Earliest

“Roller Coasters” were first ridden in Russia in the 1400’s. They were put up during festivals and celebrations. I put roller coasters in quotes because They weren’t really roller coasters. They were actually giant slides with sleds that slid down the icy artificial slope. The slope was made out of a wood frame and they let snow fall on the frame and then doused it with water to make ice. The tallest ones were 70-100 feet tall and could travel at speeds of up to 55 mph.

When the ice slides were brought to Europe the were modified so they ran on a wooden track and had carts with wheels so they could be operated in the warm spring and summer weather. The first one of these built in Europe was called Russian Mountains. It was built in the early seventeen-hundreds in France. It had two tracks which were lifted upward on the first part of the track going right next to each other. Then one track turned left and started going down hill and one went right and started going downhill as it curved until the two tracks came back to where they started.

This ride was very popular but it had a high injury rate. It had a high injury rate because if the wheel hit even a small obstruction on the track the cart could go flying off and injure the occupant. Sometimes even when the cars didn’t fly off the tracks the people would sometimes fall out of the cars. Another roller coaster opened in France just a few years later. It had the same track design but had guard rails which about cut in half the number of accidents.

New Ideas in North America

When roller coasters first came to North America new ideas came with them. There were new design for powered lift hills. One that was powered by a windmill and one by a water wheel and one even by an early steam engine. There were even some people who wanted to make roller coasters more interactive by having people throw spears through rings or to haul themselves up the first hill. None of these ideas were ever actually use practically. The first patents for roller coasters in the U.S. Were both made in 1870 by J. G. Taylor and another by Richard Knudsen. Neither of these roller coasters were actually ever built.

In the early 1800’s there was a short railroad line used to transport from the top of Mount Pigsah to a lower canal in Mauch Chunk. Mules pulled the cars up the bottom and then rode down with the coal to haul it back up. The people in Mauch Chunk thought they could make some money and people could have fun if the Mauch Chunk Railway carried people up and down as an amusement.

Instead of mules a steam engine was installed to pull it to the top of the hill. The train was modified to being one big car that could hold lots of people and was safer to ride in. It opened to the public in 1873 and ran until 1938. It cost five cents to ride and had 38,000 riders the first year. That means in the first year in made 1,750 dollars. There are no accurate records but it is said that it got going
over 100 miles per hour.

America’s first true roller coaster was the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway opened at Coney Island in 1884. It was designed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson after he saw the popularity of the Mauch Chunk railway. It could hold 10 people at once and cost five cents with a low top speed of 6 miles per hour (A very fast walk). It had 12,000 passengers every day making 600 dollars per day. The 12,600 dollar cost to build it was repaid in just three weeks. This is considered they first true roller coaster in the U.S. Because it was built specifically for having fun. It was 45 feet tall and 600 feet long. It was really two tracks running right next to each other. When you got to the end you climbed up stairs, got onto the other track after the car was lifted up and rode back to where you started.

In the next year two more roller coasters were opened at Coney Island. First Charles Aycock built the Serpentine Railway. This was more popular than Thompson’s coaster because it was an oval track and had an incline it had to be hauled up to get back to the start of the ride. Also riders sat on a park bench like seat and it made it look like they were going faster than the actual 12 miles per hour; twice as fast as the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway. This ride was much more popular than Thompson’s. The next one to open was the Gravity Pleasure Road. It had many new things an features that led to what the modern roller coaster is. It had the first lift hill where the power source wasn’t in the cars. This made it so the roller coaster could go in a continuous circuit. This made it so it had a higher passenger capacity. Now that these two roller coasters were built it was hurting Thompson’s business.

In 1887 Thompson opened a new roller coaster in Atlantic City. It was called the Scenic Railway. It had this name because it went through tunnels that were painted with murals and passed by the great pyramids and went through Venice. It was the first roller coaster to have tunnels and in the tunnels it was the first roller coaster to have electric lights. This roller coaster was incredibly popular. It revolutionized roller coasters because people finally realized that there were really no limits on roller coasters. Also it was the first roller coaster to have banked turns.

