Cyclone, Wooden roller coaster at Palisades Amusement Park, New Jersey, US.
The Cyclone was a wooden roller coaster at Palisades Amusement Park featuring steep drops and sharp turns along its wooden track structure overlooking the Hudson River cliffs. The ride's engineering used layered wooden support beams beneath a steel track, with cars that traveled at high speed through inversions and tight curves.
The original Cyclone was built in 1927 by Harry Traver Engineering Company and operated until 1934, when it was closed. A second version of the coaster was later constructed and ran from 1945 until 1971, when the amusement park itself shut down.
The Cyclone served as a gathering place where visitors came to watch riders experience the coaster, turning the spectacle into its own form of entertainment. This social aspect made it a focal point of the park's atmosphere beyond just the ride itself.
The coaster required frequent maintenance due to its complex design and exposed location on the cliff edge, which meant regular periods when it was closed. Visitors should have expected the ride to not always be open, making it worth checking in advance before making a special trip.
Only about ten percent of riders chose to experience the coaster a second time, far below the roughly forty percent average for other roller coasters in the park. This unusually low repeat rate suggests the ride delivered an intensely extreme or frightening experience.
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