Roller Coaster Research Paper

Roller Coasters: Adrenaline-fueled Architecture
600 years ago, roller coaster pioneers never would have imagined the advancements that have been made to create the roller coasters of today. The tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world is the Kingda Ka, a coaster in New Jersey that launches its passengers from zero to 128 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds (most sports cars take over four seconds to get to just 60 miles per hour). It then heaves its riders skyward at a 90-degree angle (straight up) until it reaches a height of 456 feet, over one and a half football fields, above the ground, before dropping another 418 feet (Coaster Grotto "Kingda Ka"). With that said, roller coasters are about more than just speed and height, they are
about the creativity of the designers that build them, each coaster having its own unique way of producing intense thrills at a lesser risk than the average car ride. Roller coasters have evolved drastically over the years, from their primitive beginnings as Russian ice slides, to the metal monsters of today. Their combination of creativity and structural elements make them one of the purest forms of architecture. The debate over where and when the first true roller coaster was created is a debate that is sure to continue for years to come. Most will say that the first man-made creation that uses the force of gravity for pleasure dates back to Russia, somewhere around the 1400s or earlier. These "Russian Mountains" were merely ice-coated slides made with wooden framework that people would slide down in toboggans, which were often simply blocks of ice. This concept soon became contagious among Russian villages, and eventually spread to Russian royalty. Obviously, a Russian prince wouldn't be caught dead sliding down a tiny rural slide on a block of ice; they built huge slides that were up to 50 feet high, and multiple city blocks long. The "Russian Mountains" remained the biggest thing in gravity-based thrills, until the idea spread into Western Europe (Rutherford 11-12). .
In the early 1800s, France caught hold of a wheeled version of these Russian creations. France's Les Montagnes, named after "Russian Mountains" were wooden coasters that featured steel wheels, attracted numerous brave Frenchman. The opening of Paris' Aerial Walks in 1817 introduced the first lift system for the coaster's passenger vehicles. A precursor to the chain lift, the Aerial Walks lift used a cable system (Rutherford 12). The modern roller coaster's lift system has trains with teeth on the bottoms that slot into the chain lift, and a gear system allows the chain lift to haul the train to the top of the lift hill (Parker 144).
In comparison to the world's first roller coaster, there is perhaps an even greater debate over what was America's first true coaster.
Many will say that it is Pennsylvania's own Maunch Chunk-Summit Hill and Switch Back Railroad. The Maunch Chunk-Summit Hill and Switch Back Railroad was originally America's second railroad, and considered my many to be the greatest coaster of all time. Located in the Lehigh valley, it was originally used to transport coal from the top of Mount Pisgah to the bottom of Mount Jefferson, until Josiah white, a mining entrepreneur, had the idea of turning it into a part-time thrill ride. Because of its immediate popularity, it soon became strictly a passenger train. A steam engine would haul passengers to the top of the mountain, before letting them coast back down, with speeds rumored to reach 100 miles per hour! The reason that it was called a switch back railroad, a switch back track was located at the top-where the steam engine would let the riders coast back down. This type of track featured a dead end where the steam engine would detach its cars, allowing riders to coast down backwards. The railway went through a couple of minor track changes and name changes over the years, but managed to last from 1829 to 1937, over 100 years (Rutherford
12-14).
The coaster craze in America was just starting to build.
