 Welcome to Ride History with Amusement Insiders. I'm your host Jasmine and today I want to take you back, way back, all the way back to the late 1800s. You see in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada sits a lakeside park called Crystal Beach. Originally a beachside religious retreat with sideshow attractions, Crystal Beach was started by John E. Rebstock in 1888. Rebstock and his management team decided to turn the park into an amusement park and in 1890 Crystal Beach amusement park was born. It was a popular spot in the summer with roughly 20,000 daily visitors in peak season and utilized steamboats to shuttle patrons to and from nearby Buffalo, New York. The owners regularly made investments to the park and in the late 1920s the Cyclone roller coaster was built at a cost said to have been $176,000 by far the park's most significant investment to date. Cyclone was known to be a fearsome coaster with metal supports an intimidating claim of being the world's largest coaster of its kind and a fairly vicious history. Visitors to the park loved this ride and to this day it has legendary status among coaster enthusiasts. Many archives of photos and blogs reminiscing about the Cyclone can be found on all corners of the internet. One of three coasters designed and built by Harry G. Traver the Cyclone was given many nicknames and descriptors over the years including according to one nostalgic blog post the thrill of thrills revered and feared sheer viciousness sadistic and brutal. This wild ride placed more than four G's on riders and approached 60 miles per hour through its tangled curves and steep drops. Riders were given a non-stop white knuckle experience from the first drop with no brake runs outside of the station and no level portions to give them a moment to catch their breath. Its first drop was often described by riders as the best first drop ever and it had many faithful fans in spite of its somewhat frightening appearance and ride experience. What is perhaps the most interesting part about its status as an intimidating legendary ride experience is how short of a ride it actually was by today's standards. With a ride time of only about 40 seconds to a minute ten depending on the source that you look at the ride plunged down its terrifying twisting first drop that often fooled riders into thinking that the track was disappearing from underneath them. The trains then barreled straight into its 600 degree double helix at the opposite end of the ride whipping riders at top speeds through its tight turns before throwing them down another steep drop and into the final element a super tight figure eight turn at an intense angle estimated to be about 75 degrees. When reading about the experiences that visitors to Crystal Beach recall from their rides on the cyclo it's easy to see how it reached such legendary status and potentially adding to this status is a famous fatal accident that occurred in 1938. On May 31st of 1938 a rider named Amos Weidrich only 22 years old at the time reportedly stood up while riding the cyclone. Many witnesses think he wiggled out from his safety restraints in an attempt to take off his suit coat. As can be expected he was tossed from the ride as it went up the second incline and fell about 45 feet landing on the track below. At this point his own train car was barreling towards his body which lay across the tracks and with no mid course brake run on the ride the train was unable to be stopped before it collided with Amos severing his head and his feet and dragging his body partially down the tracks before the train stopped. While this incident didn't seem to dissuade thrill seekers from boarding the ride in the coming months it did have a major effect on the future of the cyclone and there was a safety overhaul done in 1938 likely as a result of this tragedy as well as the stress placed on the structure due to the wild untamed nature of the ride experience. This overhaul was reportedly completed by Herbert Schmeck a name that you might remember from earlier episodes in this series. Many more stress ties were added and Schmeck attempted to extend the lifespan of such a structurally stressful ride. In fact before this overhaul the ride was reportedly so vicious on its structure that it was known for its unusual operating schedule due to consistent downtime and maintenance needs. Not only that but many visitors to Crystal Beach report there even being a nurse station by the ride exit to attend to riders who had become overcome or injured since such incidents happened so often on the cyclone due to its wild and stressful ride experience. It's for this combination of reasons the structural stresses the violent ride experience and the fatal accident that the cyclone was approaching a new phase of its lifespan and was forced to evolve 10 years after the death of Amos Wydrich. So it was in 1948 as newspapers report that the owners of Crystal Beach spent $165,000 on two new rides which included the cost of renovating the cyclone into the new Comet roller coaster the ride we know it as today. It was none other than Herbert Schmeck who was brought back in to design the Comet and bring this new version of the coaster to life. Though he reused about 60% of the existing steel structure in his new design keeping construction costs down Schmeck had PTC engineer John Allen make many changes to the ride essentially creating an entirely new roller coaster in PTC's Comet design for its fans to enjoy. The ride became known as the third of the Schmeck cousins also often referred to as the triplets with Schmeck designing similar layouts for the Hershey Park Comet in 1946 and the San Antonio rocket in 1947 which is actually currently still operating as the Phoenix at Nobles. Now a little known fact about the two versions of this coaster James Mitchell who worked for Harry Traver early in his career and helped to build the original cyclone in 1927 actually became the Crystal Beach Park Superintendent in 1940 and supervised the building of the new Comet version of the coaster with John Allen and their in-house crew in 1947. After this renovation the ride time was increased from a minute 10 to two minutes and the ride evolved into a slightly tamer smoother and more widely enjoyable experience for riders who not only wanted a thrill but preferred that thrill to come without injury. While many ride specs were reduced with the lift hill going from 96 feet to 95 feet the