Hercules (roller coaster)

Hercules was a wooden roller coaster located at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Engineer Curtis Summers visited the park in 1987 to survey the site and start formulating a layout.

[3] Summers took advantage of the hillside location to produce a record-breaking drop from a modest 95-foot lift hill.

[6] After climbing the lift, the train encountered a small dip, a turn to the left, and dropped 151 feet down the hillside at 65 mph.

[6] Once over the top, riders encountered an airtime drop under the station house, then a rise into a high-banked right turn.

[3] During testing, the coaster had difficulty climbing out of the valley, occasionally coming to a stop on the anti-rollbacks at the top of the triple-up.

[3] Hercules was running with a newly designed Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters (PTC) train that featured six four-seat cars coupled together with a trailer hitch.

In 1994, park owner Cedar Fair contracted John F. Pierce Associates to make several off-season modifications.

Just two days later on September 3, Dorney Park announced that Hercules would be replaced by a new steel roller coaster scheduled to open in 2005.