Design a ghost train

STEP 1: Set the scene

Print out your design sheets or grab some paper! First, you’re going to think up a story for your ride. A ghost train doesn’t always need a haunted house theme, although it is one of the most popular options. Think about how you could make your theme different to the rest. An ancient tomb? A sunken submarine? Could your ride be a time machine journey through different periods? Or maybe you could have a labyrinth full of ancient Greek monsters! The most important thing with a ghost train is to keep it spooky! Next, think of a one-sentence story which could be applied to your theme.

Here are some examples:

Riders take a tour through a Victorian hotel, but there are ghosts staying in the rooms!

Riders explore a forbidden jungle, until they disturb something supernatural!

Riders drive to the beach, before they take a wrong turn down a forbidden road!

Keep this sentence in mind as you make your design, because it will help you keep the story strong!

STEP 2: Façade and vehicle

On your first sheet, you can design your ghost train’s façade and vehicle! The façade is the front of the building. It is what amusement park guests will see first, so it has to show them what the ride is about. Next, draw a vehicle for your ride. In our example below, we’ve made it look like a monster, but you could design it to look like a jungle jeep, a time machine, a boat, whatever fits your sinister story. Here’s an example!

STEP 3: Gags

‘Gag’ is theme park talk for a trick in a ride. Traditional ghost train gags include portraits with changing faces, vampires coming out of coffins and Pepper’s ghost, which is an illusion using reflections to make things look see-through (Check out the Awesome Activity which shows you how to make one by clicking this link). On your second sheet, come up with some gags that can help tell your one-sentence story. Check out some ideas below!

STEP 4: Map out your ghost train

Now that you have your initial ideas, it’s time to plot out where everything goes! You can either use the printed map of a ghost train to draw onto, or you can draw your own. For this part, think carefully about the journey riders will go on. In our example below, where the theme is a haunted house, the journey starts in a hallway. Riders get a glimpse of a hand coming out of a door, and a spooky portrait, but they don’t actually see anything supernatural. In the next scene, riders can catch a glimpse of a ghost, but it isn’t until the middle of the ride when there’s a scare with a skeleton jumping out of a barrel! Rather than throwing in all the scream moments straight away, the start of the ride is sinister and builds tension, which helps make the scary moments even scarier when they finally arrive.

How can you plan your own scenes to take riders through your story in the most effective way? Think about splitting your ride into these different stages:

BEGINNING: Setting the scene

MIDDLE: Something goes wrong!

END: The peril continues, leading to a conclusion (either riders escape, or they end up somewhere bad!)