Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon

Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon
250px Building exterior and entrance to the Nightmare.
Great Escape
Park section	Ghosttown
Coordinates
Status	Closed
Opening date	1999
Closing date	2006
Darien Lake
Status	Relocated to Great Escape
Opening date	1996
Closing date	1998
Kentucky Kingdom
Status	Relocated to Darien Lake
Opening date	1987
Closing date	1995
Beech Bend
Status	Relocated to Kentucky Kingdom
Opening date	Unknown
Closing date	1984
General statistics
Type	Steel – Enclosed
Manufacturer	Anton Schwarzkopf
Model	Twister roller coaster
Lift/launch system	Chain lift hill
Height	44 ft (13 m)
Length	1,765 ft (538 m)
Speed	31 mph (50 km/h)
Inversions	0
Height restriction	48 in (122 cm)
Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon at RCDB Pictures of Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon at RCDB

Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon was a steel roller coaster of twister at Great Escape in Queensbury, New York. This simple steel coaster was enclosed in a warehouse-like building allowing the cars to run in the dark giving a heightened sense of disorientation as the cars go around the sharp curves of the track.

The coaster was placed in the park’s Ghosttown area and was appropriately themed with Old West decoration.

History

Before coming to The Great Escape, Nightmare was located at Beech Bend Park and Kentucky Kingdom as Starchaser, and Darien Lake (formerly Six Flags Darien Lake) as Nightmare at Phantom Cave. The 2006 season was the last season that the roller coaster was open at The Great Escape. The park has confirmed in the past the coaster is no longer and has been scrapped. It is presumed the coaster was scrapped shortly after its 2006 closure. In 2013, at The Great Escape during Fright Fest (Halloween event) the building is used for a haunted house.

Capacity issues

The trains were single cars with a capacity of four riders, there could be up to two in each row. Due to the small number of riders allowed on the Nightmare and the car design, wait periods were often lengthy; signs were posted in the queue line, listing times up to two and a half hours. To remedy this, the new Flash Pass system (named for the Flash, a licensed DC Comics character) was introduced in 2006. Riders arriving at the Nightmare were given a ticket and asked to return at a designated time, when lines were noticeably shorter.

References

• Nightmare at Crack Axel Canyon listing at RCDB.com