The Orient Express Turned the World Upside Down

Two years ago when we were preparing to celebrate Mamba’s 20th anniversary I decided to follow chronologically the announcement and construction of it, 20 years later. These last few months I have been confounded as we are preparing to celebrate another coaster’s anniversary, one that isn’t with us anymore but if it was would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of its announcement today, November 19th, 1979. That coaster was the immortal Orient Express. As I have covered, I never rode it and was only two years old when it was announced.  For me, there never has been a Worlds of Fun prior to Orient Express. However, for another person I am familiar with there definitely has been and his stories I have heard so many times before I could probably tell them myself. For that reason, while the stories I shared with Mamba’s announcement were mine, the stories for Express will instead be those of my husband who was 13 at the time of Express’s announcement and can recall not only exacting but wonderful heartfelt memories of it from even before it operated its first time.

Orient Express under construction.  Photo by Jeff Mast

As you might imagine I was terrified of coasters until 2004, what readers may not imagine is that Jeff was afraid of coasters too until he was 13 years old and on a trip to Worlds of Fun with his baseball team. As he tells it they were getting in line to ride the Zambezi Zinger and Jeff… worried about looking “wimpy” decided to “toughen up” and ride Zinger along with them, regardless of how terrified the coaster may have made him at the time. Turns out like me, he had nothing to be afraid of and became a coaster fan almost immediately afterward. So much so that he vividly recalls seeing the “pardon our dust” construction sign hanging just off tram road at the construction site for Orient Express on the ride back to the parking lot. So would become a lifetime connection with the first big red coaster at Worlds of Fun.

That winter he was able to talk his dad into driving him out to the park to see Orient Express under construction. He recalls being stopped by park security in the park’s parking lots to ask what they were doing there. When they told security they were there to see the construction of Orient Express they were told it was ok, just not to get out of the car.

Such an impression that it made that not only did Jeff buy his first season pass in 1980, made sure he was there on Opening Day of Orient Express, but also first in line to ride it. When asked 23 years later how the removal of Orient Express had effected him by a Kansas City Star reporter he commented: “it is like losing a friend”. A sentiment shared by many Kansas Citians, and an experience that was cultivated over 23 years of not only riding express but operating it too. In fact, I was surprised to learn that for all his Express operational stories he never was lead or manager of it. He operated it for three seasons, 1984, 1986 and 1997.

There are so many stories that I have heard from those years too, driving three trains, and physically having to push the trains out when the timing became just a touch too close. Climbing up to C-block when a train got stuck there. Being yelled at by park management for leaving a discarded cup in a shrub that no one in their life would ever find... except for that one supervisor. Then there was the time that a group of test riders on Express, including Jeff, were yelling down at the guests as they entered the park, completely unaware that they could be heard 115 feet below... That one wasn't exactly condoned by management either. For him, and for those that worked Express, or any of the other rides at the park these were normal summer days, nothing atypical about them at all, nothing noteworthy, at least that’s the way he and many others feel. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard “but my story is so boring!” But we all know that’s not really true, these memories are anything BUT boring. Every story is amazing, and not only worth telling but worth telling well. For this reason, I will leave everyone with a request, write down your memories, you don’t have to share them, but I recommend you do. No life and no story is unimportant.