History of the Roller Coaster, Part II

Now we come to the first golden age of the roller coaster: the Roaring '20s. John A. Miller helped kick this off with his inventions of the upstop wheel, the anti-rollback rack, the station brakes, and the lap bar. Now, everybody knows what the lap bar is: a bar that goes in your lap and prevents you from flying out of the coaster train. The anti-rollback rack is a device that goes at the top of big hills and prevents coasters from rolling back on said hills. The upstop wheel is a wheel that goes under the track and prevents the train from flying off over hills. The station brakes, of course, slow the train down in or near the station. With these four inventions, the figure-eight was left behind in favor of the type of thing shown on the right. This coaster is the Crystal Beach Cyclone, designed by Harry Traver in 1927. This ride no longer exists: it was torn down in 1947. Legend has it that the full-time nurse on duty at the coaster carried smelling salts. Another coaster that was created in 1927 was the Coney Island Cyclone. This ride is, according to Steven J. Urbanowicz, the number one wooden roller coaster in the world. Me, I say The Voyage is. Now, Miller created a bunch of roller coasters in his time; the Racer at Kennywood is a good example. He also invented the Flying Turns, the precursor to today's bobsled coasters. Like the bobsled coasters of today, the Flying Turns featured a semicircular track (in cross-section) that the cars were free to swing up and down as they navigated the course. Unlike the bobsled coasters of today, Flying Turns featured sharp curves, tight helices, steep drops, and the like, providing for an intense experience.

Prior, Church, and Traver

These dudes were awesome. They epitomized the Roaring '20s in their designs. Prior and Church built Bobs coasters, designed around spirals, swoops, airtime (the feeling you get over the tops of hills), and beautiful articulated Century Flyer trains designed to navigate the twisted track. These trains were anywhere from four to twelve cars long, and sat two per car in one row. Prior and Church's most famous accomplishment was the Aeroplane Coaster, at Playland Park. It no longer stands, but the Giant Dipper at Belmont Park in San Diego does, and is a testament to P&C's genius.

Harry Guy Traver was even more extreme than Prior and Church. I've seen a photo of him, and he looks incredibly boring. Maybe he built his coasters to compensate. Anyway, he liked using steep banking (89* was not uncommon) and "jazz track", which consists of track banked from side to side very rapidly. We now call this element "trick track", and it serves to shake up riders and make them feel like the coaster train is going to rip off the track. It does do a number on the trains. In addition to the Crystal Beach Cyclone, he built numerous other Cyclone coasters, including one at Cedar Point, one at Revere Beach (actually named the Lightning), and the Cyclone Racer in California.

All good things must, of course, come to an end, and it certainly looked that way when the Great Depression hit. This was followed by World War II, and then by TV, which all but eliminated the roller coaster as a form of entertainment.

The Matterhorn, Runaway Mine Trains, and Six Flags

Walt Disney came on the scene in the 1950's, with the Pay-One-Price (POP) model and the controlled-access theme park. The POP model worked like this: instead of buying tickets to ride each ride, you pay just to enter the park and the rides are free. This works out well for the thrill-seekers, but not for the parents, who often don't ride anything. Anyway, in 1959, a company named Arrow Development built a roller coaster for Disneyland. This coaster was made out of steel, allowing for a quieter, smoother ride. Augustus Wynne (a millionaire who founded the Six Flags chain of parks) got wind of this and asked Arrow to design a "runaway mine train" for his park, Six Flags over Texas. This park was named for the six flags that, at some point, have flown over the Lone Star State (Spain, France, the USA, the Confederacy, the Republic of Texas, and Mexico, if you wanted to know). This coaster had three lift hills, was a half-mile long, and opened in 1966. It appeared that the roller coaster was for the whole family to enjoy, but nowadays this is not true. What happened?

Introduction

Hello, Flametongue from Idylwild here. This blog will be updated whenever I feel like it. Today, I feel like talking about roller coasters. The Oxford American Dictionary defines "roller coaster" as "an amusement ride consisting of an elevated track with open-car trains that rise and plunge steeply." This clearly tells us very little. Questions abound in my mind. Where did they come from? Why are there so many types? Where are my headphones? The last question may be easily discarded, as it has nothing to do with anything, and I found them on the floor next to the stereo. Anyway, to understand where roller coasters came from, we need to pay a little visit to Catherine The Great, in Russia.

A popular pastime in Russia was building wooden ramps, covering them with ice, and then sliding down them on sleds. This was great fun, but it had one problem: it only worked during the winter. Catherine the Great wanted to demonstrate this to visiting nobles, so she had wheels attached to the sleds, allowing for year-round entertainment. The French took this idea and modified it slightly, creating ramps composed of wooden rollers, which the sleds could coast down. This is supposedly where the name came from. In France, the first looping coaster was created; it consisted of a drop into a circular loop. As you can see from the picture, it is pretty hideous. It was also probably pretty painful. Circular loops are something that only Anton Schwarzkopf can do, and we'll get to him later. Anyway, the coaster soon fell out of fashion in Europe, and most thought that that was the end of that nonsense.

In America, in 1873, an inclined railway opened up for passengers. It had previously carried coal down a mountain. The train would be pulled up a half-mile slope by mules (and later motors) and allowed to run down the other side, reaching speeds of over 70 miles per hour. The total length of track was over 26 miles. This kinda sorta blows the length record out of the water. Unfortunately, it closed in 1929. However, in 1884, the first "true" roller coaster was built by LaMarcus A. Thompson. It consisted of a series of undulating dips on two parallel tracks. The basic premise was this. Passengers would board the car, ride down, and then push the thing up to the other side, where the process was repeated. One year later, some guy invented the lift hill, whioch eliminated the passengers-pushing-the-car-up-the-hill bit. This allowed for turns and stuff, and soon the figure-eight design became popular. Two of these figure-eight rides exist today: Leap-The-Dips at Lakemont Park and another one in England.

I'll continue this sometime soon.