A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are often found in amusement parks and theme parks around the world. LaMarcus Adna Thompson obtained one of the first known patents for a roller coaster design in 1885, related to the Switchback Railway that opened a year earlier at Coney Island. The track in a coaster design does not necessarily have to be a complete circuit, as shuttle roller coasters demonstrate. Most roller coasters have multiple cars in which passengers sit and are restrained. Two or more cars hooked together are called a train. Some roller coasters, notably Wild Mouse roller coasters, run with single cars.
Canada's Wonderland, formerly known as Paramount Canada's Wonderland, is a 134-hectare (330-acre) amusement park located in Vaughan, Ontario, a municipality within the Greater Toronto Area. Opened in 1981 by the Taft Broadcasting Company and the Great-West Life Assurance Company, it was the first major theme park in Canada and remains the country's largest. Cedar Fair purchased the park from Paramount Parks in 2006, and in 2019, it was the most-visited, seasonal amusement park in North America with an estimated 3.9 million guests.
Kings Dominion is an amusement park located in Doswell, Virginia, 20 miles (30 km) north of Richmond and 75 miles (120 km) south of Washington, D.C. Owned and operated by Cedar Fair, the 280-acre (1.1 km2) park opened to the public on May 3, 1975, and features more than 60 rides, shows and attractions including 13 roller coasters and a 20-acre (81,000 m2) water park. Its name is derived from the name of its sister park, Kings Island, and the nickname for the state of Virginia, "Old Dominion."
Bolliger & Mabillard, officially Bolliger & Mabillard Consulting Engineers, Inc. and often abbreviated B&M, is a roller coaster design consultancy based in Monthey, Switzerland. The company was founded in 1988 by engineers Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard, both of whom had worked for Giovanola.
The Suspended Looping Coaster is a model of steel inverted roller coaster built by Vekoma. There are at least 39 different installations across the world. The minimum rider height requirement is 130 centimetres. Vekoma is now marketing a Suspended Thrill Coaster as a successor to the Suspended Looping Coaster. The Odyssey is the largest, fastest and tallest SLC ever built at Fantasy Island in the UK.
Nighthawk is a steel flying roller coaster from Vekoma located at Carowinds amusement park. The roller coaster is located in the Celebration Plaza section of the park. The roller coaster originally opened as Stealth at California's Great America on April 1, 2000. In 2003, Paramount Parks decided to relocate the roller coaster to Carowinds. It reopened as Borg Assimilator – the first coaster in the world to be themed to Star Trek – on March 20, 2004. After Cedar Fair purchased Carowinds in 2006, Paramount themes were soon removed from the park, and the ride was renamed Nighthawk. It is one of only two Flying Dutchman models still in existence from Vekoma.
Flight Deck is a steel inverted roller coaster located at California's Great America in Santa Clara, California. Built by Bolliger & Mabillard and designed by Werner Stengel, the roller coaster made its debut on March 20, 1993, as Top Gun. The roller coaster was built as Paramount, who had purchased the Great America theme park in 1992 along with several other parks, sought to expand its entertainment opportunities and promote its films. After Paramount sold off its Great America park to Cedar Fair, the roller coaster was rebranded as Flight Deck.
Volcano: The Blast Coaster, or simply Volcano, was an inverted roller coaster located at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia. Designed by Werner Stengel, it was the first launched roller coaster manufactured by Intamin and the first of its kind in the world to be inverted. Its launch mechanism utilized linear induction motor (LIM) technology. After a series of delays, Volcano opened to the public on August 3, 1998. A portion of the ride was enclosed inside a man-made volcano originally constructed in 1979, which previously housed other attractions. Volcano's final year of operation was in 2018, and in the off-season that followed, Kings Dominion made a sudden decision to retire the roller coaster.
Vortex is a suspended roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario. It officially opened during the 1991 season.
