Wooden roller coaster
Early wooden roller coaster designs of the 19th century featured a single set of wheels running on top of the track, which was common in scenic railway rides.
John A. Miller introduced side friction coasters and later underfriction coasters in the early 20th century, which added additional sets of wheels running along multiple sides of the track to allow for more intense ride design with sharper turns and steeper drops.
Traditionally, wooden roller coasters were not capable of featuring extreme elements such as inversions, near-vertical drops, and overbanked turns commonly found on steel roller coasters after the introduction of tubular steel track by Arrow Development in 1959.
A decade later, the introduction of Topper Track by Rocky Mountain Construction allowed for new possibilities, with corkscrews, overbanked turns, and other inverting elements appearing on wooden coasters such as Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City and Goliath at Six Flags Great America.
Some of these include the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and its counterpart at Belmont Park, the Cyclone at Coney Island, the Big Dipper at Geauga Lake, The Thriller at Euclid Beach Park, and the Roller Coaster at Lagoon.
[citation needed] After their success with the Racer at Kings Island, the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC) constructed another 9 roller coasters over the next decade.
In 1988, Charlie Dinn started a partnership with Curtis D. Summers to design and build new wooden coasters.
Hercules at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, built in 1989, had the tallest wooden coaster drop at 150 feet.
Custom Coasters took on increasingly high numbers of wooden coaster projects, including 7 coasters in 2000 alone (The Boss at Six Flags St. Louis, which was the largest with a 153-foot drop and almost a mile of track; Medusa at Six Flags Mexico; Mega Zeph at the defunct Six Flags New Orleans; Boulder Dash at Lake Compounce; Villain at the defunct Geauga Lake; Hurricane: Category 5 at the defunct Myrtle Beach Pavilion; and The Legend at Holiday World).
In 2002, Custom Coasters declared bankruptcy while building the New Mexico Rattler at Cliff's Amusement Park.
In 2013, Boulder Dash was rated the number one wooden roller coaster in the world by Amusement Today.
Since 2010, El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure, which opened in 2006, has been ranked the number one wooden coaster in the world on Mitch Hawkers poll.
The coaster features highly unique elements, including an airtime filled pre-lift section, an 800-foot tunnel underneath a parking lot, and a 90 degree banked turn.
In 2006, The Gravity Group built The Voyage at Holiday World, a large wooden coaster which stands 163 feet tall, has over 6,442 feet of track, three 90 degree banked turns, and has been ranked the number one wooden coaster in the world by Amusement Today five times.
This treatment became popular and was later applied to other aging roller coasters such as Iron Rattler and Twisted Colossus.
[4] It was also the first modern wooden roller coaster to feature an inversion, a 90-foot (27 m) vertical loop, which was made of steel.
[6][7][8] In the 2010s, a new era of wooden roller coasters came about with the introduction of Topper Track developed by Rocky Mountain Construction.
[12][13] Topper Track provides the added benefit of smoother rides and lower maintenance costs.
[citation needed] The Gravity Group also designed five wooden coasters with a single inversion: these include coasters at each of three Oriental Heritage theme parks in China, all named Jungle Trailblazer,[14][15][16] as well as Mine Blower in Fun Spot Kissimmee[17] and the conversion of their existing Hades 360 in Mt.
It is cut as needed, bent to the proper shape, and mounted layer-by-layer to the support structure with steel running plates.
The result is generally higher precision than what could be achieved by hand, leading to a smoother ride and reduced cost surrounding construction and maintenance.
Their 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.
