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Formative Years Middle Years Final Decades 1957 - 1986 Intro Whacky Shack/Haunted Castle Twister/Auto-Skooters Olympic Bobs Orient Express Fun House Other Attractions Edward Lange Charcoal Grill 1986 - 1988 Long Afterlife Makers & Shakers Museum Honor Roll Floor Plan Multimedia Guest Book Contact Us Home 
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1957-1986THE COOKMAN AVENUE EXPANSIONTHE ORIENT EXPRESSThe Caterpillar lasted five years, and gave way around 1960 to a gigantic new dark ride, the Orient Express, that rivaled the nearby Fun House in structural majesty. Three huge, multi-tiered pagodas, framed by intricate molding and set off by tiled roofs and bright lighting, enclosed a maze of s-turns, crash doors, and stunts that were augmented by strobe lighting and glow-in-the-dark paintings. The Orient Express was the last project of this magnitude at the Palace for Ralph Lopez Sr., and according to his son, Lopez went all out, designing the facade, selecting colors, and creating the paintings. To give the face its distinctive golden tone, Lopez used a paint known as Indian yellow over silver leaf glazing.
The Lange family brought in an uncle, a set carpenter from New York, who spent days on a primitive saber saw cutting the scalloped moldings designed by Lopez Sr. Lopez Jr., meanwhile, put his own signature on the ride, creating the interior animations. He also made a placating modification to the exterior, using silastic to cover over a swastika symbol - a good luck charm in some oriental societies - from the chest of a giant Buddha figure that centered the exterior of the ride. In Pretzel cars traveling over Pretzel tracks, riders flew in and out of situations designed by the Lopez family to curl their insides and tingle their scalps - all in just under two minutes. One room seemingly burst into flames. In another, a tiger leapt for the jugular. There were monsters and snakes, an Indonesian God snarling a set of extremely sharp teeth, and, near the end, an executioner graphically chopping off a head.
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