Mulan - Great Yarmouth

I was looking though some photos a few days ago and had flashbacks to childhood holidays spent in Great Yarmouth. It was during those holidays i became obsessed with fairgrounds.

I never had an interest in riding for the "excitement", i just remember looking at everything they didn't want you to look at, things like the trucks, the rails on roller coasters, the lighting tucked away above you, the control panel for the ride. That's the kinda stuff that got me excited.

The first ride that truly captured my attention was the Mulan ride at Great Yarmouth, but no matter how many of those childhood pictures i looked though, i couldn't find any of me on or near the Mulan ride, which surprised me as i rode it far more than any parent should have let a child ride a ride.

What i loved about Mulan was how exposed everything on it was, i could see practically everything mechanical about the ride, and that was before even climbing aboard. At some point during the ride, a green tarp would gradually cover the carriage. Thankfully, it was still light enough to see, and revealed more exposed mechanical things to stare at.

I been having a look around to see what info i could find about the ride and if it matched what i remember it looking like as a kid. After very little looking i found a 2019 news article about it closing down after 20 years (its been there since at least 1991 according to my research 🤷‍♂️). It did look a little different than i remember, but after sitting outside for over 20 years you would too.

Those of you who have eyes may have noticed that the ride pictured above does not mention Mulan anywhere, that's because the ride had a previous life prior to Great Yarmouth.

In the early 80s Mulan was built under its original name of Die Raupe (German for Caterpillar apparently) by Mack Rides, it spent its first 10 years touring with Albert Aigner's fair, then in 1990 it was sold to Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach.

In 1991 it made its way to Great Yarmouth and continued to operate under Die Raupe for a few years, eventually being rebranded to Mulan.

I'm not entirely sure when the rebranding occurred, but it seems to have been around when the Mulan movie was released in 1998, which makes sense. The above photo from 1997 is missing the Die Raupe sign, but doesn't appear to have gained the Mulan sign yet, But the whole ride isn't in the photo so 🤷‍♂️

I had a look around at some old maps of the Pleasure Beach to try and determine what it was named prior to 98, but most pictures i found was either to low res to make out any text or the ride wasn't specifically marked on the map with a name.
It would be nice to know more about the name and the branding situation but i couldn't find anything in my travels.

It remained under the Mulan name from then until 2020 when it was once again sold, this time it was shipped to Italy and rebranded to 'Love Train' 🤮

These screenshots are the only images i can find of what became of Mulan, at least i think its Mulan, the dates and location seem to line up. These are from Luna Park in Italy, some time in 2022.

So there you have it, my adventure into trying to learn as much random information about a ride from my childhood that no longer exists in the state i remember it.

It was interesting how difficult it was to find any pictures of Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach taken during the 90s, what i could find was either of no use or super low resolution.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this information, but i do like to piss around in Cinema4D so maybe I'll make a really bad 3d model of it one day, or, I'll forget i ever posted this and never mention it again 😅

Ride Info

Names:
Die Raupe (1980-1990)
Unnamed(?) (1990 - 199x)
Mulan (199x - 2019)
Love Train (2020 - present)
Built: 1980
Variant: Trailer mounted
Cars: 20
Max Passengers: 40 (Originally 60)
Speed: 14 RPM (max)
Size: 60ft-ish diameter (?)