Crystal Beach Cyclone

About

The Crystal Beach Cyclone was one of a 'Terrifying Triplet' of highly extreme and intense roller coasters designed and built by Harry G. Traver in the late 1920s. The Cyclone was located at the Crystal Beach Park in Crystal Beach, Ontario, Canada.

Three of these coasters (known as the 'Terrifying Triplets' of the Giant Cyclone Safety Coasters ) were designed and built. The Crystal Beach 'Cyclone' and the Revere Beach ' Lightning ' were both opened in 1927. The following year, the Schneck brothers, owners of Palisades Park in Fort Lee, NJ, contracted Traver to build a ' Cyclone ' for the 1928 season. Of the three, the Crystal Beach version was the most famous and longest lasting, eventually being dismantled in September 1946 due to the high maintenance costs and falling revenues. Some of the wood and steel from the Cyclone was used by John Allen and Herbert Schmeck (both designers for the Philadelphia Toboggan Company ) in the construction of the Crystal Beach Comet coaster in 1948.

Over 225 tonnes of metal were used in building the ride, which used a steel support structure instead of the more traditional wood. Despite this, it is still considered a wooden roller coaster, due to the construction of the track, being 300-by-25-millimetre (11.81 by 0.98 in) wood laminants topped by a flat steel rail. The total length of wood used was about 6,100 metres (20,000 ft; 3.8 mi) — all British Columbia fir. At night, a thousand small incandescent lamps lit the ride.

The layout consisted of a twisted arrangement of track with many curved, and steeply angled drops, banking at up to 80 degrees, the trains traversed multiple banked spirals and figure-8 sections. Other than one trim brake, there were no brake runs outside of the station as there were no level portions of track where brakes could be located (The trim brake was between the spiral's exit and the figure 8 element).

- curve out of the station onto the lift

- a spiraling first drop about 90 feet tall

- a second hill which ended about 82 feet above the ground

- an abrupt left turn down the second drop at 52 degrees

- a steep drop into the high speed figure eight

- another drop and "hops" under the lift hill

- a 210 degree high speed turn under the coaster's superstructure

- a "zigzag" or "jazz twister" track (now called trick track )

- a series of track which rose and fell like small, one foot bunny hops, leading back to the station The Cyclone was said to place over 4 Gs of force on passengers, and had a top speed approaching 97 kilometres per hour (60 mph). Although the G-force statistic is likely true (and in fact may be low), the top speed advertised might be an exaggeration. The maximum velocity attainable from lift height to ground level, which the first drop did, would be 84 kilometres per hour (52 mph) with a zero initial velocity. If the Cyclone imparted an initial velocity to the cars at the top of the hill (say from a lift chain) the cars may have reached such advertised speeds.

All three were very similar in their design, following the same basic layout. The main difference in the design was that the spiral on the Cyclone at Palisades was even tighter than the two preceding coasters because of the extremely limited space in the park.

- curve out of the station onto the lift

- a spiraling first drop about 90 feet tall

- a second hill which ended about 82 feet above the ground

- an abrupt left turn down the second drop at 52 degrees

- a steep drop into the high speed figure eight

- another drop and "hops" under the lift hill