Is this the golden era?

[Pokemaniac]

For a while, I've had this sentiment, and I'd like to share it here: I think roller coasters have never been better than they are today. There has been consistent progress in quality for several years, and it's paying off big time. The coasters designed and built today are consistently of a higher average quality than those of earlier decades, the peaks of awesomeness higher and the valleys of disappointment shallower. Good coasters are rolled out in way more countries than they used to just 20 years ago, and we rarely hear of great failures and rough rides any more. Do anybody else agree with this?

Anyway, before I begin my ramble, I think I'll just list a few discussion points:

• Do you think coasters today are consistently better than those build a decade or two ago, or are we just paying more attention to/overhyping the success stories?
• What specific advances in coaster technology to you think has contributed the most to the design of today's coasters?
• Are bad coasters getting better, or at the very least less common?
• Are there any concepts (ride types, design conventions) more common in the past you'd like to see more of today?
• Conversely, are you glad that any concepts were abandoned?
• If this is a "golden age", will it last? Will coasters keep getting better, or the concept evolve beyond the recognisable? Will VR and other "ride enhancements" change the way coasters are designed, and take the focus away from the "sled on a wild ride" experience coasters are traditionally built around?

With that out of the way, on to some of my thoughts:

Coaster technology has had a tremendous development since the 90's. Most notably, I'd say, is the evolution of the launch propulsion system. It allows a coaster to achieve great speed without requiring it to be very tall, meaning that parks under strict height restrictions can still build fast coasters. Moreover, there has been a transition from the "launch coaster" to the "launch element". I think the best illustration of this changing mindset. is seen in the Rollercoaster Tycoon games. Released in the early 2000's, they treat launched coasters as a separate coaster type. A gimmick, like a dive coaster or an inverted coaster. A launched coaster used to do just that, with the launch as the focal point and main draw of the ride. "From zero to X km/h in Y seconds".
Nowadays, launches are more viewed as an element suitable for any coaster, a thrilling way to achieve speed, so you can do all the other fun stuff you want your layout to do.

Actually, the more I think about it, the idea of "coaster categories" in general is getting quite watered out. Multi-looping coasters used to be all about the inversions. The chances of finding an airtime hill on anything with a loop used to be quite slim. Conversely, mega-type coasters were all about big hills. A coaster with a steep drop dropped steeply, and that used to be it. A ground-hugging ride had no inversions. Coasters had one, clearly defined thing they were doing, a gimmick to draw the crowds, and the rest of the layout was there just to fill out the ride and bleed speed. Nowadays, mixing and matching is way more common. Returning to the early RCT games, there are so many coasters out there today that can't even closely be recreated with a single RCT ride type. You've got near-vertical drops on multi-loopers, inversions on woodies and mid-ride launches all over the place.

Of course, there has been a bit of a revolution on the engineering side as well. Coaster designers have got more and more powerful computer programs to work with, allowing them to calculate forces on the fly and tweak track shapes to achieve the desired ride experience. I'm not too experienced with the development of manufacturing technology, but the track manufacturers should also have been helped by the advances in computer technology and robotics. It seems like, to an even greater degree than before, the designers have much better control over what the coaster cars will be doing at any given time, and manufacturers can ensure the coaster turns out just the way the designers want to as well. It also helps that most of the major manufacturers have had several years to build experience too.

All in all, I think it adds up to an era of coasters that are more often consistently good, and less frequently disappointing, than they used to. The Vekoma roughness we took for granted in the past hasn't got much attention recently. Woodies don't rattle as badly, steel coasters offer more varied experiences, and spectacular coasters aren't restricted to the huge parks any more. There are still bad coasters made out there (Coney Island's Thunderbolt comes to mind), but they aren't ubiquitous.


Maybe, maybe, maybe the influence of coaster enthusiasts has something to say too. Coasters can get wild reviews or a good reputation online, causing more parks to seek out their qualities (allegedly, T-Express was designed to be a mix between El Toro and Balder). The people who enter the coaster industry today have grown up in an age of Internet enthusiasm, and it's likely that many of them used to frequent enthusiast groups online, such as CF. I know at least two CF alumni went on to enter the business, with a sneaking suspicion that one of them influenced a high-profile ride being built this year.

Anyway, I'm rambling, so might as well end this post. What do you think?

