Wooden roller coaster
A wooden roller coaster is a roller coaster whose rail construction is largely made of wood. The support structure of most wooden roller coasters is also made of wood, but a metal structure is also used on some tracks. The rails of wooden roller coasters consist of several layers of wood, traditionally laminated from boards, with metal pads for the running surfaces of the wheels.
history
The first ride known as a roller coaster structure and thus also the first wooden roller coaster was the Gravity Pleasure Switch Back Railway by LaMarcus Adna Thompson, opened in Coney Island in 1884 . This track consisted of two straight, hilly stretches between two elevated platforms. After reaching the opposite platform, the wagons were pushed over a transfer track onto the opposite route for the next trip. Since the wagons only had simple benches without backrests, they did not have to be turned. Similar systems were built based on the model of this railway at numerous other locations.
Simple ovals were built as the first railways with a closed route in the 1880s. Shortly afterwards, the first figure 8 tracks were created, from which the German word “roller coaster” is derived. The oldest roller coaster still in operation, Leap the Dips in Lakemont Park , Altoona built in 1902 by Edward Joy Morris , is one such figure-8 roller coaster .
Thompson was very successful with his "Scenic Railway" called trains. Many of them were elaborately designed according to the name, for example as artificial mountain ranges or pavilions with dioramas and moving figures. In addition to the running wheels, such railways only had lateral guides (side friction roller coaster); they were built until the 1930s, even after the invention of the underfriction wheels . Today only a few Scenic Railways remain. The oldest still in operation is the Scenic Railway in Luna Park , Melbourne from 1912.
In 1919 John A. Miller patented a new form of chassis and rail construction. With the underfriction wheels , wheels that grip the rails from below, the wagons are held firmly on the route. This made it possible to construct steeper descents, more steeply sloping curves and hills that were driven over faster with more airtime , and was groundbreaking for the development of modern high-speed roller coasters.
Most of the wooden roller coasters from the first heyday, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have not been preserved. Many were demolished after just a few years to make way for new, more exciting, tracks. A large number also fell victim to fires. Many were closed due to the poor economic situation of their operators, largely as a result of the Great Depression of the 1930s. But even later, many old railways were shut down or demolished. To a large extent, the documentation on the early roller coasters is very sketchy. Hardly anything has come down to us about many railways; often there are only pictures on postcards that can sometimes no longer be reliably assigned in terms of location and time.
Some old wooden coasters could be protected from demolition. Some of them are still in operation today, some are registered as national historical landmarks (USA) or have been placed under monument protection. Examples are already mentioned above or the famous, still in operation, Cyclone in Astroland , Coney Island from 1927 or the Scenic Railway in Dreamland Margate , Margate from 1920 - the railway has been closed after a fire since 2008, a renewed operation is planned.
Wild Wild West (now Bandit ) in the Warner Bros. Movie World was the first wooden roller coaster to be built in Germany in recent times. In 2001 “Plug & Play Woodie” Colossos in Heide-Park was the first to follow .
Construction
Wooden coasters are not made entirely of wood. Nails, screws, fittings , track coverings, running gear and train wheels are made of metal. The running surfaces of the wheels of most rides are made of steel, in only a few systems, like the steel roller coaster, running surfaces with a polyurethane coating are used. Examples: Mammut in the Tripsdrill adventure park , Pegasus in Efteling .
There are also deviations in the construction of the support structure and rails. For example, Gemini in Cedar Point has a wooden structure, but the carriages run on steel rails (further example: Diabolo - El Tren de la Mina | PortAventura). Many rides built by The Gravity Group, such as The Voyage in Holiday World, have wooden walkways and railings, but the support structures are made of steel. These tracks are often referred to as hybrid wooden roller coasters. In wooden support structures, too, metal girders are often used in addition to the wooden beams that are otherwise used to bridge larger distances.
Manufacturer
Dinn Corporation
The Dinn Corporation , founded in 1983 by Charles Dinn, had to file for bankruptcy in 1992. His daughter then founded Custom Coasters International. The wooden roller coasters are known for their often rough driving behavior. Six of the 13 railways produced have now been torn down, shut down or rebuilt.
Custom Coasters International
One of the best known manufacturers of wooden coasters is Custom Coasters International (CCI). The company was founded in 1991 but went bankrupt in July 2002 during the construction of the New Mexico Ratter and had to close. The company has built 34 wooden roller coasters in the 11 years of its existence. After the bankruptcy, part of the designer team formed the company The Gravity Group . The trolleys for the CCI roller coasters were often made by the Philadelphia Tobboggan Company .