The two first looping roller coasters in the world were both built in the U.S. The first one, called the Centrifugal Railway, opened in 1888 at Coney Island. The ride was a perfect circle. It started with a forty foot tall steep drop and then went around the 15 foot tall loop. It was a bad design to have a perfectly circular loop because it made high G forces going around parts of the loop. This hurt peoples backs and necks and it was closed after just two years of operation due to customers complaining about pains after riding it. It was designed by Lina Beecher and later sold to Captain Paul Boyton. After it was sold it was renamed as the Flip-Flop. The second looping roller coaster was called the Loop-the-Loop. It was opened by Edward Prescott in 1901. Unlike the Centrifugal Railway the Loop-the-Loop was not a perfect circle.

It was an oval like modern roller coasters have now. This made it so the G forces were distributed evenly around the loop. It was comfortable for passengers to ride but just like the Centrifugal Railway it was a complete flop. The Loop-the-Loop, unfortunately did not succeed because of its low passenger capacity per hour. It could handle only about 100 passengers an hour and wasn’t making enough money to sustain itself so it was demolished.

The Twenties

In what were called the Roaring Twenties amusement parks were popping up all over the place. More modern roller coasters like the Cyclone at Coney Island were popping up all over the place. By the end of the roaring twenties in 1929 there were 1500 wooden roller coasters in the United States alone. This is almost as many roller coasters of all kinds there are in the world now. Also

people had started referring to wooden roller coasters as woodies.

The Cyclone is considered to be the first modern roller coaster in the world by many people. This is because it was the most well known when it was built. Also at the time it was built it was the tallest roller coaster in the world at 85 feet. It also went 50 miles per hour and had many twists and turns and ups and downs. By Coney Island the Cyclone was advertised as “the most fearsome roller coaster ever built”.

On the first day 75,000 People rode the Cyclone and the 100,000 dollar cost was repaid in just one year. For a while the Cyclone was advertised as having magical healing powers. This is because of Emilio Franco. It says he hadn’t been able to talk for six years before riding the Cyclone but after he rode it he said “I feel sick.”There were no other cases of this ever happening again so they stopped using that advertisement.

A Bad Time for Roller Coasters

The thirties were a bad time for roller coasters, amusement parks, and roller coaster builders. All the roller coasters were going into disrepair. The amusement parks and roller coaster design companies were all going out of business. This was because of the great depression. Nobody had any money to go to amusement parks. Nobody had any money to keep the parks in good condition and running. Also if nobody had money to buy roller coasters all the roller coaster design companies went out of business. During world war two no roller coasters really came back.

Although people were making money again this was because they were working and this meant they didn’t have time for amusement parks so nobody was going on roller coasters any more. Also all the people who would be building and designing roller coasters were busy working for or in the war so even if you wanted a roller coaster built there was nobody to build it for you. In 1920 there were 2000 amusement parks in the U.S. And in 1948 there were only 368. During World War Two about 1000 roller coasters were torn down for the metal bolts and some of the wood in them.

Roller Coasters Back Again

Disney Land is by far one of the most revolutionizing parks ever built. It was one of the first parks to be built, in 1955, after world war two. It was also the first park of its kind ever built. It had different lands and many themed lands. It also the most important roller coaster ever; the Matterhorn named after a mountain in Sweden. It is so revolutionizing because it was the first steel roller coaster ever built to run on tubular steel tracks. Also it is the first roller coaster to be built in a man made structure like a mountain. Although it showed the many advantages of steel roller coasters it didn’t start people off building lots of new steel roller coasters.

Roller coasters finally became popular again when the Racer opened at Kings Island Amusement Park in 1976. The racer surprisingly was a wooden roller coaster. It was a dual track racing roller coaster. This made the number of roller coasters in the U.S. Go up dramatically. The number went from 147 in 1979 to over 600 roller coasters now.

The Different Types of Roller Coasters

There are many different kinds of roller coasters but the first type was the wooden roller coaster. People like wooden roller coasters because of their rickety look and the bumpy ride they give. There are now some that are over 150 feet tall like the Texas Giant and even one that is a wooden hyper-coaster (a roller coaster that is over 200 feet tall. At 218 feet called the Son of Beast is the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world. The Beast is the longest roller coaster in the world closely followed by the Son of Beast. The Son of Beast is also the fastest wooden roller coaster in the world at 78 miles per hour. It is also the only looping wooden roller coaster in the world with a one hundred eighteen foot tall loop
where the supports turn into steel to hold up the loop.