first drop going from 90 feet down to 87 feet and the top speed being reduced from 60 miles per hour to 55 miles per hour and so on. The overall ride experience was improved in many ways the track length significantly grew from 2,953 feet to 4,197 feet the ride time almost doubled and the ride was praised for its abundance of floating airtime. Still operating with two train cars one red and one blue each carried 24 riders in four cars with two across seating and rows of three. The coaster was now being described as fast and smooth with little chatter or shaking during the run. The new design of the ride could now be labeled as a double out-and-back layout eliminating the many hairpin turns and disappearing track elements that the original cyclone offered but which caused much of the structural mayhem and many of the injuries that the ride saw prior to this renovation. In many ways the Comet became the antithesis to the cyclone and though it's often described as a historic wooden coaster the Comet is technically a hybrid with its steel rails on top of a wooden bed all sitting on steel supports. This hybrid structure provides the main reason for that smooth and chatter-free ride experience that it's still known for to this day. Though the ride operated without any major issues through its lifetime as the Comet at Crystal Beach there was one incident in 1974 in which two girls received minor injuries. Upon approaching the station one of the coasters trains bumped into the other train in the station causing a small crash. According to park officials it was the first accident at Crystal Beach in 20 years. In fact the incident was considered so minor that the newspaper which reported it actually ran an ad for the park that was larger than the article about the accident itself just pages apart from each other. Things continued to run smoothly for years following the accident and the Comet continued to be a huge attraction for visitors all over Ontario and Buffalo. However nothing lasts forever and by 1983 the park was feeling the effects of some major competition from nearby parks Darien Lake, Marine Land and Canada's Wonderland. The theme park industry was growing rapidly and some of the older parks were unable to keep up including Crystal Beach which was nearly bankrupt at the time. The park began making unfortunate changes in the name of attracting more visitors. One of these changes was actually offering riders of the Comet the choice of forwards or backwards rides throughout the 1980s. You can find plenty of video footage to the stay of Comet trains in a sort of half-and-half fashion with half of the train riding forwards and half riding backwards. Though this gimmick did bring in some additional visitors to try out the backwards ride it wasn't a popular ride experience and something that you don't see on a lot of wooden coasters for a reason. In addition to adding in gimmicks like this the park reached out for additional financial support and was briefly saved by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce after going into receivership meaning that the existing owners were not able to meet their financial obligations and CIBC was entrusted with financial control over the park. With that said new owners took over in 1984 and spent more than $2 million over the next three seasons to renovate and reinvigorate the park with new rides, attractions and investments. Unfortunately by 1989 attendance was still not up enough to keep up with the cost of running the park and Crystal Beach declared bankruptcy. An unfortunate turn of events since the park had just celebrated its 100th season of operation the year before. As newspapers began to report the park's likely closure at the end of the 1989 season fans of the Comet began to speak up and advocate for their beloved coaster. An entire Save the Comet movement began and showed just how much of a place the Comet held in the hearts of those who had the chance to ride it. Perhaps in part because of the public outcry. Park owners put the many rides and buildings up for sale at auction on October 17th of 1989 in an attempt to give them a second life. It was at this time that the Comet was sold for $210,000 to the late Charles R. Wood who at the time was the owner of its current home the Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom in Queensbury, New York. Though the ride sat in storage for a few years at Fantasy Island it finally made its way to Great Escape and reopened to the public on June 25th 1994. To this day the ride still stands at that park which now operates as Six Flags the Great Escape after 1996 saw the park being purchased by Premier Parks who later acquired Six Flags and changed their park names accordingly. This ride is an awesome piece of history that Great Escape under its different names has managed to keep alive and running for almost 30 years now. Over the years the Comet has continued to be recognized for its history, design and awesome ride experience. Though it is currently located in a quiet corner of the park at Six Flags Great Escape park officials still refer to it as the most popular ride in the park and report that it still receives roughly 400,000 riders per year. The Comet has become the setting for many weddings, photo shoots and receives constant praise for its design and airtime. It has even been recognized as a roller coaster landmark by the American coaster enthusiasts in 2009. This ride has such a rich and interesting history and is one of my all-time favorite roller coaster stories. It's so rare to see a coaster get not only a second but a third lease on life the way that the Cyclone did when it evolved into the Comet and then moved parks entirely. It's even more rare to see historic rides like that still running to this day let alone running as well as this coaster is. So at this point I want to pass the microphone to you, the audience. What kind of stories have you heard about the Comet or do you have your own ride experience or fun facts that you'd like to share below? Whether it's from the rides early history or modern times please share your thoughts facts and stories in the comments. There's so much more to be said about this ride than just what I've shared in this video and I can't wait to read all of your comments and contributions down below. Thanks for watching and I hope to see you next year for season 2 of Ride History where we'll be exploring some of the historic rides in the USA.