I have been looking at carousels recently. Apparently there are only about 225 left in the USA. That's less than five per state.
Everything that moves HANGS from the center pole. It takes a ten horsepower motor to turn it.
The wooden animals on a big carousel can be worth as much as a million bux if they are very good.
Many carousels use midi files now instead of the paper rolls to play the organ. Most of the work goes into keeping the organ in tune.
Got any memories to share?
I may be putting wayyy too much thought into a simple question, but I was astounded at your figures because I could think of four within an hour or so of my house. I started looking for numbers and found the National Carousel Association, which lists 392. http://carousels.org/USACensus/census.pl In looking at their map, I can see there are at least two not listed, and they're huge ones in this area. The Phoenix Zoo has one (The Endangered Species Carousel, which mostly features endangered species... plus a dragon or two) and the Superstition Springs Mall has one (It's two stories tall).
Maybe somehow these don't qualify as carousels? Perhaps there's some super strict criteria for making the cut? I don't know. I'm not sure where you got your numbers, either, but they're lower than the NCA's stats, which I already know are missing some.
At any rate, we're carousel affectionados... not to the point where I know all the makers and can recognize what year one was built or any of the special features, but we stop at them all. There are some not too far from here where you can get a wristband and ride as many times as you want (as part of a group of attractions the wristband works on). The kiddos and I have ridden that thing for hours at a time. Depending on when you go, there's not even a line. The poor operator just hollers out, "Are you going again?" and then starts it back up. That's the best... letting the kids go as many times as they want without any lines or having to shell out cash for each time. After about three rounds, I'm done, but the kiddos have stomachs of steel, apparently, and don't get dizzy like I do.
... I just went to close the tab I was on and realized I was looking at the National Carousel Association's stats for all of North America. Oops. I can't drill the data down by country easily... your stats might be right.
Yeah. There's one here. All the rich hipsters bring their brats to ride on it and then take photos of the kids on the carousel and post it to Instagram.
