chain on the lift hill and god knows where the anti roll backs are.
2 - Honda Sleigh
Later on its life the ride became the Jet Sleigh, I don't believe the ride changed layout but the train certainly changed. The single automobile cars were gone, replaced with a much higher capacity futuristic rocket like train with 3 cars . Capable of holding 12 guests in 2 cars of 6 and 1 driver in the front car.
One of the rides drivers sits in the front car of the train
Why does a roller coaster need a driver do you ask?
For an explanation i will give you this quote from Junichi Yamanaga former engineer on the ride from Honda Around The World on FB
Thats right, the train was powered by a petrol engine to get to the top of the lift hill.
The petrol powered train rises up the lift hill
A view of the ride from across the park, teasing views of track along the ridgeline
Once the car reached the top of the lift it would coast like a normal coaster back through the layout to the station
Another post on FB by Michio Itoh remembers that some drivers would gun the engine around the course to build up speed
However, this was not to be the final iteration of the ride.
3 – Canadian Jet Rider
The 3rd and final iteration of the coaster would bring the ride more into line with what we expect from a coaster to this day, Replacing the petrol engine powered train with a standard chain lift and completely retracking the layout with more modern tubular steel track.
The same lift hill as before but now with added chain
The trains on the 3rd iteration powered by nothing but a chainlift and gravity
The ride was retracked but retained the swooping curves of the original layout
The ride offered tantalising peaks of the layout from ground level
An overview of the ride perched on the hill top.
I can only imagine this was somewhat less of a maintenance headache
The ride in this configuration carried on running right up until 2005, just 4 years before the park closed.
Here's a short video clip of the ride running
Wild River Adventure
Next up is the parks unique log flume which spread across the whole valley.
The ride featured twin side by side drops
As log flumes go it wasn’t particularly tall at 11m but at 510m long it was one of the longer ones in Japan. Featuring an impressive 4 drops its undoubted party piece was the rotating water wheel lift system to take riders up to the top of the final drop. A trick I don't think we've seen repeated since?
A tiny image of the unique rotating lift system
Logs could engage the rotating lift from either side
The video below shows a view from the nearby snail monorail (Another tracked ride) which weaved around Wild RIver Adventure, It shows the water wheel and the drops very nicely
A very short clip from a TV advert also shows the water wheel and splashdown
This overview shows the layout nicely. Featuring a rotating station and 4 drops of various sizes.
The ride was only open for a short 8 years from 1996 to 2004 (another one that I assume cost an arm and a leg to operate) but seems to be fondly remembered by the locals.
By the time the park closed in 2009 the log flume was long gone.
I wanted to write more today but its the end of my shift so Part 2 – Coming Tomorrow (Probably) featuring UFO’s, Off Road Go Karts and weirdly banked car rides.
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