A side friction roller coaster is an early

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides ar ...

design that has two sets of wheels – normal road wheels and side-friction wheels to prevent the cars from derailing on sharp curves. In comparison, modern roller coasters have a third set of wheels, called up-stop wheels, that allow them to perform steep drops, whereas side-friction coasters almost never featured drops of steeper than 45 degrees.

History

The side-friction coaster was invented near the beginning of the 20th century. The most common design was, by far, the stacked figure-eight layout, with dozens appearing in parks throughout the world. This version often went by names such as "Toboggan Slide", "Drop/Dip/Leap the Dips", or simply "Figure Eight", and featured tiny drops. Other side friction coasters, such as the giant coaster at Crystal Beach Park, were built in a style similar to modern

wooden roller coaster A wooden roller coaster is a type of roller coaster classified by its wooden track, which consists of running rails made of flat steel strips mounted on laminated wood. The support structure is also typically made of wood, but may also ...

s, and featured large drops and extremely rapid turns. The invention of up-stop wheels in the 1910s allowed much more scope for height, speed, and steepness in coaster designs, leaving side friction coasters to quickly fall out of favor. Only a handful have been built since

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and none since 1961. Today, there are only two side-friction coasters left in the world, and nine scenic railways standing, with 8 still operating. One of the most recently closed examples was the "Runaway Coaster" at the defunct Rotunda Amusement Park in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

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, which was closed in 2003 and demolished on April 5, 2007.

Installations

* Leap the Dips at Lakemont Park in

Altoona, Pennsylvania Altoona is a city in Blair County, Pennsylvania. It is the principal city of the Altoona Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The population was 43,963 at the time of the 2020 Census, making it the eighteenth most populous city in Pennsylvania. ...

. Opened in 1902, Leap the Dips is the oldest roller coaster in the world and the last remaining side-friction roller coaster in North America. It was out of service from 1985 to 1999. *Slope Shooter at the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens, built in 1961. It has a long, winding layout, and has troughs made of steel and concrete.

References

* http://www.oocities.org/ultimatethrillparks/woodtrackwheels.htm
Slope Shooter - Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens (Chikusa, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan)

External links

{{Rollercoaster tracks Types of roller coaster