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Wooden roller coaster

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The Texas Giant, a large wooden roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, TX
Colossos, one of the world's largest wooden roller coasters at Heide Park, Germany.
Thunderbird in the PowerPark amusement park

A wooden roller coaster or woodie is most often classified as a roller coaster with laminated steel running rails overlaid upon a wooden track. Occasionally, the structure may be made out of a steel lattice or truss, but the ride remains classified as a wooden roller coaster due to the track design. Due to the limits of wood, wooden roller coasters in general do not have inversions (when the coaster goes upside down), steep drops, or extremely banked turns (overbanked turns). However, there are exceptions; Son of Beast at Kings Island has a 214-foot-high (65 m) drop and originally had a 90-foot-tall (27 m) loop until the end of the 2006 season, although the loop had metal supports. Other special cases are Hades at Mount Olympus Water and Theme Park in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, featuring a double-track tunnel and a 90-degree banked turn, The Voyage at Holiday World (an example of a wooden roller coaster with a steel structure for supports) featuring three separate 90-degree banked turns, Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer Park which has a 90-degree banked turn, and T Express at Everland in South Korea with a 77-degree drop.

Modern Wooden coasters typically sport Philadelphia Toboggan Company manufactured trains for vehicles.

Decline and revival

Once a staple in virtually every amusement park in America, wooden roller coasters appear to be on a slow decline in popularity for a number of reasons. Steel roller coasters, while having larger up-front costs, cost much less in ongoing maintenance fees throughout the years of operation. Wooden roller coasters, on the other hand, require large amounts of devoted funds annually to keep the ride in operating condition through regular re-tracking, track lubrication, and support maintenance.

Wooden coasters are also becoming less marketable in today's media-driven advertising world. Superlative advertising in which the "biggest", "tallest", or "fastest" ride is what brings in crowds often cannot apply to new wooden roller coasters, especially since a large majority of record-holding rides are steel. Amusement parks are always looking to add attractions which can be presented in commercials and ads as incredibly tall, fast, or extreme which eliminates many wooden roller coasters.

However, the arrival of several new wooden coasters has bucked the downward trend. In 2006, a trio of giant wooden coasters opened in the United States: The Kentucky Rumbler at Beech Bend Park, The Voyage at Holiday World, and El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure. Another wooden coaster, Renegade at Valleyfair!, opened in 2007. It remains to be seen whether or not these new coasters mark the beginning of a wooden coaster revival, but they do indicate that amusement parks continue to show interest in wooden roller coasters. This may be owed to the fact that rides like El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure actually feel like steel coaster, due to prefabricated track.

Golden Era

It is agreed on many that the Golden Era of coaster design was the 1920s. This was the decade many of the world's most iconic coasters were built. Some of these include Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk's Giant Dipper, the Coney Island Cyclone, and the Big Dipper at Geauga Lake. This decade was the design peak for some of the world's greatest coaster designers, including John A. Miller, Harry Traver, Herb Schmeck, and the partnership of Prior and Church.

Unfortunately, the great depression ensured destruction of many of these great classics, but a few still stand as ACE classics and landmarks.

The popularity may have came to a short closing, but that didn't stop certain amusement parks from building scream machines again and again. Cedar Point built Blue Streak in 1964, a Philadelphia Toboggan Company manufactured coaster designed by John C. Allen. This dead age of coaster design was brought to an end by The Racer at Kings Island.

Revival

Wooden roller coasters slowly became larger over the course of time. By the end of the 1970s, Kings Island came back to the scene with The Beast, which currently holds the record for the longest wooden roller coaster in the USA (The Beast was also the longest roller coaster in the world overall until 1991, when The Ultimate at Lightwater Valley opened). Judge Roy Scream, a wooden roller coaster with a 71' drop, opened at Six Flags Over Texas in 1980, Grizzly, a wooden roller coaster patterned after the Cincinnati Coney Island Wildcat, opened in 1982 at Kings Dominion, and Raging Wolf Bobs (inspired by The Riverview Park Bobs) opened at Geauga Lake Park in 1988.

The 1980s would continue with The Beast leading the way for many new wooden coaster designs. In the 1990s, the popularity of large wooden twister roller coasters would come to the scene. With rides built by the Dinn Corporation such as Mean Streak at Cedar Point and Texas Giant at Six Flags over Texas, many wooden roller coasters have become as big as possible.

The popularity of traditional out-and-back designs also became popular throughout the 1990s, except they could be made bigger and better with new technology. Custom Coasters International (CCI), is responsible for creating a large number of out-and-back and twisting coasters such as Shivering Timbers at Michigan's Adventure, GhostRider at Knott's Berry Farm, The Raven at Holiday World, and its sister coaster, The Legend.