The creation of the Switch Back Railway, by La Marcus Thompson, gave roller coasters national attention. Originally built at New York's Coney Island in 1884, Switch Back Railways began popping up all over the country. The popularity of these rides may puzzle the modern-day thrill seeker, due to the mild ride they gave in comparison to the modern-day roller coaster. Guests would pay a nickel to wait in line up to five hours just to go down a pair of side-by-side tracks with gradual hills that vehicles coasted down at a top speed around six miles per hour (Rutherford 14-15). Regardless, Switchback Railways were very popular, and sparked many people, including Thompson, to design coasters that were bigger and better (Rutherford
16). As more and more coasters were built, designers had to get creative to make their ride stick out from the rest. Among these new breeds were Steeplechase rides, inspired by the popular sport of horse-racing. Horses, much like those at a carousel , were used as vehicles. What makes these coasters even more unique is that they rely on one single track, not two. Essentially, they were the world's first steel roller coaster (Rutherford 20). Another curiously different coaster was the Virginia Reel, which featured circle-shaped cars that spun on a central pivot point. From afar, they looked like spinning hot tubs on a roller coaster. The cars would travel at low speeds, but went through many turns, giving passengers a dizzying experience. Sadly, there are no full-sized Virginia Reels left, only one small version in England (Rutherford 21). The 1910s and 1920s were probably the best decade that the roller coaster has ever seen. The new wave of technology, such as the "upstop wheel", an arrangement that kept a coaster's wheels to its tracks by resisted high gravitational forces, showed coasters a realm of possibilities that has never been seen before (Rutherford 28). In 1919, North America alone had about 1,500 roller coasters, a number that was rising rampantly (Rutherford 27). Then, the Great Depression gave a crushing blow to amusement parks all over America. As bad as it was, amusement parks had an optimistic look on the future in the late 1930s. But, in 1942, roller coasters could already feel the effects of World War Two, as they were forced into a shadow of neglect. Most, nearly all of America's roller coasters were torn down. To this very day, the number of roller coaster in America is just a very tiny fraction of the amount of roller coasters in the 1920s (Rutherford 86-88). The following decades slowly but surely gave coasters increased popularity. Much of this is attributed to the evolution of the steel coaster, starting with the Wild Mouses of the mid-1950, which featured short drops, sharp turns, and a compact layout (Rutherford 95). Disney World's Matterhorn Bobsleds, which opened in 1959, was the first coaster to feature tubular steel rails, which revolutionized the steel coaster. The tubular steel rails allowed the track to withstand much higher speeds, offered a smoother ride, and gave designers the ability to create many variations of the steel roller coaster that are popular today (Rutherford 94). The suspended coaster is one of these variations. A suspended coaster is a roller coaster where the cars hang below the track, with a hinged feature that allows the cars to swing out around turns, creating a sense of airtime. An inverted coaster is like a suspended coaster, with two main differences. The first, being that the inverted coater has a more open-seating, allowing passenger's legs to dangle off the seats. The second difference is that the coaster does not have the hinged feature, causing the train to hang rigidly below the track. An advantage of ditching the hinged feature is that the coaster can safely perform higher drops and more acrobatic moves, including inversions (Rutherford 159). Numerous track variations have resulted from the tubular steel track. At first, roller coasters could only turn using a flat turn. Flat turns are simply turns where the track lies on a plane parallel to the ground. These turns are not capable of negotiating sharp turns at high speeds, because inertia forces the train and its passengers sideways. Banked turns feature an angled track to reduce stress on the train and its riders (Rutherford 159). Banked turns have several variations. A banked turn that does a full 360-degree turn is called a helix. Fan turns are 180-degree banked turns that are raised at an angle (Rutherford 159).
Inversions would hardly be possible without tubular track. The first inversions were loops, which are still the most common way to turn riders upside-down. Another common inversion is the corkscrew, which is basically a sideways helix. Other types of inversions include boomerangs, or "cobra rolls", which is a double inversion that looks like a combination of a loop and a corkscrew. Another double inversion is a bat wing, which is basically two back-to-back loops. The invention of the tubular track has led to many steel coasters putting up ridiculous numbers, shattering records that originally were inconceivable to break. The world's longest coaster is Japan's Steel Dragon, which is 8,133 feet long. Colossus, located in the United Kingdom, has ten inversions, more than any other coaster ("Theme Parks and Rides" 126-127).
These numbers may seem extreme now, but at the rate coasters are evolving; those statistics may soon fade in the shadows of what the future holds. Designers continue to expand the capabilities of these extreme machines, combining their own creativity with advances in technology. The design intent is often to evoke fear and excitement out of the park visitor, before they get on. If roller coasters didn't progress and adapt, then people would still be seeking their sole source of thrills by sledding down ice slides. A look back on how much roller coasters have evolved, both of recent and over the centuries, will produce an exciting and bright look on the future.