Steel roller coasters have many advantages over wooden roller coasters. They can be much taller than wooden roller coasters which means they can also go a lot faster. Many people also prefer them because they can have a much smoother ride. They can also have many inversions and are much cheaper to build than wooden roller coasters. Steel roller coasters can also be launched and they take up much less space with supports than wooden roller coasters. The fastest launched steel roller coaster in the world goes 128 mph, 50 mph faster than the fastest wood roller coaster.

There are many types of inversions on roller coasters but by far the most common type is the vertical loop. There are many other types like the zero G roll where you have zero G’s at the top. There is the cobra roll and the corkscrew. These are all the most common types of inversions. The first inversion ever on a modern roller coaster was the corkscrew. Colossus has the most inversions of any roller coaster in the world. It is ten inversions including four corkscrews in a row called a quadruple heart line roll. Colossus is only 98 feet tall and only goes
45 miles per hour yet it still has 10 inversions.

Kingda Ka is the tallest, fastest and has the longest drop of any roller coaster in the world. It was built a six flag’s Great Adventure in New Jersey. It is 456 feet tall, it goes 128 mph and has a 418 foot tall drop. It goes straight up and then straight down. Those are all the records for roller coasters and now here are all the different kinds. They are listed from the most in the world of that kind to the most in the world of that kind.

Inverted roller coasters are roller coasters that run beneath the track. They feel different to ride than sit down roller coasters because you are farther away from the tracks. They can have inversions just like sit down roller coasters. The first ever launched inverted coaster is called Volcano, The Blast Coaster. It was opened in August of 1998 It has 4 inversions including 3 barrel rolls. It is launched straight up out or a “volcano” reaching 70 mph and goes 155 feet before going downhill.

Next are suspended coasters. They are basically inverted roller coasters but the cars can swing beneath the tracks making the banking virtually perfect. Also this mean the tracks themselves have to be banked less. There are only 22 suspended roller coasters in the world. Ninja, a suspended roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain was one of the first suspended roller coasters to be built. On one turn the cars get up to 110 degrees past vertical. It is 60 feet tall, goes 55 mph, and is 2700 feet long.

Suspended roller coasters usually don’t have many ups and downs but have many twists and turns. There are only 16 stand up roller coasters in the world. They are like a sit down roller coaster but you are standing up.

They can have inversions. They also give a different ride experience because the harnesses go under your arms and over your shoulders only.

Riddlers Revenge is a stand up coaster at Magic Mountain.

It is 156 feet tall, goes 65 mph has six inversions and is 4370 feet long. In this picture you can see how the harnesses adjust to hold people of different heights.

On a flying roller coaster you are either on your back looking up at the sky or on your stomach looking down at the ground. This makes it feel like you are flying. These roller coasters have inversions where they switch from being on your stomach to your back or vice versa. There are only 14 flying roller coasters in the world. The B.O.R.G. Assimilator at Paramounts Carowinds is one of these flying coasters. It is 115 feet tall, goes 51 mph, is 2776 feet long and has five inversions. In this picture you can see track where the riders are on their stomach and track where they are on their stomach.

A bobsled roller coaster is just like bobsleds in the Olympics but runs in a track like a water slide without water and runs on wheels. There are only 9 of

these bobsled coasters in the world. They usually have one to three cars hooked together to go down the track that hold six to eight people each. In Germany there is a bobsled coaster called Schweizer Bobbahn. It is the tallest and longest bobsled coaster in the world. It is 88 feet tall and 3248 feet long, it goes 33 mph. In this picture you can see the track and that this bobsled coaster has an untypical design.

