A hybrid roller coaster is a category of

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 are o ...

s that is defined as having the track made out of

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

, while the support structure is made from wood. Though less common, this can also be flipped around, with the track made of wood with a steel running plate, and a support structure that is made of steel. An example of this is The Voyage at Holiday World. The wooden frame-steel track design of roller coaster is mostly known to be utilized by Rocky Mountain Construction in their I-Box track design, and Arrow Dynamic's Mine Train style roller coasters. This type of design has several benefits, such as making the ride feel smooth and like that of a steel roller coaster. Hybrid roller coasters can also have inversions, such as Steel Vengeance at

Cedar Point Cedar Point is a amusement park located on a Lake Erie peninsula in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. Opened in 1870, it is considered the second-oldest operating amusement park in the U.S. behind Lake Compounce. Cedar Point is owned and op ...

. They also tend to be taller, faster, and have steeper drops than that of wooden coasters.

History

The oldest operating hybrid roller coaster is

Cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

at Luna Park, opening in 1927, with the track being made from wood and the support structure being made of steel. Arrow Dynamics built many Mine Train style coasters such as

Adventure Express Adventure Express is a mine train roller coaster located at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. Designed and built by Arrow Dynamics, the ride opened to the public on April 13, 1991. It is located in the Adventure Port section of the park ...

at Kings Island in 1991, with the tracks being made of tubular steel, and the support structure being made of wood. Arrow Dynamics continued to build mine trains until 2002 when their last hybrid mine train was built. Most of the modern hybrid coasters being built today are made by Rocky Mountain Construction and

The Gravity Group The Gravity Group is a wooden roller coaster design firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The firm was founded in July 2002 out of the engineering team of the famed but now defunct Custom Coasters International. The core group of designer ...

. Rocky Mountain Construction makes conversions of old wooden roller coasters to turn them into hybrids with steel track and wooden supports, such as

New Texas Giant New Texas Giant is a steel roller coaster located at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, Texas. It originally opened as Texas Giant, which was the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world when it debuted in 1990. Manufactured by Dinn Corporati ...

at Six Flags Over Texas. The Gravity Group designs coasters with wooden track but with a steel support structure, such as Hades 360 at Mount Olympus Theme Park.

Terminology

The term "hybrid roller coaster" started to be used by the coaster community when New Texas Giant opened and Six Flags classified the roller coaster as wood. Six Flags in response of the confusion classified the roller coaster as a "hybrid", which has since been used to include many other Rocky Mountain Construction Coasters of the same style. Though usually coasters are still classified as either "steel" or "wood", based on what their track material is. The use of the phrase is controversial.

History

Terminology

References

Further reading