Great Coasters International
The company, which was founded in 1994, has built 20 wooden roller coasters worldwide so far, making it one of the most successful wooden roller coaster manufacturers. The company is characterized among other things by its Millennium Flyer trains, which should ensure a high level of comfort with their upholstered seats on new railways.
The Gravity Group
The Gravity Group, which was founded in 2002 from part of the CCI design team, built the first wooden roller coaster with a curve inclination of 90 °. For this purpose, a large part of the railways in operation were designed as hybrid coaster , which have a steel structure as supports and no wood. The new curve segment was installed three times at The Voyage , which was often honored as one of the best wooden roller coasters.
Rocky Mountain Construction
This company, although founded in 2001, only appeared in 2010 with the conversion of the Texas Giant into Six Flags over Texas. The rails of the wooden roller coaster were completely replaced by steel, which in turn made extreme inclinations and a downhill gradient of 79 ° possible.
In March 2013, Outlaw Run was opened as the first completely self-constructed track . The rails are not made entirely of steel , as with the Texas Giant , but consist of laminated wood with a hollow steel support, the so-called topper track. As a result, elements that are atypical for a classic wooden roller coaster, such as a double heartline roll, can be implemented. Since the topper track is hollow and pre-bent and all wheels of the train run on this element, it is debatable whether it is still a wooden roller coaster.
In 2013, Rattler was also rebuilt into Six Flags Fiesta Texas similar to the Texas Giant . The slope is 81 ° and an inversion is installed. The rails are made entirely of steel.
Intamin
Even before the Gravity Group, Intamin revolutionized wooden roller coasters with a new principle of completely prefabricating the tracks and not sawing and assembling the parts on site. Roller coasters built using this technique are known as Plug & Play Woodie . The first implementation of this construction principle is Colossos in Heide-Park . This was inspired by El Toro (Six Flags Great Adventure) , which had the steepest descent, a wooden roller coaster, before Outlaw Run . Other railways are Balder (Liseberg) and T Express (Everland).
Web links
- Record breaker: wood - height records . Further article from coastersandmore.de.
Individual evidence
- ↑ US Patent 310966, Roller Coasting Structure. Retrieved April 8, 2013 .
- ↑ http://traveltips.usatoday.com/landmarks-coney-island-brooklyn-103722.html
- ↑ Save Dreamland - Website of the campaign for the preservation of the Dreamland Margate. Retrieved April 8, 2013 .
- ^ A b Custom Coasters International, Inc. (West Chester, Ohio, USA) (English). Entry in the Rollercoaster Database, accessed April 3, 2013
- ^ Dinn Corporation (West Chester, Ohio, USA) (English). Entry in the Rollercoaster Database, accessed May 3, 2013
- ^ New Mexico Rattler - Cliff's Amusement Park (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA) (English). Entry in the Rollercoaster Database, accessed April 3, 2013
- ↑ a b Roller Coaster Manufacturers (English). Entries in the Coaster Gallery, accessed April 3, 2013
- ↑ Compare information from the Rollercoaster Database on New Mexico Rattler - Cliff's Amusement Park (Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA) and Boulder Dash - Lake Compounce (Bristol, Connecticut, USA)
- ^ Great Coasters International (Sunbury, Pennsylvania, USA) (English). Entry in the Rollercoaster Database, accessed May 3, 2013
- ↑ Compare information and images from the Rollercoaster Database for Voyage - Holiday World (Santa Claus, Indiana, USA) and Hades 360 - Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park (Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, USA)
- ↑ Texas Giant: A New Roller Coaster Record For Six Flags? . Article from airtimers.com, accessed May 3, 2013
- ↑ Texas Giant - The Rebirth of a Texas Legend . Article from airtimers.com, accessed May 3, 2013
- ↑ Airtimers Weekly Review - KW 11 - With Karacho into the new week! . Article from airtimers.com, accessed May 3, 2013
- ^ Outlaw Run - Silver Dollar City (Branson, Missouri, USA) (English). Entry in the Rollercoaster Database, accessed May 3, 2013
- ↑ Six Flags Fiesta Texas - The steel rattlesnake! . Article from airtimers.com, accessed May 3, 2013
- ↑ Record breaker: wood - height records . Article from coastersandmore.de, accessed on May 3, 2013