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The three basic styles of wooden track
roller coasters are shown below along with their
wheel arrangements |
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Side friction wood
track |
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| Side Friction
style track used wheels that ran along a
board on the side of the track to keep it
from flying off the track, however there
was no way to keep the trains from
lifting off the track. Side Friction
coasters were once very common in the
early days of roller coaster
construction, now only one is still in
operation in the U.S. Leap the Dips is
located at Lakemont Park in Altoona,
Pennsylvania. |
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Standard laminated
wood track |
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| The most common type of wood
track construction today employs this
standard laminated track. A strip of
metal is layed down over several layers
of laminated wood, the wheels travel on
the strip of metal. A set of side
friction wheels run on the inside of the
laminated wood to keep the train from
sliding off track. The under friction
wheels are what changed the way coasters
would be built for ever. Patented by John
Miller in 1912 the under friction wheels
prevented the lifting of the train off
the track allowing for steeper drops and
eventually inversions. |
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Flanged wheel wood
track |
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| Some wooden coasters use flanged
wheels, similar to those found on rail
road trains. The flanged wheels run along
the running rails, while the under
friction bars keep the train from lifting
off thr track. |
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