The Bat, formerly called Flight Deck and Top Gun, is a suspended roller coaster at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio. Built by Arrow Dynamics, the ride was known as Top Gun when it opened in 1993. It is the park's second suspended coaster following an earlier prototype from Arrow Development — also called The Bat – that operated at Kings Island from 1981 to 1983. The layout is designed to give riders the illusion they are narrowly missing track supports and other elements while swinging through sharp turns.
Behemoth is a steel roller coaster located at Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario. Designed and developed by Swiss manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M), Behemoth opened to the public in May 2008 as the tallest and fastest roller coaster in Canada, a claim it held until 2012 when Leviathan opened at the same park. Behemoth is similar to Diamondback, Intimidator (Carowinds), Goliath and Nitro.
Backlot Stunt Coaster is a launched roller coaster located at three Cedar Fair amusement parks. The first two installations opened at Kings Island and Canada's Wonderland in 2005 under the name Italian Job: Stunt Track, while the third opened at Kings Dominion in 2006 as Italian Job: Turbo Coaster. All three were themed to the climactic chase scene at the end of the 2003 film The Italian Job. Special effects were incorporated throughout the ride to reproduce the scene, although some of the effects were removed in later years. The Italian Job theme was also dropped in 2008 following Cedar Fair's acquisition of the amusement parks from Paramount.
Afterburn is an inverted roller coaster located at Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, North Carolina. After more than two years of planning and construction, the roller coaster opened on March 20, 1999. The ride previously operated as Top Gun: The Jet Coaster, before it was renamed following Cedar Fair's purchase of Paramount Parks in 2006.
Leviathan is a steel roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. Located in the Medieval Faire section of the park, the Hyper Coaster model from Swiss firm Bolliger & Mabillard is the first roller coaster manufactured by the company to exceed a height of 91.5 metres (300 ft), putting it in a class of roller coasters commonly referred to as giga. At 1,672 metres (5,486 ft) long, 93.3 metres (306 ft) tall, and with a top speed of 148 kilometres per hour (92 mph), Leviathan is the tallest and fastest roller coaster in Canada, taking the records previously held by Behemoth on the opposite side of the park. As of July 2020, Leviathan is ranked as the seventh-tallest roller coaster in the world and the fourth-tallest traditional lift-style coaster in the world.
Originally themed around the Middle Ages, Medieval Faire is a section of Canada's Wonderland, a theme park in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. As such, early attractions created under Kings Entertainment Company were named after knights, Don Quixote, Vikings, dragons, bats, and beasts. Throughout the Paramount Parks era, the section's new attractions lacked appropriate theming. The introduction of the Leviathan roller coaster to Medieval Faire in 2012 was the first major investment in the section since 2000; the park is now under ownership of Cedar Fair. The section includes four roller coasters and six other rides.
X-Flight is a steel roller coaster located at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. Designed and built by Bolliger & Mabillard, the ride opened as the fourth Wing Coaster in the world and the second in the United States on May 16, 2012. It replaced both the Splashwater Falls and Great American Raceway attractions. The 3,000-foot-long (910 m) roller coaster features barrel rolls, high-speed drops, and a signature fly-through element, where the train narrowly misses a support structure – designed to look like an air traffic control tower – as it passes through an opening known as a keyhole element.
Sky Rocket II is a steel roller coaster model made by American manufacturer Premier Rides. The first Sky Rocket II was Superman: Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, which opened on June 30, 2012, and the latest is Sky Loop at Riyadh Winter Wonderland in 2022. The ride model features a height of 150 feet (46 m), a length of 863 feet (263 m), a maximum speed of 62 miles per hour (100 km/h), and includes one inversion. The ride has been noted for its low-cost and small foot-print.
Batman: The Ride is a steel inverted coaster at Six Flags Mexico that has been operating since 2000. It is a standard Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster model themed to the famed Batman franchise, and was part of Premier Park's massive renovation in 2000.
Silver Streak is a Vekoma inverted roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario. The coaster is geared towards families and children, and is often seen as a junior version of the park's existing Flight Deck roller coaster.
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