A roller coaster is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. People 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.
RollerCoaster Tycoon is a series of simulation video games about building and managing an amusement park. Each game in the series challenges players with open-ended amusement park management and development, and allowing players to construct and customize their own unique roller coasters and other thrill rides.
A wooden roller coaster is most often classified as a roller coaster with running rails made of flattened steel strips mounted on laminated wooden track. Occasionally, the support 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. Because of the limits of wood, wooden roller coasters, in general, do not have inversions, steep drops, or extremely banked turns. However, there are exceptions; the defunct Son of Beast at Kings Island had 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 steel supports. Other special cases are Hades 360 at Mount Olympus Water and Theme Park in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. The coaster features a double-track tunnel, a corkscrew, and a 90-degree banked turn. There is also The Voyage at Holiday World featuring three separate 90-degree banked turns. Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer Park has a 90-degree banked turn, T Express at Everland in South Korea with a 77-degree drop, and Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City which has 3 inversions and 120-degree overbanked turn.
Vekoma Rides Manufacturing is a Dutch amusement ride manufacturer. Vekoma is an abbreviation of Veld Koning Machinefabriek and was established in 1926 by Hendrik op het Veld. They originally manufactured farm equipment, later they made steel constructions for the coal mining industry in the 1950s and after that steel pipes for the petrochemical industry. Since the 1970s they started making amusement rides.
A steel roller coaster is a roller coaster that is defined by having a track made of steel. Steel coasters have earned immense popularity in the past 50 years throughout the world. Incorporating tubular steel track and polyurethane-coated wheels, the steel roller coasters can provide a taller, smoother, and faster ride with more inversions than a traditional wooden roller coaster.
A roller coaster inversion is a roller coaster element in which the track turns riders upside-down and then returns them to an upright position. Early forms of inversions, dating as far back as 1848 on the Centrifugal Railway in Paris, were vertical loops that were circular in nature. They produced massive g-force that was often dangerous to riders, and as a result, the element eventually became non-existent with the last rides to feature the looping inversions being dismantled during the Great Depression. In 1975, designers from Arrow Development created the corkscrew, reviving interest in the inversion during the modern age of steel roller coasters. Since then, the element have evolved from simple corkscrews and vertical loops to more complex inversions such Immelmann loops and cobra rolls. Featuring fourteen inversions, The Smiler at Alton Towers holds the world record for the number of inversions on a roller coaster.
Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters, commonly referred to as PTC, is one of the oldest existing roller coaster manufacturing companies in the world. Based in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, it was established in 1904 by Henry Auchey and Chester Albright under the name Philadelphia Toboggan Company. The company manufactured carousels, wooden roller coasters, toboggans and later, roller coaster trains.
Top Thrill Dragster is a steel accelerator roller coaster built by Intamin at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. It was the sixteenth roller coaster built at the park since the Blue Streak in 1964. When built in 2003, it was the first full circuit roller coaster to exceed 400 feet (120 m) in height, and was the tallest roller coaster in the world, before being surpassed by Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in May 2005. Top Thrill Dragster, along with Kingda Ka, are the only strata coasters in existence. It was the second hydraulically launched roller coaster built by Intamin, following Xcelerator at Knott's Berry Farm. The tagline for Top Thrill Dragster is "Race for the Sky".
Anton Schwarzkopf was a German engineer of amusement rides, and founder of the Schwarzkopf Industries Company, which built numerous amusement rides and large roller coasters for both amusement parks and traveling funfairs.
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 Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard, with Bolliger as president and Mabillard as vice-president. B&M has built over a hundred roller coasters around the world and pioneered several new ride technologies, most notably the inverted roller coaster. In North America, B&M coaster designs have been manufactured by Ohio company Clermont Steel Fabricators since 1990. B&M has grown significantly since its founding, originally employing four to as many as 37 in 2012, consisting primarily of engineers and draftsmen. In 2016, the company completed its 100th roller coaster.
A hypercoaster is any complete circuit roller coaster with a height measuring greater than 200 feet (61 m). The term was first coined by Arrow Dynamics and Cedar Point in 1989 with the release of the first full-circuit hypercoaster in the world, Magnum XL-200. Other roller coaster manufacturers developed their own models with custom names, including Mega Coasters from Intamin, Hyper Coasters from Bolliger & Mabillard, and Hyper-Hybrid Coasters from Rocky Mountain Construction. The competition between amusement parks to build increasingly taller roller coasters eventually led to giga coasters which exceed 300 feet (91 m) and strata coasters which exceed 400 feet (120 m).
Boomerang is a model of roller coaster manufactured and designed by Vekoma, a Dutch manufacturer. The roller coaster model name is from the hunting implement based on the traditions of the Indigenous Australians. As of February 2019 there are 55 Boomerangs operating.
Roller Coaster DataBase (RCDB) is a roller coaster and amusement park database begun in 1996 by Duane Marden. It has grown to feature statistics and photos of over 5000 roller coasters from around the world.
Antonio Zamperla S.p.A. is an Italian design and manufacturing company founded in 1966. It is best known for creating family rides, thrill rides and roller coasters worldwide. The company also makes smaller coin-operated rides commonly found inside shopping malls.
The Allan Herschell Company specialized in the creation of amusement rides, particularly carousels and roller coasters. The company manufactured portable machines which could be used by traveling carnival operators. It was started in 1915 in the town of North Tonawanda, just outside Buffalo, New York, US.
Zierer Karussell- und Spezialmaschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG is a German company located close to Deggendorf. Zierer manufactures Tivoli and Force line of roller coasters, as well as panoramic wheels, wave swingers, flying carpets, Hexentanz and Kontiki rides. The company also has partnered with Schwarzkopf to build Lisebergbanan at Liseberg and Knightmare at Camelot Theme Park.
Maurer AG is a steel construction company and roller coaster manufacturer. Founded in Munich, Germany in 1876, the company has built many styles of steel buildings, ranging from bridges, industrial buildings, and even art structures. While known for building various wild mouse coasters, Maurer Söhne has been branching out into spinning, looping, and launching coasters recently. The company also produces a free-fall tower ride. On December 15, 2014, the company changed its name from Maurer Söhne GmbH & Co. KG to Maurer AG.
Roller coaster elements are the individual parts of roller coaster design and operation, such as a track, hill, loop, or turn. Variations in normal track movement that add thrill or excitement to the ride are often called "thrill elements" or "thrill factor".
Mack Rides GmbH & Co KG, also known simply as Mack Rides, is a German company that designs and constructs amusement rides. Mack Rides in headquartered in Waldkirch, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Mack Rides is one of the world's oldest amusement industry suppliers and builds all kinds of amusement devices including several types of flat rides, dark rides, log flumes, tow boat rides and roller coasters. The family that owns Mack Rides also owns Europa-Park.
