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Strange Rides

I visited in 1999, think there was street sets from Sherlock Holmes as well. The Alien 4d(?) Cinema which was pretty good. And a alien crash landing suspended dark ride, it was really well done as all the videoes in the queue line were featuring the Granada news reporters.
 
Just uploaded this to my site - perhaps one of my favourite bits in my collection.

This is one of our favourite items in our extensive collection, a 1902 article from The Royal Magazine, detailing the operation of the Steeplechase ride at Alexandra Palace. This would be more than seven decades before the debut of the modern equivalent, the Steeplechase at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 1977.

“WE BRITISHERS HAVE BEEN FAMED FROM TIME TO TIME IMMEMORIAL AS BREEDERS OF RACERS. MR CAWDERY MAY BE SAID TO HAVE FURTHER IMPROVED THE BREED. BY A SIMPLE BUT INGENIOUS DEVICE HE HAS DONE AWAY WITH THE NECESSITY FOR RACING STABLE, TRAINER AND ALL OTHER COSTLY EQUIPMENTS. FOR – YOU MAY HAVE GUESSED IT – HIS STEEDS ARE OF WOOD!”

The ride system, designed by William Cawdery would be modified by George Tilyou for use at Coney Island, Brooklyn as part of his Steeplechase Park attraction. Here is a video of that ride at Coney Island in operation to better demonstrate the concept.
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There's some more background on the ride, the inventor and his company in this great article.

More stuff here
 
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@Rick Wow. I’m generally interested in heritage rides but as I live 5 minutes from Alexandra Palace this was particularly engaging. I had no idea a ride this significant was built there. A brilliant article which I thank you for sharing.
 
Charlie Newbold said:
I think I may need to take my daily exercise walking around the grounds tomorrow - there’s a few spots I can think of.
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You may have seen this before, this I believe is the old Switchback at Ally Pally - some of the best footage I have seen of Switchback.



"First saw this at Hornsey Historical Society AGM. It has been around for ages, but previously not identified as Alexandra Park. The Tudor style building in the background is the giveaway. It is the Blandford Hall/Banqueting Hall/Tudor Hall which predated the Palace and burnt down (I think) in 1970." - Some more discussion here.
 
Don’t know if this has been posted already but the infamous orphan rocker gets a lot of chat on forums and a rare video of the ride has been posted on YouTube

 
What's curious is that there aren't many duelling rides that rely solely on a control system to ensure that they don't meet/collide - it's usually that they operate closely to one another but their paths are forced to be independent of each other (think of something like Vertigo at Tivoli, for example).

From the sped up footage, it appears that if one of them stopped and the other continued .... well, that would be sub optimal.
 
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