 

[Shirofukurou]

Definitely in terms of quality, we are in a golden age. The advent of computer assissted design in the 90s was quite something, and since computer technology advances so fast engineers are able to design rides and their forces more accurately than ever. Of course one would immediately think of RMC, Intamin, and B&M as the leaders in this particular aspect of coasters, but smaller manufacturers like Zierer and Premier Rides have greatly benefitted from the resources available as well (see Wicked and Sky Rocket). The amount of coasters being built is technically much less than the twenties "golden age" or even fifteen years ago (unless you live in China), but quality trumps quantity in my book, and we have a lot of quality right now.

 

[BigBad]

I can't think of a year as good as what we're getting in 2016. I've been pumped about Lightning Rod since it was announced. Storm Runner also looks fantastic. I've not followed the Joker conversion much, but RMC should be assumed excellent until it is shown otherwise. If Mako hauls through its layout like it has been, it might end up being the best hyper, and it's already the prettiest coaster I've ever seen.

Going abroad, Taron, Lost Gravity, Wildfire, and Flying Aces are also getting a lot of hype.

The couple of years around the turn of the millennium will be tough to beat; the top 3 steel coasters are from 2000 and 2001 (MF, SFNE hyper, EGF). There's a lot of reason to be excited about this year and the future of coasters, though. If the next few years go anything like I expect and is indicated by the past few, then this is definitely the best time for coasters.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Also, one thing I considered noting in the opening post, but it got too long so I cut it for later: Neither of the coasters you mention as examples break any size or speed records. In the 90's and early 2000's, big numbers were a lot more prevalent. Prominent coasters at big parks were all about being the tallest, fastest, biggest or steepest of its kind (though that last category was really only prominent for a few years). There was great prestige in breaking records, and some record was broken almost every year for a while. The record-breaking coasters got more and more expensive, which meant they took turns towards the gimmicky just for the record's sake. Most notably, Superman: The Escape at SFMM, which is basically a synthesis of "tallest, fastest, and technically a coaster".

It seems like, after it was determined that records were too expensive to beat all the time, parks fell back to smaller coasters that could still pull crowds. Maverick is, by some metrics, one of the smallest coasters at Cedar Point, but it was hailed as one of the best from its opening. A mere two inversions, barely 30 metres tall, it opened as the fifth fastest coaster in the park... but it clearly was more than a filler ride, and a huge success (bar that unfortunate incident with the barrel roll). In my eyes, Maverick represents a shift of focus, away from the world records and more into goodness. Sure, coasters at major parks still break some records, but the non-stop drive to keep them isn't that important any more. And I think we're all the better for it.

 

[Jamesss]

Overall, I would agree that yes this probably is a "golden era". If we look worldwide there are so many innovative and world-class rides being built. It's a great time to be an enthusiast.

The UK's a bit dead though, we definitely need some action here.

 

[GuyWithAStick]

I think yes for most places. New countries are getting parks finally, new technology, more additions, more intense B&Ms, better element mixes, and overall better rides. I'm a bit scared for the future, though, as all good things must end.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

I guess it kind of depends on what coasters you enjoy. To me this is the golden era because a **** of coasters (mainly RMCs, but a few others as well) are being built with pretty much all of my favourite elements, and it kind of seems like they've been building coasters that amalgamate all the good parts of every coaster type out there. I'm glad the days of just trying to break size and speed records are pretty much gone, and even though parks still try to market crappy records that nobody really cares about, they're focusing more on giving a solid ride experience rather than just giving riders bragging rights about what kind of record breaking coaster they've just been on.

So many new concepts are coming out, so many quality coasters are being built, and it seems like parks are actually focusing on the right things right now rather than short term bragging rights with a new record. I am slightly disappointed with parks like Cedar Point who seem to be stuck on their B&M kick, but meh, I still have a lot of quality coasters going up near me so I can't really complain. I think they will continue to come out with new concepts and I'm sure it will only get better from here.

 

[Hyde]

Technically speaking, we are even still amidst the Second Golden Age of Roller Coasters, which began 44 years ago with the opening of The Racer at Kings Island. And arguably, the Second Golden Age stretches even further back to the opening of Matterhorn at Disneyland in 1959.

