A side friction roller coaster is an early roller coaster design that does not have an extra set of wheels under the track to prevent cars from becoming airborne. Before the invention of up-stop wheels, coaster cars were built to run in a trough, with wheels under the car and side plates to help keep the cars on the track. Because the cars were not firmly anchored and could derail if they took a corner too fast, the largest side friction coasters required a brakeman to ride on the train and slow it down when necessary.
The invention of up-stop wheels in the 1920s allowed much more scope for height and speed in coaster designs, leaving side friction coasters to quickly fall out of favor. Only two have been built since World War II, and none since 1951. Today, there are only nine left in the world. Seven of them are located in Europe, one in Australia, and one in North America. A tenth one that had been "standing but not operating,(SBNO)" since 2003, the "Runaway Coaster" at the defunct Rotunda amusement park in Kent, England, was demolished on April 5, 2007.
Read more about Side Friction Roller Coaster: Installations
Famous quotes containing the words side, friction, roller and/or coaster:
“I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“We have got onto slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“And thus Snow White became the prince’s bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)