Abandoned Clown Train

About

Abandoned Clown Train refers to a photograph depicting a rusty and derelict amusement park ride amid overgrowth, usually captioned with phrases such as “Abandoned Clown Train remembers you” or “Abandoned Clown Train it’s freaky as shit”.

Origin

On August 16, 2006, YTMND user Zeratul86 created a site containing the image and attributed it to a thread he found on 4chan^[1].

Spread

On February 14, 2007, Above Top Secret user Kacen posted a link to the picture on the now defunct file sharing site FileXoom^[2]. On September 20, 2007 AutoGeekOnline forums user P1et started a thread about the abandoned clown train with the image now bearing the caption “Abandoned Clown Train Remembers You”^[3].

In January 2009 the blog Dark Roasted Blend posted the image in a series of photographs entitled “Abandoned Amusement Parks of Asia” depicting deserted amusement parks asking where it was from. Various commenters stated that it was either in Pripyat, Ukraine or Fairyland Park in Kansas City, Missouri^[4]. On March 21, 2009, BlogSpot user Robert Langton made a blog post asking his followers where the clown train was located, with all five possibilities being dismissed as either “unconfirmed” or “incorrect”. On January 29, 2011 Youtube user rdcolles uploaded a 32 second video clip entitled “Big Rock Amusements Jolly Caterpillar” showing the operation of the ride, with one user in the comments stating the ride used to be called the “Happy Worm” and that it was the same ride as the abandoned clown train^[5]. As of November 10, 2014 the video had 2,048 views.

On July 17, 2013 Livejournal blogger amandawinters87 made a blog post detailing her research into the location of the clown train and postulated, with the help of posts in the comment section, that the clown train (or at least one from the same manufacturer) was located in Pemba, Tanzania^[6].