This week at Knott's...

Since Jeff Taylor has been busy enjoying Railfest, I figured I would take his place and quickly mention a couple of things that have been going on here in SoCal:

Green coaches: We have them too...hmmmm, seems like almost a decade now since we began "going green". To that end our shop crew has begun the exterior transformation of the last coach to go green, #310. Green primer has been applied to one end and will slowly spread across all sides in the weeks to come.

Operation: #41 continues in service this week with #340 available as back-up. Plans for a third "Dinner in the Durango" event are beginning to stir. Contact Jason Van Horn on the board here or at his e-mail address strokedmustang66@yahoo.com for details. Finally, as the Summer season winds down, preparations for running Galloping Goose #3 will begin next week. With a few exceptions, Fall operation generally features the Galloping Goose on weekdays and steam operation on the weekends.

Preserves: A book about Knott's Berry Farm, Knott's Preserved was recently released (available at http://www.amazon.com/Knotts-Preserved-Boysenberry-Theme-History/dp/1883318971 Since then our landscaping department has been receiving calls about whether boysenberries still grow at Knott's Berry Farm. Unfortunately, the original berry stand and its patch of boysenberries were pulled out late in 2003 to make way for the Silver Bullet rollercoaster. So officially the answer has been no...

...but a quick-thinking employee rescued a few cuttings from the original plants and propagated them at his home. When this employee came to work for the Ghost Town & Calico Railroad in the first days of 2005, he proposed the idea of planting a few cuttings at the roundhouse, which I gladly approved.

This past week the landscape supervisor discovered the GT&C's boysenberry patch and was delighted to discover that they are cuttings from the original plants, which will now be re-introduced elsewhere on the Farm. So, yes, Rubus ursinus has nearly always grown here at Knott's since being cultivated by Rudolph Boysen & Walter Knott.

Elsewhere around the Farm: Preparations are well under way for the world's largest theme park Halloween event, our very own 38th annual Halloween Haunt, details for which can be found at http://haunt.knotts.com/ if you dare.

That's all for this week. Journey mercies to all those traveling back home from Railfest.

Tom Unfried
Shift Leader, Ride Maintenance Railroad Operations
Knott's Berry Farm
8039 Beach Blvd.
Buena Park, CA 90620



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2010 08:59AM by TUnfried.