Roller coaster "historians" have been pretty liberal however in what they determine as a "Golden Age" of roller coasters. The First Golden Age started roughly around 1900 with a spurt of roller coasters being added to existing amusement parks and leisure beaches, and ended right at the beginning of the Great Depression. In the truest sense, while the advent of each Golden Age has coincided with large additions of roller coasters, it has also coincided with moments of economic growth as well (going to amusement parks after all is a leisure activity that a population probably will not do until they have other basic life needs met). And to consider roller coasters being constructed in 2016 as a part of the same wave of coaster additions throughout the 70s and 80s feels a bit of a stretch; there are even cases where those early steel coasters have already served their useful life, and are being replaced by new roller coasters outright.

So not only would I argue that we are in a Golden Age of Roller Coasters, but I would say we are in a Third Golden Age, separate from much of the expansion we saw during the mid to late 20th century. While the Second Golden Age focused on the moment when roller coasters were built as central attractions, especially for new amusement parks that opened during this time, roller coasters have been able to transcend to another level that should merit an entirely separate Age and class.

Specifically, the leading factors I believe that differentiate roller coasters of today from the Arrow, Schwarzkopf, etc. of decades ago is the application of computer modeling, perfection of launch systems, and improvements in the manufacturing process.

While 20th century roller coaster designers, such as John C Allen and William Cobb made a name for themselves by simply envisioning the layout on paper and building without the need for modeling; the ability to render computer simulations of tracks and trains allowed roller coaster layouts and train designs alike to explode beyond the standard loop-and-two-corkscrews mold. The ability to better anticipate g-forces and ride experience allowed for new seating positions, restraint designs, and track schematics never made possible before.

Launch systems are not a new phenomenon to roller coasters, but the magnetic and hydraulic launch certainly are. What these launch designs offered, especially the LSM, was the ability for quick acceleration in small footprints. We only need look at the hulking Arrow lift hills of the 80s to appreciate how much effort it took to reach 60+ MPH. Yet with the introduction of the LIM launch in 1995 (and subsequent shift towards LSM), rapid acceleration offered a new experience for riders, while also creating opportunity for parks cramped on space to create faster thrill rides.

And to help support these transformations, tighter tolerances in the manufacturing process (wheel clearance, track alignment, etc.) helped them come to reality. Just as the early Arrow loopers were deemed glass-smooth compared to their wooden predecessors, so too do we now claim the same smoothness for the further improved Macks, Intamins, and B&Ms.

There has simply been so much advancement in roller coaster technology over the last 15 years alone that the paradigm of what makes a good ride has fundamentally changed (and hence, a Third Golden Age). While the focus had been taller, faster at the end of the 20th century (bearing in mind that your roller coaster options were wood, steel no-inversions, or steel with inversions), parks have subsequently been able to focus on diversity instead. Naturally speed, height, inversion records help with marketing; but this is not the single driver to any one attraction.

As for how long this Golden Age will last? Looking to the past, the only thing that has ever ended a Golden Age was an economic recession. And despite a recent recession in 2008, the amusement park industry actually faired pretty well for attendance and revenue. So, I would propose the end of the era to be most closely linked to economics, rather than a limit on creativity and design.

 

[Coaster Hipster]

I think yes, we've never had it so good The 90s had the B&M revolution with smooth, innovative layouts including several masterpieces like Nemesis or Montu. The 00s witnessed the coming of great airtime machines (EGF, Bizarro, El Toro). But this decade just takes it to another level. RMC and Mack in particular, build some truly spectacular coasters which significantly improve on the earlier designs. Flash at Lewa Adventure feels like EGF but with more variety - adding a very snappy Zero G to an airtime-filled layout is an awesome idea!

2016 alone has coasters we wouldn't even have dreamt of. Lightning Rod and Wildfire look like some dream NL2 terrain coaster coming true.

After producing (in my opinion), smooth but dull and repetitive layouts in the 00s, B&M went back to being creative lately. The 540° roll on Starry Sky Ripper, Shambhala's Ampersand overbanked, steeper and twistier drops are really refreshing!

Even smaller manufacturers raised their game. Chance made Lightning Run while Gerstlauer being the newest builder of hypercoasters. Some places hitherto unheard of (Kolmarden, Nigloland) suddenly build solid and very exciting rides.

As Shirofukurou wrote, the quality really is here now. Hope it lasts!