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Future of Wooden Roller Coasters

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VF15

Roller Poster
Up until recently, wooden roller coasters have seemed to stay the same over time, while steel coasters were always progressing. Now, we're seeing newer innovations on wooden coasters such as overbanked turns, cable lifts (El Toro), and barrel rolls (Outlaw Run, Hades 360, and soon-to-be Goliath). I feel that we could be seeing other new and impressive milestones in the forseeable future. I think that more new inversions are on the way. Not necessarily expecting a woodie with a B&M looper layout, but a few loops and corkscrews would be nice. This would probably be more later on, but I would love to see a launched wooden coaster someday. I also think GCI's switch-track concept looks cool and fun. What do you think we could be seeing soon on wooden coasters?
 
I'd like to see wooden hyper coasters (but not like Son of Beast). One that sort of has the same style as El Toro and Colossos. Giant, never ending ejector airtime hills. (Yeah, basically a taller and longer version of El Toro. :p)

Not too sure about launched woodies though. For some reason I just don't see it.
 
Launched woodies? You wouldn't get me on one of them.

Wooden hyper coaster? Colour me skeptical. The problem would be is the wood at the bottom simply wouldn't be strong enough to hold the rest of the coaster plus a train plus a load of people up. The wood would have to be über strengthened and even then it would be a long shot.
 
Jordanovichy said:
Wooden hyper coaster? Colour me skeptical. The problem would be is the wood at the bottom simply wouldn't be strong enough to hold the rest of the coaster plus a train plus a load of people up. The wood would have to be über strengthened and even then it would be a long shot.
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A wooden hyper coaster was already built and it had no problem standing (until the park decided to take it down).
 
It won't surprise me if we see the gravity group doing more renovations on wooden coasters like adding inversions and things like that. But just think, in like 10 years we could see all sorts of new stuff. I agree that the GCI switch track concept looks cool. These 2 main companies we have are definitely going to dominate the wooden coaster industry in the future, as they are now, obviously. This is the age of GCI and RMC. Just look at the 2014 announcements alone, it seems like steel coasters are kind of died down a bit with more insane wooden coasters being built this year instead. A lot of Parks are turning to wood coasters now instead of steel. They're cheaper, and innovations are allowing them to become fricken awesome!

With technology advancing so fast, a launched woodie wouldn't surprise me. Inverted woodie? Haha only in your dreams. I'd personally love to start with a 90 degree or steeper drop. That would come first before any launched wooden coaster. I'm certainly surprised that we haven't seen an actually good wooden hyper coaster get built. Anyone interested in a wooden cobra roll? Eh I think that would be weird. Cobra rolls are already bad enough, the worst thing you could do is make them wooden. Try dive loops instead. I bet Goliath's Dive Loop is gonna kick butt. Wood stand up anyone? Nope? Thats what I thought too. :)

Hopefully Cedar Fair will take a hint from Six Flags and enlist in RMC. Can't you just imagine an RMC at a park like Cedar Point(cough cough replace mean streak)? It would be sweet! And with Cedar Fair combining with RMC, we could see some crazy coasters being built! But will it actually happen? That is the big question.
 
A lot more Iron Horse retracks, and a lot more Outlaw Runs. Train innovations such as the Timberliner and Rocky Mountain train will help with even further smoothness.

Rocky Mountain is onto something, and it wouldn't surprise me to see GCI and GG to use more steel in their track design to also achieve the same quick transitions of Outlaw Run.
 
Well, people still love woodies. They still have a long way ahead of them. They are just slowly evolving into more revolutionary coasters. Inverted woodie anyone? :wink:
 
Let's figure out a hyper woodie first please. :wink:
 
^ We're pretty much there already. Collosos isn't far short, with El Toro and T Express only a little way behind that.

They don't quite hit the 200ft mark, but to my mind they're basically wooden hypers.
 
I cant believe the suggestion of an inverted woodie has been thrown in. Really?

We are all enthusiasts but i cannot see any point in inverting a woodie. Keep them as they are just improve the tracks and trains for a smoother ride.

Someone mentioned a wing-rider wooden roller coaster? I mean come on. Not to put a negative on it but the Hyper suggestions are the only realistic ones. For the time being i cant see too much changing in the wooden coaster world, i don't think it needs to, have you not seen the state of some of the wooden rides these days, they are amazing!
 
Launched woodies are something I would look forward too, maybe a launched woodie at 80 MPH with endless airtime hills and directional changes...I see that happening.
 
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