I have a small batch of slides from Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. Being dated "January, 1979", these are probably from just before Six Flags acquired the park (though apparently the name was not changed to "Six Flags Magic Mountain" until 1980.
One of the original rides dating back to 1971 is the Funicular - a cable railway that took passengers up (and down) from the ground level up to "Samurai Summit". This appears to be a lovely morning view (no crowds!) of the upper station.
It's surprising to me that they didn't give the ride a cuter name than plain old "Funicular". How about "Fuji Funicular"? Brilliant! I've got a million of 'em. The Funicular was one way to get to one of my favorite old Magic Mountain attractions, the "Magic Pagoda". Wikipedia describes it thusly: A walk-thru attraction located on Samurai Summit. It featured a talking Buddha, a mirror maze, a strobe light room (with a dragon flying overhead), a walk through a miniature version of Chinatown and various other small scale items of interest with a Chinese Theme. It was trippy and low-tech and wonderful (it was removed in 1984).
From 1988 to 2016, the Funicular was repainted blue and white, and it was renamed the "Orient Express". One passenger was murdered on every trip up the hillside - the rest were suspects.
Notice that Captain Quint took some time off from hunting great white sharks to work on the Funicular. He was delighted to discover that the chances of being bitten went down to only 12%.
Happily, the Funicular is still with us today! Honda sponsors it, and it is called the "Honda Express" - according the park PR, Magic Mountain is, "...the only theme park in the nation to boast one of these unusual transportation systems".
I love this final photo overlooking Valencia - as you can imagine, development has changed this scene considerably. I tried to find a comparable contemporary photo, but, much to my surprise, could not locate a single one. Almost everyone took pictures as the funicular was going up.
I'll have more Magic Mountain photos, coming up.
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