The next most common type of roller coaster is the pipeline coaster with only 6 of them in the world and they are all in Asia. A pipeline Coaster runs right between two tracks and goes up and down and does barrel rolls with no turns. To get back to the start it switches to a lower track and then goes back underneath the first track. They usually have short near vertical first drops. The Megaton is a pipeline at Mitui Greenland in Japan. It is 1181 feet long, is 98 feet tall and has an 85 degree first drop. It goes 44 mph and has three barrel rolls.

There is only one 4th dimension roller coaster in the world but another one currently being built. A 4th dimension roller coaster is nearly the same as a sit down roller coaster except that there are no seats above the track. The seats are on arms extending out to the sides and the seats spin independently. This makes the ride much scarier because you can be facing a completely different way than you are headed. The only 4th dimension roller coaster in the world is called X and is located at Six Flags Magic Mountain. X is 3610 feet long, 175 feet tall yet has a 215 foot drop that is 88.5 degrees and goes 76 mph. It has 2 inversions.

There are only 2 roller coasters in the world with a more than vertical first drop. They both have a 97 degree first drop which means they go more than straight down. Both of these roller coasters have single cars and can do inversions. They are very compact and twisty. Typhoon, located at Bobbejaanland in Belgium, is the larger of the two. It is 2198 feet long, 84 feet
tall, has 4 inversions, goes 50 mph, has a vertical lift hill (lift hills are usually about 40 degrees), and has an amazing 5 G’s on the first drop (people
black out at 10 G’s). In this picture you can see the past vertical first drop and the vertical lift hill.

Marine World and Mo

Whenever you go to an amusement park you expect it to be loud and crowded and that you might have to wait in line and hour for most rides. It was the complete opposite of that when I went to marine world on a Sunday during the school year. There were no crowds, not much noise at all, and no lines for any of the roller coasters at all and I loved it. The day I went the only noises were from the roller coasters and the games people were playing. Since Medusa is my favorite ride a Marine World I will describe it.

First you start in the station. You get into one of the cars and pull down the harness over your shoulders. Next the people who run the ride come around and if they find any empty seats or loose harnesses they push them down as tight as they can. Then you sit there for about thirty seconds until the second car is done with the ride and right behind you. Then the gates open in front of the

train and the train is propelled out of the station at about 5 miles per hour, goes downward on a little U-turn and then is on the lift hill.

The lift hill goes 8 or 10 miles per hour and takes about thirty seconds to get to the top of the lift hill. When it gets to the full 150 foot height it has a fake drop where it goes down about 5 feet has a slight turn to the right and then you go straight down the rest of the first drop at 70 degrees reaching 65 mph. It then goes into a 128 foot tall vertical loop followed by a 112 foot tall dive loop. Then it goes into a zero G roll followed right by an immelman. After that it has two corkscrews and a helix (a helix is not an inversion it is a full circle going flat) for a total of seven inversions.

Medusa is the only floorless roller coaster in California. At Marine world there are 9 roller coasters and only 7 of them are operating. There is the Boomerang, Cobra, Kong, Medusa, Roadrunner express, Roar, and V2: Vertical Velocity. The two roller coasters that are not operating are Greased Lightnin’ which is in
storage and Zonga which is “SBNO” or standing but not operating.

During my interview with Mo I learned a lot about how roller coasters are designed and the safety measures put into them. Mo’s company only designs wooden roller coasters. When I asked what Mo had studied in college to get a

job designing roller coasters he told me that he got degrees in mechanical and civil engineering.

Next I was wondering if he ever had to have another job in the design industry to have experience to get a job designing roller coasters. He told me he had just come straight out of college and wanted to get a job designing roller coasters and he got the job (I hope its like that for me because I think it would be fun to have a job designing roller coasters).

Also he told me that there usually aren’t any positions available and he was lucky that he got the job. I learned that his company only has about 20 full time employees and only about 5 of them actually design the roller coasters. I also learned that to design a roller coaster only takes about three months and then to get it built takes about another 9 months. He knew this because his company supervises the building to make sure nothing is done wrong.

When I wanted to know if there were any restrictions on roller coasters he told me that they only have to go by the local building codes but that they are required to pressure treat the wood. He said their roller coasters are built so strong that one they built in Florida has survived 2 hurricanes. This
company also built the Roar at Marine World.