■ THE LOVE OF GHOST TRAINS & HAUNTED HOUSES
■ Ghost Trains, Haunted Houses and Halloween are my absolute fascination. Always have been. I love the time of the year, and everything about Halloween too. It's a fun spooky time that appeals to the inner kid in me.

■ GHOST SAFARI | CLACTON PIER
■ Clacton-On-Sea Pier had a ghost train called the Ghost Safari.
■ I remember one Saturday night going here with my family and I went on this ride on my own.
■ The ride broke down right in the middle of the ride, and when the emergency lights came on, I could see all the track layout and prop builds. I was instantly hooked, and wanted to know more. 

■ HAUNT INSPIRATION
■ To have been able to put on a haunt from 2016-2019 was absolutely a dream come true.  It was a heck of a lot of time, money and effort, but so worth it. All the money raised went straight to the stroke unit in Colchester. The Haunts went from a simple tent structure in 2016 no bigger than 3mx3m sq.  to 2019's  6mx4m 20sq. large enclosure. It barely fit in our garden, but it was so worth it to see it in action on Halloween night!

■ These photos were taken by (l) Paul Angel (August 1980) and (m, r)Dick Price (July 1978). 

■ HAUNTED HOUSES | THOUGHTS...
■  More often than not, I've mostly been underwhelmed with ghost trains that I've been on, with a few notable exceptions. They're simply stuck in the 1960's and really do need a more modern take on them. Same for walk through haunts.

■ THE THRILL
■ When haunts/rides are done right, seeing the delight and sheer fright on peoples faces, and then seeing them smiling at the end is priceless. It's like watching a horror movie, or any other thrill ride at a fair ground, I believe ghost trains are, for the most part, poorly made, poorly designed, and lack anything really scary. If Clacton pier opened up a permanent haunted house, I'd be the first in the queue to switch jobs and work there, lol, and I'm not joking. :)

■ THE CHEESE
■ Also a healthy amount of cheese does work well for a ghost train. Witches, goblins, demons, animatronics, can be really effective too. Loud noises, strobes, smoke,  cold air compressors, when surrounded by pitch black, can be just as effective as live actors or props.

■ RAWR!!! - OH A TEXT MESSAGE
■ I've not been a huge fan of solely live actors scaring people, but a mixture of animatronics and live actors can work really well.  A zombie jumping out and you can see he's still wearing his wrist watch, or his mobile goes off lol, forget it. lol. I've literally stood there laughing.

■ HORROR MOVIES
■ I've never been a fan of horror/gore movies like Saw. My true love of horror is of the supernatural spooky kind.  So, things like The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and newer movie franchises like The Conjuring, notably the first two, and Annabelle: Creation, to me, stand up as great movies. 

■ MY OWN HAUNTS
■ I incorporated elements from movie franchises like The Conjuring and IT, and wanted to include a Barlow from Salems Lot and Regan from The Exorcist. Those were intended for 2020's "Movie Legends" walkthrough I had in mind. Sadly the pandemic killed off all the hopes and dreams of this.  One day though...

■ Each year from 2016-2019 I worked on improving the automation. Mostly with motion detectors hooked up to electrics to trigger audio scares, or video. It was a huge learning curve.
■ I have been more of a fan of ghost train rides where you sit in a car as opposed to walk through haunts,  but car ride haunts are very very involved!  So I do stick with walk through haunts for all my projects.

■ GHOST TRAINS
■ Take a virtual ride on some of these awesome ghost trains in the UK.