A Roller Coaster Ride of a Lifetime
Are you scared of roller coasters? I used to be scared but I end up overcoming my challenge. Only a few years ago I would not ride a roller coaster if my life depend on it. They horrified me. I hated the feeling of weightlessness. The zero gravitational force sent a tingling sensation into every extremity of my body which me excruciatingly uncomfortable. I despised ascending to such towering heights. I worried that the coaster would break, and I would be stuck on a wobbly track, hundreds of feet in the air, waiting for hours to be rescued. Going upside down scared me the most. I feared that I would fall out at the top and plummet to terrain below.
Despite my terror, peer pressure got the best of me when my summer camp took a trip to Cedar Point. On the bus ride, we split into three groups depending on what rides we indented to undertake, all-roller-coaster , some-roller coaster, no-roller coaster. In spite of my desperation to avoid the coasters, I was miraculously cajoled by all my friends to join them in the all-roller-coasters group, despite my immense fear of these gargantuan monsters of the midway.
Once we entered the park, immediately everyone in my group (except
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As I came to the front of the line, my heart pounded and I stepped into the coaster. I sat there, paralyzed, gasping as if each breath would save me from this perilous fate. I heard the employee, in a disturbingly energetic voice, foreshadow the instrument of death. “Blue train, are you ready?” Everyone cheered, except for me. “In the next minute and forty-five seconds you will travel up 310 feet on the tallest roller coaster on Earth, reach a top speed of 93 miles per hour, experience weightlessness, and then return to the exit platform safely and securely.” His initial description made me seriously doubt the “safely and securely”
Every year an estimated 290 million people all over the world flock to amusement and theme parks to experience the thrills and excitement of the modern day roller coaster. (Boldurian 16). Now thousands of people a day can safely experience the G-forces that an astronaut or fighter pilot would experience in flight. "The Revolution" a roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia California gives riders an amazing 4.9 Gs; that is 1.5 more than an astronaut at launch. (Boldurian 16). These G-forces create thrills and fear and excitement in all who ride them. But the truth is that there is no reason to fear. Roller Coasters are exceptionally safe. The mortality rate for roller coasters is one in 90 million, and most of the fatality occurred due to failure to follow safety guidelines. (Boldurian 17). But roller coasters have not always been this safe. One of the first coaster attractions was actually just a mine rail designed to bring coal to the base of the mountain (Lemelson-MIT Program). The attraction was a thirty minute ride, with speeds of more than one-hundred miles per hour. As time went on entrepreneurs in the late 1800's began creating “quick buck cheap thrill attractions.” These early coasters lacked safety for the sake of thrills. This changed when John A. Miller engineer and roller coaster designer began making coasters. John Miller held over 100 patents many of which were for roller coaster safety and functionality that are still used today (Lemelson-MIT Program). John Miller's inventions and improvements to the roller coaster make him the father of the modern roller coaster that we know today.
It was the summer of 2012 and my family was taking another trip to Six Flags Great America. Earlier that summer we went just for me to be disappointed. At the time I wasn’t 54 inches yet and couldn’t ride any of the rides that I wanted to because they were the most popular at the amusement park. But, I hit a growth spurt between trips and we planned to ride all of the big rollercoasters. The one that I was most terrified of at the time was Raging Bull, one of the tallest, fastest, and longest steel coasters in the US. As we started to wait in line for the ride I was shaking with both anticipation and fear and began to rethink my idea to ride the rollercoaster. I decided to stay in line and see what many people thought was a great coaster.
Kids and adults enjoy Amusement Park rides because it is fun and relaxing. If you haven’t tried it, you should try it. The Amusement Parks have rides such as Xtreme Skyflyer, Gold Striker, and Superman roller coaster. I think the most important one is Xtreme Skyflyer because a lot of the people want to try it, and people want to see whole the things when they go very high. The Xtreme Skyflyer is also one of the scary, it 153 feet above ground and dive at speed up to 60 miles per hour while falling 17 stories toward the earth (Great America). This Xtreme Skyflyer is a release of endorphins, which makes us feel euphoric. Which is heightened by the fact that a lot of people feel scared and worried while waiting in line. So, by having you wait
With the opening of America’s first roller coaster in 1873, a new innovative market was introduced into the American industrial market. With it came a new set of challenges that pushed the limits of the engineering methods used at the time. Oddly enough though, America’s safest roller coaster ever built was also the simplest; the Mauch Chunk Railway was originally used to bring coal down the mountainside of a Pennsylvania mine. The now unused 2,322 feet of track was re-opened a few months later for the purpose of carrying passengers down the side of the mountain. The rail cars used did not have brakes or an engine; they simply used the force of gravity to take the train and its passengers, sometimes at speeds upwards of 60 miles per hour, down the side of the mountain until it came to a rest at the bottom. “The railway offered spectacular views of the Lehigh River and the Blue Ridge Mountains for the region's visitors to see. The area became a large Nineteenth Century tourist attraction and people came from all over to be thrilled by the M.C.R.” (Sandy). Throughout the ride’s 56-year span of passenger operation, not a single injury was reported. Since the ever-simplistic entertainment methods of the 1920’s, our industrial capabilities have grown in geometric proportions; however the one problem is they have been severely lagged by the safety and control systems that govern them. Recently, however, advancements in computer technology have yielded a drastic improvement in these control systems that have allowed ride designers to design increasingly safer and more reliable ride systems.
