4. Bobsled Coasters

The configuration of bobsled coasters is unique. While they’re affixed to a track like a normal coaster during their time in the station, lift hill, and brakes, the ride is otherwise sent into a sort of half pipe tube that allows it to slalom up along the walls on every turn. The cumulative weight in each train is what determines how the ride moves through the tube.

In the 1930s, bobsled coasters were everywhere. The newer technology of steel helped them to grow through the mid-1900s too, as wooden bobsleds disappeared due to the tremendous wear-and-tear. One of the most well known modern examples was at Cedar Point. Originally called Avalanche Run, sand from the beach allegedly caused issues as it accumulated in the ride’s trough, so the ride was enclosed and re-themed as Disaster Transport. A half-dozen other steel bobsled coasters continue to operate around the world, but it’s nothing compared to the dozens and dozens once found.

The biggest leap forward was when Knoebels Amusement Park – purveyor of classic rides – fought tooth and nail for years to open a wooden bobsled, with tremendous efforts required in fine-tuning and testing. In 2013, they finally opened Flying Turns, borrowing the name that dozens of wooden bobsleds from the 1930s used. The nostalgia is strong in this one.

5. Stand-Up Coasters

In the early 1990s, B&M revolutionized the roller coaster with the advent of their Inverted Coaster model, with four-abreast ski-lift style seats suspended below the track. Inverted coasters became the new “must have,” and it’s difficult to find a major thrill park without one (now that Kings Island has finally added Banshee, the newest inverted coaster… Yep, B&M is still pumping them out 22 years after their first, Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Great America.)

B&M also had a second line of would-be-revolutionary coasters: the stand-up coaster. While not the first to position riders in a stand-up position, B&M was the first to market the rides as their own line, and to combine the standing trains with their recognizable giant rides with smooth transitions and great uptime.

In retrospect, the stand-up coaster simply didn’t have (eh hem) the legs that the inverted coaster has. The standing position was more or less a gimmick, and one that quickly became known as uncomfortable. What’s worse, each B&M stand-up coaster was born of the same DNA (the same way that all of their inverted coasters have many things in common), and the DNA used for stand-up coasters was wildly twisted track with abrupt transitions and tons of inversions – all things that are decidedly less fun when the blood is pooling in your legs and your head is slamming back and forth in over-the-shoulder restraints.

To date, B&M only built six stand-up coasters, and it seems entirely unlikely that a client would request a new one. The last new stand-up coaster B&M built was in 1999. Since then, a few have been relocated and changed hands (like Six Flags Great Adventure’s Green Lantern or Six Flags America’s appropriately named Apocalypse), but they’ve maintained poor word of mouth for their roughness.

Many expected that stand-up coasters – a reminder of a bygone era – would simply be left to operate until their eventual removals, but a new door has opened… In 2014, Cedar Point announced that their new ride for 2015 would be a renovation of their standing coaster, Mantis, replacing the stand-up trains with B&M’s floorless, sitting trains as the ride is renamed Rougarou. Should the change prove to be successful, it may breathe new life into the six other remaining B&M stand-ups out there.