Do you let your kids ride vintage amusement park rides? I don’t. Train Town-Sonoma, CA: 94,900 ppm Lead. 90 ppm is unsafe.

Published: June 18, 2018
Updated: August 7, 2022

While I have known about the potential for lead in vintage amusement park rides for a long time, I haven’t spent a lot of time quantifying these potential hazards. The vintage train ride pictured here (a coin operated ride active in 2018 at Sonoma California’s famous “Train Town”)  looks like it has been re-done, yet, when tested with an XRF instrument it had the following readings:

Blue Paint:

• Lead (Pb): 3,756 +/- 125 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 3,076 +/- 74 ppm

That wasn’t the biggest upset at Train Town though, the shocker came with the levels of the coin box…

Black Paint on Coin Box:

• Lead (Pb): 94,900 +/- 5,900 ppm.

For context: the amount of lead that is considered toxic in the paint or coating of a newly manufactured item intended for use by children (and I think this toddler ride would definitely be governed by these new regulations if it was newly manufactured) is 90 parts per million lead or higher.

Cadmium is considered unsafe for children and illegal in the State of Washington at levels of 40 ppm and higher, and in the country of Denmark at 75 ppm or higher. There is no federal U.S. standard for total allowable Cadmium content (as detectible with an XRF instrument) in the paint or coating of consumer goods intended for use by children. While some might argue that the coin box is not part of the ride, it could easily be argued that it is a part of the ride that the kids most want to touch and play with (toddlers LOVE putting their own money in these things and making them go!), and therefore is especially concerning.

What should you do if your child just went on a ride like this?

I used to let my children use rides like this one when they were very small (before I knew much about Lead poisoning and before I knew how little Lead it takes to poison a child.) As soon as I truly understood the potential impacts of even trace Lead exposure from a single incident I decided to no longer let my children use rides like these. If you have a small child and they used a ride like this once or twice I would not be too concerned, but I would give it greater thought and consideration in the future. If you are concerned that your child might have been exposed to Lead from a single incident exposure (like spending a day at an amusement park with lots of vintage rides and structures) – you can find my advice about that on this link.

Thank you for reading and for sharing Lead Safe Mama articles! As always, please let me know if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment.

Tamara Rubin
Owner – Lead Safe Mama, LLC
#LeadSafeMama