A Floorless Coaster is a type of

steel roller coaster A steel roller coaster is a type of roller coaster classified by its steel Railway track, track, which consists of long steel tubes that are run in pairs, supported by larger steel columns or beams. Trains running along the track typically rely ...

manufactured by

Bolliger & Mabillard Bolliger & Mabillard, officially Bolliger & Mabillard Consulting Engineers, Inc. and often abbreviated B&M, is a roller coaster design consultancy based in Monthey, Switzerland. The company was founded in 1988 by engineers Walter Bolliger and Cl ...

where riders sit with no floor underneath them, allowing their feet to swing freely just above the track. Development of the Floorless Coaster model began between 1995 and 1996 with

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her wa ...

Six Flags Great Adventure Six Flags Great Adventure is an amusement park located approximately southeast of Trenton, New Jersey, Trenton in Jackson Township, New Jersey. Owned and operated by Six Flags, the park complex is situated between New York City and Philadelph ...

, which opened on April 2, 1999, as world's first Floorless Roller Coaster. Floorless Roller Coasters typically feature between three and seven inversions in the layout of the coaster. Since 2007, Bolliger & Mabillard have used floorless trains on their

Dive Coaster The Dive Coaster is a steel roller coaster model developed and engineered by Bolliger & Mabillard. The design features one or more near-vertical drops that are approximately 90 degrees, which provide a moment of free-falling for passengers. T ...

s, such as Griffon and

SheiKra SheiKra (, ) is a steel Dive Coaster roller coaster at the Busch Gardens Tampa Bay amusement park in Tampa, Florida, United States. The roller coaster was proposed by Mark Rose, vice-president of design and engineering for the park, and design ...

. Though they contain floorless trains, the coasters are still not considered Floorless Coasters, as the company classifies them as another model.

Maurer Söhne Maurer AG, formerly known as Maurer Söhne GmbH & Co. KG, is a steel construction company and roller coaster manufacturer. Founded in 1876 in Munich, Germany, the company has built many styles of steel buildings, ranging from bridges, industrial ...

has designed their own version of the Floorless Coaster, a variant of their X-Car model called X-Car Floorless, but currently do not have any installations.

History

According to Walter Bolliger, development of the Floorless Coaster began between 1995 and 1996. In 1999, the world's first Floorless Coaster opened at

. With the success of Medusa,

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Cedar Fair Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, or simply Cedar Fair, was an American company headquartered at its flagship Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. The company was a publicly traded master limited partnership that origina ...

Six Flags Six Flags Entertainment Corporation is an American amusement park company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It was formed on July 2, 2024, following a merger between longtime rivals Cedar Fair and the former Six Flags ...

, and independent parks, Janfusun Fancyworld,

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, and

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have built other coasters of this model at their parks. B&M has built 13 Floorless Coasters from the ground up, with Dominator at

Kings Dominion Kings Dominion is an amusement park in Doswell, Virginia, United States, north of Richmond, Virginia, Richmond and south of Washington, D.C. Owned and operated by Six Flags, the park opened to the public on May 3, 1975, featuring over 60 rid ...

being the only one relocated to another park. They have also converted three of their stand-up roller coasters to Floorless Coasters:

Rougarou The Rougarou (, alternatively spelled as roux-ga-roux, rugaroo, or rugaru) is a legendary creature in Cajun diaspora and a tricker in oral traditions in Metis and Francophone communities linked to traditional concepts of the werewolf. Versions ...

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, and

Firebird Firebird and fire bird may refer to: Mythical birds * Phoenix (mythology), sacred firebird found in the mythologies of many cultures ** Fenghuang, sometimes called Chinese phoenix * Vermilion bird, one of the four symbols of the Chinese constella ...

Six Flags America Six Flags America is an amusement park in Woodmore, Maryland, United States, While a

train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

is parked in the

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

, a floor is used only for loading and unloading purposes. Because the front row has nothing in front of it to stop riders from walking over the edge of the station, a gate is placed in front of the train to prevent this from happening. Once all the over-the-shoulder restraints are locked, the floor separates into several pieces and retracts underneath the station. The gate then opens, allowing the train to move forward. When the train returns to the station, the floor is brought back up and the gate is closed for the next group of riders to load and unload. Aside from the station, Floorless Coasters have similar layouts to B&M's sit-down coasters.

Installations

Bolliger & Mabillard has built thirteen Floorless Coasters from the ground up, with three additional that were converted from

stand-up roller coasters A stand-up roller coaster is a roller coaster where passengers aboard a train stand throughout the course of the ride. The first manufacturer to employ the format was TOGO, a Japanese company that converted two traditional roller coasters in 1982 ...

. The roller coasters are listed in order of opening dates. ''Note'': Although some

s (such as

, Griffon, Valravn and Yukon Striker) feature floorless trains, they are ''not'' considered Floorless Coasters.

Similar rides

, a German roller coaster and steel manufacturer, has developed their own version of the Floorless Coaster called the X-Car Floorless. The car is the same as the original X-Car with the only difference being that there is no floor during the ride. As of 2019, no X-Car Floorless roller coasters have been manufactured.

Notes

References

External links

Bolliger & Mabillard's Floorless Coaster
{{Rollercoaster tracks Roller coasters manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard