Thanks Dick :-)

The Belle Vue rides that sprang to mind were the Scenic Railway and Shooting the Rapids, the latter being housed beneath the former. Shooting the Rapids was brought to mind by the Catterpillar. You walked up dark narrow passages to a chamber where the operator seated you on a metal bench and closed the door on you. The lights went out and all of a sudden the bench, which was made of rollers, flattened out and you shot down a steep slide to a bumpy conveyor belt that mimicked the action of Rapids on a river. The end of the belt dumped you unceremoniously on coconut matting. Why the Catterpillar brought it to mind is that, as kids, we loved the dark, spooky suspense and the Rapids. As older teenager lads it was better to wait at the end for lasses to come hurtling down, inevitably ending up with their skirts around their armpits :-D

The Scenic Railway was a roller coaster of a much smaller scale than Belle Vue's famous "Bobs", a huge wooden structure that I believe ended up in the USA. While the Bobs was large and scary, the Railway had steeper drops, tighter turns and little by way of safety precautions! Neither the Railway nor the Rapids would pass today's standards.