Inhoudsopgave van Roller Coasters - The Greatest Thrill Rides In The World - Roller Coasters - The Greatest Thrill Rides In The World

For more than 200 years, roller coasters have provided a safe and relatively inexpensive way for thrill-seekers to experience the heart-pounding, stomach-flipping, adrenaline rush of, well… defying death. A newspaperman put it this way in 1884, when he described one of the first roller coasters ever opened in America: “The Coney Island roller coaster is a contrivance designed to give passengers, for the insignificant expenditure of 5 cents, all the sensation of being carried away by a cyclone, without attendant sacrifice of life and limb.” Plenty has changed in the world of roller coasters since that wooden attraction’s debut, but the basic principle of maximum excitement with minimum risk remains the same. Ride engineers have only improved on both fronts, making safer rides that spin, shoot, drop and turn passengers…

Alfred Hitchcock often compared his films to roller coasters. “People like to be scared,” he said, “if they can control it.” And roller coasters, especially those designed and built in the last century, are marvels of controlled fear. Engineers calibrate the forces of the ride according to what the human body can withstand while also maintaining rigorous safety standards. According to data from the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, the odds of serious injury on a fixed-site ride at an amusement park in the U.S. are one in 15.5 million rides taken. In other words, the rides are safe but offer the illusion of danger—and that can be addictive. The reasons why a person would travel to an amusement park, pay the price of admission and wait sometimes…

1 WHAT’S A E” “THOOSI? A roller coaster enthusiast. Someone who likes riding them, talking about them, posting about them on Instagram, watching YouTube videos… 2/THE RECORD FOR THE MOST ROLLER COASTERS RIDDEN IN ONE DAY IS 74. For charity, Philip A. Guarno, Adam Spivak, John Kirkwood and Aaron Monroe Rye rode 74 coasters in 10 parks in four U.S. states on Aug. 9, 2001. They jumped from park to park in helicopters, and raised $40,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network. 3/DOCTORS HAVE RECOMMENDED ROLLER COASTERS FOR ONE SPECIFIC AILMENT. Urologists noticed (and then officially studied) how the extreme rides can help people pass small kidney stones. 4/BRITAIN’S OLDEST ROLLER COASTER STILL REQUIRES A MANUAL BRAKE. The Scenic Railway, a wooden coaster built in Dreamland Margate in Kent in 1920,…

While historians can probably find examples of slides or chutes that were used for fun in ancient or medieval cultures all over the world, the ones that led directly to the invention of modern roller coasters can be traced back to Russia. For centuries prior to the Enlightenment, Russians had satisfied their need for speed by erecting precipitously tall wooden slides that they watered regularly to form layers of ice that would keep them slick. Called “Ice Slides” or “Flying Mountains,” these towers could stand 80 feet high with 50-degree drops. Patrons would climb up a ladder on one side and sled down the other. By the 18th century, this was a popular pastime among the gentry, and such slides were fixtures at festivals in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. One…

Today, amusement parks are locked in an all-out race to outdo one another when it comes to designing the next generation of roller coasters. The thrill-ride industry is one of the few in which success can be measured by how loudly people scream, and its engineers—in an effort to appeal to an ever-growing population of adrenaline-rush junkies—are forever chasing the superlatives of faster, taller, longer and more terrifying. Now, there are roller coasters made of wood and steel, and sometimes both. There are also rides as tall as skyscrapers and as fast as racecars. And for nothing more than the cost of a ticket to the local theme park, anyone can experience the g-forces felt by fighter pilots and Formula One drivers—no special training required. If you love roller coasters,…

If you had a time machine and could invite Ice Slide enthusiasts from Catherine II’s court to experience a ride at a modern amusement park, they would react with shock and awe. Roller coasters have come a long way in less than 300 years, even though most old and new rides are doing essentially the same thing: harnessing the power of potential and kinetic energy to move, twist, turn and thrill. Where will coasters go next? In the early 2010s, virtual reality (VR) was one of the most exciting frontiers in the industry. With VR, riders wear headsets that combine visual and audio content with the traditional physics of roller coasters. In 2016 several rides—including Superman: The Ride (Six Flags New England) and Kraken Unleashed (SeaWorld Orlando)—debuted VR components. Each…

Improbably, America’s roller coaster tradition began with a coal mine. In 1827, Josiah White, the owner of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, built the gravity-powered, 8½-mile Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway to haul coal from Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, down to the village of Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), where it would then be loaded onto boats on the Lehigh River. When a more efficient route was built in 1872, the switchback railroad became redundant. The coal company then gave the train over to tourism—for a dollar, amusement seekers could take a scenic ride around Mount Pisgah and Mount Jefferson. It was Pennsylvania’s gravity railroad that inspired the “Father of the American Roller Coaster,” LaMarcus Adna Thompson, to build the famed Switchback Railway at Brooklyn’s Coney Island in 1884. A devout…

The world of roller coasters would be nothing without its greatest engineers, visionaries and, most important of all, enthusiasts. These are the people who not only pushed the ideas of what a roller coaster could be, but also enjoyed the rides to the fullest. Catherine II of Russia is often credited with putting wheels on coasters. More likely it was a clever member of her court who did all the dirty work, but it nevertheless took an inspired bit of ingenuity to transform the winter Ice Slides of Russia into a year-round experience. Once a wheeled track was installed at the empress’ getaway in Oranienbaum in 1784, the race was on. Though many advancements in roller coaster design took place over the next 100 years, one man made the attractions…