Play-and-Stay Blog

After looking at rollercoasters in great detail I thought it would be interesting to look back at their origins and just how they came to be. I was actually genuinely surprised at how old the concept of roller coasters is, and just how long people have been looking to thrill rides for entertainment. Anyway, without further ado here is the compressed history of the modern rollercoaster.

Early Days

The ball was set in motion in Russia in the 15th and 16th centuries. People would construct giant slides of ice. These slides could reach 80 feet and were dubbed ‘Russian Mountains’.

There are conflicting stories as to what was the first coaster to work on wheels. Some say the first was built near St Petersburg in Russia in 1784 and other sources claim the first was constructed in Paris in 1812. However, these coasters featured wheels and were locked onto a track, achieving higher speeds than the ice slides, starting the evolution of a modern rollercoaster.

The next significant milestone came in the USA in 1827 when an old mining cart at Summit Hill, Pennsylvania was converted to take passengers. They were charged a nickel at a time for the pleasure of cruising down the track at six miles per hour. The ride continued to run well into the 1850s.

In 1846 the first coaster with a loop was built in France. However, the ride was only a moderate success as it was known to cause several neck and back injuries due to its circular shape. It was eventually abandoned and looping coaster weren’t seen again until the 1970s.

From the 1870s to the early 1900s rollercoasters were developed in the USA that featured complete circuit tracks, and chain lifts. By this stage the modern coaster was really taking shape and the first golden age of rollercoasters was about to begin.

At their peak during the early 1900s there were 1500 coasters worldwide, however with the onset of the Great Depression and the first and second World Wars the roller coaster industry died down, and there were no significant developments until after the war in the 1950s.

The Return of Roller Coasters

In 1955 Disney built the first Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The success of Disneyland and its ensuing coasters sparked a revival of the theme park and the roller coaster. In 1959 the first ever tubular track steel coaster was opened at Disneyland, named the Matterhorn Bobsleds. The advent of tubular steel meant that the tracks could be bent and shaped in any way possible by the designers, and so the limitations of wooden coasters were lifted and the modern coaster really began to take shape.

In 1964 the first 100 foot high coaster was build in Mexico City. In 1975 the first coaster with an inverted element was created in Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park in California. Along with the return of the vertical loop coasters in 1976, the roller coaster was ready to enter it’s second golden age.

The Second Golden Age

From here roller coasters went from strength to strength. In the 80s we had the first suspended coaster, coasters reaching seven inversions and the first complete circuit coaster to reach 200 feet. The 90s saw even larger strides forward in coaster design, and as technology and computers accelerated in power so did the design of roller coasters. The last fifteen years has seen coasters break 400 feet, 100mph and some have started using electromagnetic launch systems.

Now that designers can use 3D software to model and virtually test coasters the only limit on their design is what the human body can endure. With some rides exceeding the G-forces experienced by astronauts I do wonder at what point coasters will have to slow down and advances will no longer be possible. What I can count on though, is the ingenuity of the designers in finding new ideas even after four hundred years.

They’ve come a long way since being just slides on ice, and hopefully they have a long future. Perhaps you have some ideas of where roller coasters should be in the future? Please, let us know!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Theme Parks, Roller Coasters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.