Switchback Railway

Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway at Coney Iceland ( Brooklyn, New York, United States) was the first roller coaster in America. It was designed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson in 1881 and built in 1884.

Model for this system was the " Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway", a repurposed for entertainment coal mine train in today's Jim Thorpe (Pennsylvania), which was Thompson some years before gone. The ride in the just around 11 km / h vehicle cost the passengers five cents.

Thompson had his invention patented shortly thereafter and built based on the success later more sheets of this type at several places in the United States.

The sequences of the web were not automated, so the cars were pushed to start and pushed back to the starting height at the end of employees and turned for the return trip. The later development of the steam driven by chain hoist, which was patented by Charles Alcokes, sealed the end of this manually operated trains. However, Thompson continued to build many roller coasters, such as short time later, the first Scenic Railways, the Cyclone Coney Iceland and soon even entire theme parks.

Like many of these prehistoric roller coasters was the Switchback Railway, quickly overtaken by technological developments, degraded and presumably replaced by larger plants.

Swell

  • Steven J. Urbanowicz (2002): The Roller Coaster Lover 's Companion, Citadel Press Kensington, New York. ISBN 0,806,523,093th page 4
  • Scott Rutherford ( 2000): The American Roller Coaster, MBI Publishing Company, Wisconsin. ISBN 0760306893rd
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