Modern Designs

After CCI went bankrupt in 2002, the designers from the design team came together again to found The Gravity Group coaster manufacturing company. Intamin AG, another well-known roller coaster company, came to the scene with their Prefabricated Wooden Roller Coaster (see below). And a new company named Great Coasters International has come to the scene with their new breed of wooden coaster designs, including Wildcat at Hersheypark, the Lightning Racer (also Hersheypark), Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and Evel Knievel at Six Flags St. Louis.

Also in 2000, Kings Island premiered the world's tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster, the Son of Beast. Until 2006, it was also the only wooden roller coaster with an inversion. Following an accident with the structure, the loop was removed before the 2007 season.

Newer wooden roller coasters often break the rules and restrictions traditionally associated with the type. Many new wooden roller coasters feature extremely steep drops (see El Toro), 90-degree turns (see The Voyage), and normally feature trains other than Philadelphia Toboggan Trains. Great Coasters International usually run their coasters with their signature Millennium Flyer trains. The Gravity Group has developed Timberliners to compete with Millenium Flyer trains. They are scheduled to be added to The Voyage later this year[when?].

At Upper Clements Park in Nova Scotia, a wooden roller coaster was built in 1980 that today still wins awards for the terrain that was used in dictating its design and the terrain that it still covers. Built using a natural setting beside the sea, the Tree-Topper curves its way over a river, through a marsh, up onto hills and into a forest. The coaster is one of the premier attractions at this park.

Prefabricated track

One of the most significant recent developments in wooden coaster design is Intamin AG's use of prefabricated track. This design essentially applies the principles of steel coaster manufacturing to wood.

Traditional wooden coaster track is built on-site. It is nailed layer-by-layer to the support structure, then it is smoothed to the proper shape and steel running plates are mounted on top. Prefabricated track, on the other hand, is manufactured in a factory. It is made of many thin layers of wood that are glued together and then laser cut to the exact shape needed. The track is made in 25-foot (7.6 m) sections which have special joints on the ends that allow them to snap together like Lego pieces. This process allows for far higher precision than could ever be achieved by hand. In addition, the trains for a prefabricated wooden coaster have wheels with polyurethane tires, just like a steel coaster. In contrast, traditional wooden coaster trains have bare metal wheels.

This design results in a ride that is nearly as smooth as the smoothest of steel coasters, and much smoother than any traditional wooden coaster. However, some coaster enthusiasts may find this smoothness to detract from the experience, as it would not have the same character as a traditional wooden coaster. Despite this, all four existing prefabricated wooden coasters are consistently rated among the best wooden coasters in the world.

Prefabricated wooden coasters also benefit from faster construction and reduced maintenance compared to a traditional wooden coaster. The track is simply bolted to the structure, which takes an insignificant amount of time compared to actually building the track. The track also stays smooth much longer than traditional track, which becomes rough rather quickly and eventually must be replaced.

Wooden versus steel

Wooden roller coasters provide a very different ride and experience from steel roller coasters. While they are technically less capable than a steel coaster when it comes to inversions and elements, wooden coasters instead rely on an often rougher and more "wild" ride as well as a more psychological approach to inducing fear. Their shaky structures and track, which usually move anywhere from a few inches to a few feet with a passing train, give a sense of unreliability and the "threat" of collapse or disregard for safety. Of course, this assumption is purely mental and wooden roller coaster supports and track systems are designed to sway with the force. If the track and structure are too rigid, they will break under the strain of the passing train. The swaying of the track reduces the force applied per second (see impulse), like a shock absorber.

Like steel roller coasters, wooden roller coasters usually use the same three-wheel design, pioneered by John Miller. Each set of wheels includes a running wheel (on top of the track), a side friction wheel (to reduce side to side movement known as "hunting") and an upstop wheel (beneath the track to prevent cars from flying off the track). Some wooden coasters, such as Leap-The-Dips, do not have upstop wheels, and are therefore known as side friction roller coasters. As a result, the turns and drops are more gentle than on modern wooden roller coasters. Scenic Railway roller coasters also lack upstop wheels, but rely on a brakeman to control the speed. A handful of wooden coasters use flanged wheels, similar to a rail car, eliminating the need for side friction wheels.

The debate rages as to which type of coaster is better: wood or steel. This is unlikely to ever be settled, however, because each category distinguishes itself from the other in a number of ways, in addition to also providing a substantially different and unique ride.

Examples of wooden roller coasters

File:Americaneagle1205.JPG
The American Eagle's lift hill and helix.
Vuoristorata, built in 1951, dominates the Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, Finland.

See also

References

  1. ^ Le Monstre, La Ronde, Montreal
  2. ^ Hullámvasút
  3. ^ ACE Coaster Classic Awards
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