Scrolling through the Roller Coasters Constructions forum, I noticed a bit of a puzzling trend: Where did all the big 'uns go?
There was a time, possibly just in my rosy-tinted nostalgia for the old days, where parks competed to build big and impressive coasters. Towering rides, with heights upwards of 50 meters (two and a half chains) and a kilometer or so (five furlongs) of track, daunting drops, multiple airtime hills, and possibly multiple inversions as well. Granted, there weren't many parks out there with Hypers in their portfolio, but they were built at a steady pace and there seemed to always be new ones on the way.
But now, when I look through the forum, or the "Under Construction" search on RCDB, I seem to be greeted with a mix of:
A) Family coasters, even in "big thrill" parks.
B) Shuttle coasters, which tend to be moderately sized due to only having one train that travels the track twice
C) Compact/budget thrill coasters, technically white-knuckle rides but in the smallest package on offer (Eurofighters, Mini Dive Machines, RMC Raptors, etc.)
D) Refurbishments/relocations of older, big coasters.
Where did all the big ones go? The large B&M Floorless or Invert coasters, Intamin and Mack's multi launchers, Ground-up RMC giants, Vekomas forays into those markets, or Hypers from any manufacturer? Did parks just stop buying them? I mean, it's rare to even see a coaster on the scale of a Blue Fire or Batman clone recently.
Granted, this might be a bad time of the year to ask this question, as the big rides of 2024 have just opened and thus removed from the list of upcoming projects. The most notable addition this year is Thorpe's Hyperia, which is a 72-meter tall monstrosity, but even that one saw plenty of criticism for being quite short for its size. Europa Park just opened Voltron, which has nearly seven furlongs of track and as many inversions, but a somewhat moderate height of 32 meters. Iron Menace at Dorney is a 50 m tall B&M Dive Machine, but it only has three elements after the customary drop-and-immelmann before it hits the brakes. And those three are the only new-for-2024 coasters to break the 100 km/h barrier. There were 7 in 2023 and 8 in 2022. In addition, Cedar Point modified Top Thrill Dragster ... by going to Zamperla, with groan-inducing results.
There are still some rather big coasters in production out there, but of the five biggest ones on RCDB, three are at Six Flags Qiddiya and two are perpetually stalled projects in China. In the West, we can look forward to Starfall Racers at the new Universal park in Orlando, and the next big 'un that isn't a compact, family, or shuttle coaster seems to be ... uhhh ... The Hot Wheels coaster at Mattel Adventure Park? Apart from that, is there anything in the pipeline, at all? Any really big coasters for 2025 would have at least had their sites marked by now, or rumours churning, but there seems to be very little of either. Is 2025 going to be such an underwhelming year for Western coaster enthusiasts? Not that it's looking much better in China, come to think of it. Castle Coaster in Legoland Shanghai is the fastest new-for-2025 coaster over there registered on RCDB, a Zierer Force-Five with six existing clones at other Legoland parks and a blistering speed of 60 km/h.
Of course, it might just be my nostalgia, that big coasters were never much more common than this. But there seems to be a trend here, and not for the better. So the question is, what explains it? Is it the cost of raw materials? Or our old nemesis, the Covid pandemic? It's worth noting that big coaster projects usually run over multiple years, so the biggest coasters currently in production might have been initiated before the lockdowns. Or could it simply be that many big parks are "full" and don't have space for new, big additions anymore? Or the market situation? After the Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger, that segment of the market in the US no longer has the level of competition that drove the "Coaster wars". Or aren't the kids these days as thrilled by amusement parks anymore?
Whatever it is, I hope it gets better soon.
There was a time, possibly just in my rosy-tinted nostalgia for the old days, where parks competed to build big and impressive coasters. Towering rides, with heights upwards of 50 meters (two and a half chains) and a kilometer or so (five furlongs) of track, daunting drops, multiple airtime hills, and possibly multiple inversions as well. Granted, there weren't many parks out there with Hypers in their portfolio, but they were built at a steady pace and there seemed to always be new ones on the way.
But now, when I look through the forum, or the "Under Construction" search on RCDB, I seem to be greeted with a mix of:
A) Family coasters, even in "big thrill" parks.
B) Shuttle coasters, which tend to be moderately sized due to only having one train that travels the track twice
C) Compact/budget thrill coasters, technically white-knuckle rides but in the smallest package on offer (Eurofighters, Mini Dive Machines, RMC Raptors, etc.)
D) Refurbishments/relocations of older, big coasters.
Where did all the big ones go? The large B&M Floorless or Invert coasters, Intamin and Mack's multi launchers, Ground-up RMC giants, Vekomas forays into those markets, or Hypers from any manufacturer? Did parks just stop buying them? I mean, it's rare to even see a coaster on the scale of a Blue Fire or Batman clone recently.
Granted, this might be a bad time of the year to ask this question, as the big rides of 2024 have just opened and thus removed from the list of upcoming projects. The most notable addition this year is Thorpe's Hyperia, which is a 72-meter tall monstrosity, but even that one saw plenty of criticism for being quite short for its size. Europa Park just opened Voltron, which has nearly seven furlongs of track and as many inversions, but a somewhat moderate height of 32 meters. Iron Menace at Dorney is a 50 m tall B&M Dive Machine, but it only has three elements after the customary drop-and-immelmann before it hits the brakes. And those three are the only new-for-2024 coasters to break the 100 km/h barrier. There were 7 in 2023 and 8 in 2022. In addition, Cedar Point modified Top Thrill Dragster ... by going to Zamperla, with groan-inducing results.
There are still some rather big coasters in production out there, but of the five biggest ones on RCDB, three are at Six Flags Qiddiya and two are perpetually stalled projects in China. In the West, we can look forward to Starfall Racers at the new Universal park in Orlando, and the next big 'un that isn't a compact, family, or shuttle coaster seems to be ... uhhh ... The Hot Wheels coaster at Mattel Adventure Park? Apart from that, is there anything in the pipeline, at all? Any really big coasters for 2025 would have at least had their sites marked by now, or rumours churning, but there seems to be very little of either. Is 2025 going to be such an underwhelming year for Western coaster enthusiasts? Not that it's looking much better in China, come to think of it. Castle Coaster in Legoland Shanghai is the fastest new-for-2025 coaster over there registered on RCDB, a Zierer Force-Five with six existing clones at other Legoland parks and a blistering speed of 60 km/h.
Of course, it might just be my nostalgia, that big coasters were never much more common than this. But there seems to be a trend here, and not for the better. So the question is, what explains it? Is it the cost of raw materials? Or our old nemesis, the Covid pandemic? It's worth noting that big coaster projects usually run over multiple years, so the biggest coasters currently in production might have been initiated before the lockdowns. Or could it simply be that many big parks are "full" and don't have space for new, big additions anymore? Or the market situation? After the Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger, that segment of the market in the US no longer has the level of competition that drove the "Coaster wars". Or aren't the kids these days as thrilled by amusement parks anymore?
Whatever it is, I hope it gets better soon.
