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In the trade, they call them white-knuckle rides. And Britain is about
to build the highest, fastest and perhaps scariest in the world. It will,
say its builders, be taller than Nelson’s Column in London, higher than
a space shuttle sitting on its tail waiting for launch. If you put its frail
metal cars onto the motorway they would comfortably exceed the speed limit.
It is the nearest thing to jumping off the cliff at Beachy Head that most
of us are likely to experience.

Later this year, Blackpool Pleasure Beach begins building the world’s
most spectacular rollercoaster. Its cars will rise slowly to more than 70
metres above the beach, before plunging at an angle of 65 degrees to within
a few inches of the sand. Speeds will exceed 70 miles per hour, probably
reaching 85 in a favourable wind. It will swoop down among other rides,
offering exhilarating glimpses of the Big Dipper, Grand National and other,
now dwarfed rollercoasters.

‘The limits of what we do are less about engineering and more about
how much discomfort you can afford to impose on the human body,’ says Alan
Harris, European head of Arrow Dynamics, an American company specialising
in the design of fairground equipment. ‘We respect a limit of 3Gs, to be
imposed on the body for no more than a few seconds. That is enough to give
you a strong sense of weightlessness at the bottom of a large drop, for
instance.’ It is also enough to make a large proportion of riders scream
with fear and delight.

But Harris concedes that such stresses can also attack his engineering,
whether the cars themselves or the giant structures that carry them. ‘In
two years, on a ride that works all year round, such as in Florida,’ says
Harris, ‘the number of reversals of G-forces can reach ten million.’ In
an industry where a single component failure could cause dozens of deaths
and demolish a company’s reputation, standards need to be high (‘Not all
fun at the fair’, New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, this issue).

BIGGER AND BETTER

Arrow has built dozens of the most challenging rides in the world –
challenging for both engineers and riders. It headed what it describes as
the ‘coasters arms race’ in the US in the 1970s when rival fairground operators
demanded ever higher and faster rides. It pioneered the suspended rollercoaster
which, with cars hanging from an overhead rail, gives an unnerving feeling
of free flight as it swings out on fast bends. Britain’s Vampire ride at
Chessington World of Adventures, in which the cars are decked out as bats,
is a recent example of this genre.

In 1990, Arrow completed the Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California,
which loops the loop a record seven times. And the year before, it built
the inelegantly named Magnum XL200, a rollercoaster at Cedar Point in Ohio
that rises to more than 200 feet above the shore of Lake Erie. In its first
year, the Magnum took 1.8 million riders. Until the Blackpool ride is complete
in the spring of 1994, it will remain the highest rollercoaster drop in
the world.

The Blackpool ride will pose some of the most severe engineering tests
for steel rollercoasters, not so much for its size, says Harris, as for
its ‘particularly taxing environment’. Salt from spray off the Irish Sea
creates serious problems of corrosion. Added to that is wind erosion, caused
mostly by the ‘large dollops of airborne sand shot at the structures’ by
breezes from the sea. But at least, unlike in Calfornia and Japan, the ride’s
designers have not had to worry about whether the ride can withstand an
earthquake.

However, the extreme strains caused by the height and speed of the new
rollercoaster have caused Arrow to abandon modern ‘exotic’ alloys, says
Harris, in favour of conventional mild steel. ‘When you use exotic materials,
endurance against the high stresses suffers,’ he says. ‘Mild steel gives
good endurance and contains costs.’ The steel will be galvanised to protect
the ride against corrosion.

The ride also has a very flexible superstructure to help absorb stresses
that could weaken the steel. ‘We have chosen a lattice system,’ says Harris.
‘Our only worry was that this might create a hazard for the civil aviation
authorities because lattices can sometimes become opaque to radar.’ But
the proposed structure has been accepted by local air traffic control.

Otherwise, says Harris, there will be ‘nothing revolutionary’ in engineering
terms about the world’s highest and fastest rollercoaster. Like other modern
white-knuckle rides, wheels on cars are in clusters of three – one above
the rail, one below and another at right angles on the inside of the rail.
Whether passengers are upside down, flung sideways or simply hurtling down
a 65 degrees slope, this arrangement should ensure that the cars remain
in firm contact with the track.

Some enthusiasts would have liked a return to the old wooden rollercoaster.
Like real ale, steam engines and brown bread, the wooden coasters have passionate
admirers. Justin Gorvanovitch of the Rollercoaster Club of Great Britain
says wood gives the ride a quite different feel. ‘They are more exciting,
almost alive,’ he says. ‘Also, wooden coasters are designed by people not
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GOLDIE OLDIE

One of the world’s best wooden rides, he says, still operates at Blackpool
Pleasure Beach. The Grand National rollercoaster, built in 1934, runs on
twin tracks, allowing riders to watch the fear on the faces of people in
the neighbouring car. It has an infamous double-dip that still delights
aficionadoes and will be in its 60th year when the new Arrow model opens
for business.

No new wooden rollercoasters have been built in Britain for 20 years
– since wooden stays failed to halt a runaway train on the Big Dipper at
Battersea Funfair in 1972 and five children died. Wood, unjustly in the
view of many, got the blame.

But, says Gorvanovitch, wooden rides have lingered on in the US in large
numbers and are now enjoying a renaissance. ‘Several new ones have also
been built in Europe in the past few years,’ he says, ‘but none yet in Britain.’
Modern wood treatment, he says, is so good that wooden components of a coaster
can last as long as steel. ‘Also, it’s much easier to unbolt and replace
a piece of wood than a piece of welded metal.’ But, for the moment, speed
and steel are king.

Rollercoasters were invented in Paris at the start of the 19th century,
says Robert Preedy, author of Rollercoasters – their amazing history. They
were a wheeled variant of the Russian ice slides of 50 years before. America
pioneered the switchback in the 1880s, starting on Coney Island outside
New York. These up and down rides arrived in Britain, at Skegness, before
the decade was out. But innovation was rapid. Two years into the new century,
you could loop-the-loop on the Topsy Turvey Railway at Crystal Palace in
south London. But, according to Preedy, most people preferred to stand and
watch, still a sad fact of life for the operators of many modern rides.

One of the great engineering pioneers was Lot Morgan, an Australian
who arrived in Britain at the age of two, in 1872, and had built the first
enclosed amusement park on Coney Island by the time he was 25. A few years
later, he completed the Loop the Loop at Crystal Palace and, in the 1930s,
the first big dippers at Billy Butlin’s holiday camps. After falling out
with Butlin, he designed the first steel rollercoasters. His first was with
Steel Stella, which ran cars at up to 60 mph on Clacton pier from 1937.
Steel Stella survived for almost 40 years, falling in a fire on the pier
in 1973, just as steel rollercoasters began to come into their own round
the world.

Steel has brought higher and faster rides. With it has come more failsafe
devices, computerised controls and safety systems. But the basics of the
rides have changed remarkably little from the early days. A century after
the first switchbacks arrived on Britain’s foreshores offering white knuckles,
your stomach in your mouth, and a strange amalgam of blind fear and exhilarating
weightlessness, the same compulsive blend still makes rollercoasters in
biggest attractions of dozens of fairgrounds in Britain and round the world
today.

Further reading Rollercoasters – their amazing history by Robert E Preedy.
Published by R E Preedy, 54 Park Edge Close, Leeds LS8 2LP (1992), £5.95.