Dead roller coasters

[mmcirvin]

Now I'm compulsively watching roller coaster POV videos on YouTube.

(I don't recommend actually making these--they're the kind of thing the park really doesn't want you to do: ride on the coaster while holding an unsecured object that could hit somebody in the face. But there are some professional ones too.)

And I'm realizing that, between the fact that I don't ride these things much and how old I am, I think about half of the coasters I've ever ridden on are no longer operating. That is a sobering thought.

But they're almost all on YouTube. Here's the first one I ever rode on in my life, the amazingly terrifying Mister Twister at the old Elitch Gardens in Denver, a huge 1960s wooden coaster that endeavored to chop your head off about sixteen million times and at one point just seemed to send you hurtling through a chaos of rickety wooden beams. Probably not the best one to choose as an introduction for a big scaredy cat. I rode on it again several years later, when I was working at NCAR.

It's gone now; the replacement at the new site, Twister II, looks pretty good but not quite the same. But there's apparently a near-replica of the old Mister Twister operating at Knoebels in Pennsylvania.

The other old wooden one at the old Elitch site, the 1930s Wildcat, I can't find video of.

Here's the recently demolished Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, probably the first roller coaster I ever loved. And here's the Drachen Fire, a coaster that I now realize I was pretty fortunate to have experienced during its short life before they shut it down for hurting people.

Comments

[spatch]

You're truly lucky to have been able to ride Mister Twister. Judging from the onride footage, first-hand accounts, the models I've seen in NoLimits and the elements that Knoebels' Twister has retained, it looks like one hell of a ride. Mister Twister is one of those Lottery Coasters, defunct oldies which enthusiasts sometimes say they'd totally rebuild if they ever won the lottery. (Mine are the Riverview Bobs and the Rye Aeroplane, but I bet they'd totally need some redesigning before they'd pass code.)

Knoebels' Twister is an interesting coaster. It's built right up against one part of the Knoebels campground. In fact, the year I first went to Knoebels' Phall Phun Phest, we had the traditional bonfire in a picnic spot which soon became a turnaround for the ride. (There is a story involving the ritualistic torching of many, many boxes worth of stale marshmallow Peeps into that bonfire, the act of which to this day is still believed by some to have been the offering to the gods which spawned the roller coaster.)

John Fetterman tried his hardest to retain as much of Mister Twister as possible, given the space he had to work in. And he did some very interesting things to the ride. First off, it's based off a mirror image of the original's layout. Second, Fetterman knew there were key elements of Mister Twister which he had to include in the ride, such as the large swoop turn off the top of the lift hill. Problem was, he didn't have the room to run as long a lift hill as he needed to make a high enough swoop curve.

So he split the lift hill. You start by taking the first lift up around 40-50 feet. Then you make a small 180 degree swoop turn, up into the second lift, where you ascend to the full height. It's odd to see for the first time, but it's really neat.

Twister retains the double helix, spiralling around the curved ride station (which features some absolutely beautiful traditional-style woodwork. The Knoebels are a lumber family and it shows.) The ending is different, though. It has a tunnel but it comes out of nowhere, not like Mister Twister's evil tunnel which you saw coming and thought there was no way in hell your hands would survive that if you kept 'em up. It's that anticipation, no matter how brief, that turns that ride great.

Anyway, Twister at Knoebels is a lot of fun to ride, the double helix is a hoot, and the split lift hill is intriguing. If anyone on the Internet ever actually asked for my opinion I'd admit to preferring the Phoenix, but I'd never turn down a ride on Twister.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The brilliant thing about that tunnel is its weird rhomboidal shape. It looks like it's half-collapsed or was some sort of afterthought, and like the train won't necessarily fit.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I have just had complete awful luck in parks.

The 'Congesta Covered Wagon' in Hershey Park nearly killed me.

That sounds like

[notr.livejournal.com]

something you would ride through my nose and sinuses.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Total plate of shrimp moment. I was on YouTube and found a video of the Looney Tunes area that is now abandoned in Six Flags New Orleans. That looked so much like the park in a horrible Three Ninjas sequel that I looked it up to confirm; turns out, Three Ninjas was at Elitch, so I started watching those videos on YT.

Here's a 1930s Wildcat video from another park. I saw it earlier tonight. SCARY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF27xJaEghg

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Apparently the Elitch's Wildcat was actually from the 1920s. Web pages give all sorts of different dates for when it was built, which confused me--the Wikipedia Elitch's page alone has two inconsistent dates on it.

"Wildcat" was an extremely common name for old wooden coasters, which makes information harder to find.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't realize. I thought "Wildcat" was a brand or at least a specific type.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There are some like that--for instance, most small steel coasters named something like "Galaxi" or "Galaxy" are a mass-produced model made by one company for a few decades, and most are identical with just a few variations. I remember the one at Kings Dominion. "Wild Mouse" is a more general category of coaster; they're the little ones designed to jerk you around by moving in convoluted flattish patterns, and a lot of them have that name.

The Elitch Wildcat was a pretty typical wooden out-and-back design, if I recall correctly (which is what it sounds like; it goes out and comes back). The Yankee Cannonball at Canobie is another one of those, built only slightly later.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Ah hell, I didn't know that BBW and Drachenfire were demolished! Those were fun coasters. Big Bad Wolf was a bit on the short side, but as the car was below the track, its wonderful headlong dive towards the river was a convincing fright, and getting whipped through half-rolls through the fake village, just a touch above 90-degrees sideways over rooftops was great fun.

Drachenfire-- I recall it had a load of corkscrew loops which were a first for Busch Gardens, and I think that was the one where you were suspended sans car below the track, or was it merely a standing coaster? I forget now. I recall it being a bit more physically risky than others, but I didn't know it was hurting people.

I particularly miss BG's great classic steel coaster, long may it live: The Loch Ness Monster. A friend of mine, who I knew only a short time before he passed away of a freak episode of meningitis, was installing an exhibit in a nearby museum and took a break on the weekend to visit BG while I was in an office on the West Coast. He knew I loved the coaster, and phoned me from the front car just as the coaster left the station. The call disconnected in the tunnel but he reconnected in time for the second loop. Awesome; I was teary with happiness.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The Loch Ness Monster is a national treasure, and I hope they can keep it running for a hundred years. derspatchel heard encouraging things about its long-term viability on his field trip there.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...As for the Big Bad Wolf, I think the thing I loved about it was its cinematic sense of drama. Many roller coasters with a single lift hill have third-act trouble; the biggest thrill is right at the start. That big lift hill late in the ride (combined with some strategically placed trees) meant that after the marquee gimmick was finished, they could have this big buildup, reveal and climax.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Except that apparently I did comment when Drachenfire was demolished, and forgot that I had learned of it. Doh!

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

You're thinking of two separate coasters; Alpengeist is the stand-up, cars-below-track one. That's still running, and I'd love to ride on it but haven't.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Huh, i never knew that you worked at NCAR.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It was my perennial college summer job in the late 1980s. That was how I got my first professional experience in computer graphics.