Roller coasters come in all sizes and configurations. Roller coasters are designed to be intense machines that get the riders’ adrenaline pumping. Ever since my first roller coaster ride, I knew I was hooked. I cannot get enough of the thrilling sensation caused by these works of engineering. When people board these rides, they put their faith in the engineers who designed the rides and the people who maintain and operate the rides. In this paper, I will bring to your attention a specific instance when the operation of one of these coasters came into question and led to a very tragic incident. From this, I will look into the events leading up to the incident and evaluate the decisions made by the people involved.
What most people expect to hear is me looking forward to riding the roller coasters. I hope that’s not what you thought because I hate them, maybe not hate, but really I’m just not a big fan of high altitudes in general. Consequently, this is why I was always reluctant to going with my family on this trip. Nevertheless I always went. Now that you know I’m not a fan of heights you could guess what attractions I was accustomed to riding, let’s just say my height requirement was more than enough to be eligible to ride. This specific year I decided to bring a friend to accompany me and in hindsight that was a bad idea because he was a roller coaster
Even with a fear….a fear of roller coasters, one ride can change your whole day. Roller coasters originated from Russia as early as the 16th century. The first “roller coaster” was a 70 ft and was a wood framed ice slide, so it was somewhat fatal. It was a popular summer-time attraction, large wheeled carts would roll riders. This wasn’t the first commercially, successful roller coaster though, the first one was in Coney Island. In 1884 the Gravity Switchback Railway was a super hit, they had made six-hundred dollars in a day. Created by LaMarcus Adna Thompson, who was born in 1848 and died in 1919. Roller coasters were a common enthrallment...and still are to this very day.
So when your friend says “I don’t want to ride that roller coaster because it’s too dangerous,” it’s really because he can’t man up. One of the reasons roller coasters are so safe is that amusement
I figured this would be the only way to absolve myself of fear. The ride was empty and it was my time to step up and experience what everyone saw as entertaining and I just see as dreadful. I steeped on to the rusty metal and made my way down the side of the ride. I passed a seat that was coated in vomit; so I had no other choice but to sit in the front. My friends came and sat behind me after someone cleaned up the vomit. Realizing I could have sat there filled me with envy. Butterflies filled my stomach and my heart was beating so fast it felt like my chest was going to explode. I looked down at my seatbelt and it didn’t seem very durable, but at least there was a rusty barred door on the side to keep me from falling out of the capsule. I clicked my seatbelt closed and pulled the belt as tight as I could and I held the handle bars so tight my hand started to pulsate and turn
But, there was no turning back. The bumps of the wooden roller coaster made me very car-sick. I eventually got used to the feeling and threw my hands in the air. The ride was absolutely marvelous! After the ride was over I was a bit dizzy, but soon my head cleared up. I talked and talked about it for hours until my father took me to ride the Super Duper Looper. I had a splendid time at Hershey Park and I’m glad I decided that I was going to ride my first roller coaster. To this day I ride coasters with my dad all the time, it's our favorite thing to
Waiting in line to your favorite roller coaster is one of the most nerve wrecking and electrifying things about being at the park. Waiting in line is one of the times where you can read numerous people exact emotions. You can see people shaking and trembling in their pants as they await their turn. Kids are jumping with joy and excitement to get on the thrilling coaster. While their mother, on the other hand is trying to calm them down because inside, her heart is beating faster
My ride is named the colossus coaster. It is a high flying roller coaster that has loops and fast turns. Your adrenaline rush will be greater than you have ever had. But, before we get to the ride we will go through the line. When you are on the line you will walk through a virtual reality room. When you are exploring the virtual reality world, it will feel like you are actually on the roller coaster to get the riders excited for the ride. When you finally get to the ride you will find a torpedo car. There are five cars and 16 people can go in each car. Each ride lasts about one miniute. The car has great arrow dynamics to go as fast as possible for the riders. Now you will be informed of the many things that you will feel and what the coaster
The roller coaster (a.k.a. Certain Death) stops for a split second at the peak of its steep track, after a long, agonizing climb. You can tell what's coming, there's no turning back now, palms sweating and heart racing. Now, all you can do is brace yourself for the wild ride down.
“You are about to discover what lies beyond the fifth dimension, beyond the deepest, darkest corner of the imagination, in the Tower of Terror.” The twilight zone’s: tower of terror was finished building July 22, 1994, and the queue lines have been booming ever since. With a ride this popular and constantly being run, there is bound to be malfunctions in the safety systems. Disney prevents such malfunctions from happening, fortunately. Even though there are low counts of injuries on this iconic ride, there can still be improvements to the safety protocols, because the history of the ride shows that change is possible, there are different safety features on other drop rides, and the safety protocols, at
I have always been fascinated by carnival rides. It amazes me that average, ordinary people eagerly trade in the serenity of the ground for the chance to be tossed through the air like vegetables in a food processor. It amazes me that at some time in history someone thought that people would enjoy this, and that person invented what must have been the first of these terrifying machines. For me, it is precisely the thrill and excitement of having survived the ride that keeps me coming back for more.